Post by HoM on Jun 23, 2009 10:23:11 GMT -5
I am the Ray, and I think I’m about to die.
This makes me laugh a little, an hysterical giggle that I’m glad no one else can hear. How can I[/i] die? I’m a superhero! This isn’t how it’s supposed to be… The superhero beats the villain, rescues the damsel in distress, and lives to fight another day.
But I’ve failed the damsel, and I’m not quite sure there will be[/i] another day…
“The long, dark final night is upon us, hero,” a rasping voice like the grinding of stones comes from out of the pitch blackness all around me. I am not immobilized. If I had the strength, I could move… but I don’t have the will to pick myself up off the cold floor, or the energy to summon a scintilla of my power. But even if I could, there isn’t a spark of light anywhere from which to draw power from!
“The Great Darkness is come!” the voice taunts me. “He-To-Whom-We-All-Must-Come has entered this plane of existence, and the Tribulation has begun!”
There was no mistaking the religious ecstasy in the voice, or the gloating. The world is royally screwed, and I think somehow it’s all my fault. But I can’t face that now. I can’t let them break me.
“Where’s Frankie Reynolds?” My voice is little more than a hoarse croak. My eyes can’t pierce the shadows but I have no problem hearing the derisive laughter.
“As if it mattered. As if you will ever leave this place.”
“They’ll come for me. My friends.”
“Fool, haven’t you heard a word I’ve said? Nekron is come! [/i] Your friends are in the fight of their lives… They aren’t even looking for you! [/i]”
Scornful laughter echoed in the void that encompassed my existence. My name is the Ray, but all the light within me seems to have gone out…
DC2 Nemesis
Special #1: “Whatever Happened to the Ray?”
Story by House Of Mystery and David Charlton
Written by David Charlton
Cover by Boris Mihajlovic
Edited by House Of Mystery
Though I operated out of New York with the Titans, this is my first time at JSA HQ--- or to give it its full name, The National Museum of Golden Age Mystery Men and the World Headquarters of the Justice Society of America[/i]. It is every bit as stately as Wayne Manor, with gleaming marble tile floors, warm wood accents, and intriguing mementos encased in glass; there is no giant penny or full-sized T-rex, but there is a model of Blackhawk’s plane suspended from the ceiling and a towering holographic image of the Spectre. This place is not just a working headquarters for the team and a museum and archive open to the public (you can buy little plastic replicas of Starman’s cosmic rod-- various versions, even!-- in the gift shop), but it also feels like a cathedral. A celebration of the masked mystery men and women. I feel like I am on hallowed ground. I wonder if Bruce ever came here, as a child perhaps, with Alfred…
I broke in, of course. The Museum is one of the securest places on Earth, but I was jimmying locks even before I put on pixie boots and the domino mask. Not that the JSA wouldn’t have gladly opened their doors to me, but I was hoping to get an unrestricted, un-chaperoned look around the place. Bruce once told me you can learn more from what people don’t[/i] reveal, than from what they do…
A few days ago, the Ray came to Gotham looking for a girl named Frankie Reynolds. Then he disappeared. Then the JSA asked me to find him. Then it got interesting. Francine Louise Reynolds, 20 years old, from Gotham City. Left home to study dance in the Big Apple, but got caught up with some bad people. Worked in one of the Penguin’s NY clubs, dancing for the highest roller. Then she found religion. Quit the club, and joined an organization called the Circle. Big surprise there. That cult seems to be at the center of something big and nasty coming down the pike. But how did she know the Ray, and how is she tied to his disappearance?
It isn’t difficult to find his apartments on the third floor of the Museum. According to JSA files, Ray Terrill had, along with many of his younger teammates, spent most of his youth in the past, being brainwashed by Nazi whackos, but in the few years he’d been with the JSA, he’d developed a brash and headstrong personality. Posters of speed-metal bands covered his walls, and his voicemail-box was full of offers from casting agents wanting to market him. I needed to find his connection to Frankie Reynolds…
“Are you lost, Batman?”
The flashbomb is sailing from my gloved-hand as I turn, cracking on the wood-paneled floors and awashing the room in blinding phosphorescent light, even as I tuck and roll out of the way, coming up with a brace of batarangs between my fingers. The lenses in my cowl protect me, so I can see that my feint was for nothing: the light only makes obvious the living shadow moving across the walls of the room, melding back into the deeper darkness.
“Obsidian,” I rasp, tracking across the far wall the twin pinpricks of light that are the eyes of Alan Scott’s son, cursing myself for being discovered. “Get lost. I’m here at the request of the JSA.”
The shadow flitted from wall to ceiling then down another wall, all the while, the eyes burning white-hot upon me. “Then why didn’t you use the front door? You may have gotten past Robotman’s sensors, but I knew you were here the minute you crept into the shadows. Those are my domain, Dark Knight. I own[/i] the shadows…”
“I’m not sure I like the sound of that.”
“Too bad. You’re here about the Ray.”
It wasn’t a question. Obsidian stepped from the wall, taking on corporeal form. It might have been an unnerving sight, if I hadn’t been used to that sort of thing: his cape flowed around him much like Bruce’s used to, like a living thing, a shroud in which to hide.
“Tell me about Frankie Reynolds, Obsidian.”
“I’ve never heard that name before.”
“Young woman. Very pretty. A dancer. Possibly religious…”
“Oh, is that her name? Frankie? Ray had her over here once or twice, gave her a tour of the Museum. A private tour. He gave a lot of girls private tours. Come to think of it, though, she was the only one I ever saw more than once…”
“Maybe you saw something else?” I hedged, watching him, as he moved casually around the room. “Watching from the shadows…?”
“I see a lot in the shadows,” he muses, absently. “They were very… familiar. I think he had saved her life. Something to do with a mob hit. She was very grateful… They grew close… Then she saw the light.” Obsidian laughed at this, a cynical laugh.
“She got involved with that cult. The Circle.”
“Yes. She begged him to join her, but by then I think he had tired of her. He broke it off. She wouldn’t stop calling him though. And that’s all I know.”
I grunt something like gratitude, them make a move to leave--- only to have a living shadow blocking my way. Obsidian’s eyes burn into me, and his shadowform hand grips my arm tightly.
“Beware Batman, there are deeper shadows falling all around us, wells of endless nothing that even I could get lost in… Something bad is going to happen… soon. And I can’t help thinking it has something to with that cult.”
Whether it’s his touch or his words, I feel a chill run through me. What has the Ray gotten himself into? [/i]
Obsidian said Frankie wouldn’t stop calling the Ray. It was a simple matter to palm the phone on the nightstand in the apartment, and a quick trace shows a number of calls coming from an address in Opal City.
Again, the Opal. The Circle seems to have some sort of headquarters here. I guide the Batmobile through the labyrinthine streets of the section of Oldtown called the Alleys, drawing little attention from the jaded Bohemian denizens far more used to looking to the skies for their superheroes. The place I’m looking for is in a less fashionable part of the Alleys, the part not frequented by art dealers or musicians, the original Port o’ Souls. Here, abandoned homes from the Victorian era or older are boarded up to keep out the squatters, but that doesn’t stop them from camping beneath once-elegantly arched footbridges, or huddling around metal drums filled with burning trash for warmth.
The building was once majestic and magnificent, a church--- or something very like it: it had all the architectural hallmarks, like the bell tower and the stained glass, but none of the religious iconography. The images in the stained glass showed a crowed of people worshipping before a curious figure, a cavorting skeleton like one in a Renaissance memento mori[/i] painting.
I park the car and leap out, startling a drunken hobo sleeping nearby. I glare at him as the Batmobile seals itself against would-be thieves, then bound up the steps towards the wooden front doors of the dilapidated building.
A faded plaque by the door reads “Church of the Starry Wisdom, est. 1799 by the First Archon Hawksmoor St John.” I spare little time to ponder this, as I can see light leaking through the cracks of the door, which is slightly ajar. Readying a batarang, I nudge it open and look inside.
The lenses in my cowl adjust, but I still have to shield my eyes from the intense light. In the center of the abandoned hall of worship, suspended above the floor is a throbbing, revolving, constantly morphing[/i] shape of crazily angled crystal. Against my will, I find myself moving into the room, obeying a siren-song call emanating from the object, drawing me to it. The song is weird, unearthly, jarring and atonal. Yet it is irresistibly compelling. I am dimly aware of another figure in the sanctuary. Like me, the man in the long white coat is enthralled by the shining trapezohedron--- we are both irrevocably snared.
There’s no telling how long I stand there, minutes, hours--- days! All I know is that hypnotic coruscation of crystal, that beguiling alien music… Then there is a loud rending sound of crumbling rock and snapping wood. Plaster and splinters fall down around me like rain as the roof of the church is sheared off, revealing the star-pocked night sky, and a figure in red, green and gold. A part of me registers that this is Starman, Opal City’s premier superhero, and like the Ray and Obsidian, a member of the Young All-Star squad of the JSA. His cosmic rod seizes the shining trapezohedron in a golden beam and lifts it up and out. The alien music becomes a raucous cacophony, but Starman gives it no time to ensnare him: he hurls the strange artifact out into space. As it dwindles into the distance, its hold on me is released; I stagger but the man next to me in the lab coat collapses.
I go to the man, who is very old, with wild colorless hair and watery eyes. He is conscious, but barely.
Starman sets down next to me, his plain, honest face creased with worry.
“How--- how did you find me?” My throat is dry from disuse--- how long was I under the spell of that thing?--- so I don’t have to work hard for the trademark rasp Bruce perfected.
“Todd--- Obsidian, that is--- called me. I made some inquiries and heard that your car had been sitting outside this building since last night.” Starman answered, looking from me to the hole in the roof. “What was[/i] that thing…?”
Before I could answer, the old man in the lab coat croaked “It--- it was a trap.”
I frowned. “For the Ray---?”
“Yes!” the old man interrupted me. “The boy is the only real threat to them… To Him! [/i] So they summoned that light entity from out of space and time, bent it to His awful purpose… What they have done is monstrous…!”
I share a grim look with Starman, who is taken aback; he’s relatively new to the cape and cowl game, and I can tell he’s out of his depth here.
“Who are you?” I ask the old man, helping him sit up.
“My name is Dr. Chandler Dayzl. I created the Ray back in the 1940s,” there is panic in his eyes and voice. “And that young man is the only chance we have at saving all of existence…!”
Twenty minutes later we are outside the city limits of Opal, within the cavernous shell of the Knight Observatory. The mechanized roof is closed, blocking out the oppressive night; the stars shine down now with a kind of gleeful malevolence, and it has never seemed so dark…
Dr. Dayzl is slumped in a chair in front of me, and Starman, his fin-topped cowl down around his shoulders, is he checking some instrumentation for the giant telescope.
“Do you know where the Ray is, Dr. Dayzl?” I ask, crossing my arms over my chest. “Or where I can find him?”
The old man moves a trembling, mottled hand in front of his face, shaking his head. “No. That is to say, I did have a lead on him, but I’m sure it has long since gone cold. All I can say for certain is that the Circle has him.”
“You said Ray is the only chance we have at saving existence,” Starman called over his shoulder from his instrument panel. “I don’t understand. How can that possibly be…?”
Dr. Dayzl swallowed heavily. “That young man is one of the most powerful entities in the universe,” he declared. “Light is a fundamental force of nature. It exists in all things, across every spectrum. It is the conqueror of the void, of the darkness… and not only is Ray Terrill its master, but he is of[/i] it…!”
He has my full attention. “Perhaps you’d better start at the beginning, Dr. Dayzl.”
The old scientist takes a deep breath and begins. “In 1937, I led a secret government project called R.O.N.O.L.-- Research on the Nature of Light. After extensive research studying ambient particles common to all visible objects--- from the smallest flea, to the most distant sun--- I had come to believe that there is a primordial photonic source as old as the universe itself. Furthermore, I theorized there was a kind of sentience, though one unlike anything the human mind could comprehend, which if harnessed could be a source of unlimited power… The bureaucrats who ran the division thought I was crazy, and they cut off my funding, closing down R.O.N.O.L. in favor of developing the Atomic bomb. I believe your father had a hand in that, Mr. Knight….?”
Starman, whose secret identity as David Knight was not that closely guarded a secret, nodded and said over his shoulder “Yes, but I’ve read my father’s notes from that era; he actually thought there was some merit to your work. He admired you greatly. In fact, he adapted some of your theories for the later models of his cosmic rod.”
Dr. Dayzl grunted in grudging approval. “Well, Ted Knight was[/i] always a gentleman… No matter. I continued my work privately. I was looking for a way to tap into that primal photonic source. At a loss, I turned to an obscure text called the Ineffable Libram, the translations of which were made available to me at the time by my remaining government connections. You will scoff, but I found within the eldritch passages the means by which to connect with the Primordial Light! [/i] The experiment was a relatively simple matter to arrange, conducted in a hot-air balloon in the upper atmosphere. I brought along with me only one assistant, an acquaintance, actually, a reporter who was interested in my work.”
“Langford ‘Happy’ Terrill. The original Ray. Our Ray’s father.” Starman supplies, coming over from his instrument panel, fully engaged now in this story.
“Happy Terrill was never meant to be the recipient of the powers of the Ray; it was supposed to be me! In fact, what happened in the skies that day was either an accident or the design of a cruel god. Just as I was activating what I can only refer to as a type of homing signal, the balloon was struck by lightning. More precisely, Happy was struck by lightning. He was not killed, but transformed, charged with wondrous powers…! He became the superhero called the Ray, fought crime and Nazis and many years later had a son. As I suspected would happen, not only would the father’s powers pass unto the son, but the son’s very genetic make-up was unique… Raymond Terrill was not exactly human, but also a being imbued with the essence of the Living Light that existed even before the universe was formed! His father kept him from me, wanting him to grow up as normal as possible, and of course, we all thought him lost when he had been kidnapped by Per Degaton, but--.”
I hold up a hand, cutting short the old man’s ramblings. “Doctor, what does this all have to do with the Circle, and the end of the world?”
Dayzl opened his mouth to answer, then clamped it shut. His jaw worked, and he finally admitted. “I don’t know for sure. You see, his birth did not go unnoticed. My delving into the occult attracted the attention of certain people, people who monitored my research, people who only recently discovered the origin of the Ray.”
“The Circle.” I prod him.
“Yes. Only in the 1930s, they called themselves the Church of the Starry Wisdom. They’ve been around for millennia, Batman, in one form or another. They seeded the Mayans and the Egyptians both with their chthonic lore. I have made a study of them, though they are very secretive and dangerous: they preach of a Great Darkness, and that day is at last at hand. Naturally, they fear the Ray, the antithesis of darkness, the only sentient embodiment of the Living Light. He is a spear pointed at the heart of their dark god[/i]…”
His words drop like stones falling down a bottomless well. Our last hope. Missing. In the hands of the Circle.
“How did you come to be at that Church, then? You were looking for the Ray, too?”
Dayzl nodded. “After all these years, I had finally made contact with Raymond a few days ago--- a week now, as I had been ensnared by the shining trapezohedron for four days before Starman rescued us. I warned him of the Circle, and their interest in him. He must have thought me a madman, ranting on about Primordial Light and a Great Darkness…! But he told me about a girl… someone with whom he had become romantically involved, who had gotten caught up in the Circle… I know he was worried, that he would go after her. I told him it was a ruse, a trap. They were using her to get at him… Either he didn’t believe me, or he didn’t care.”
“The Ray is a hero,” Starman interjects on his friend’s behalf. “He’ll do whatever he needs to do to protect the innocent.”
“And that is how they will win,” Dayzl sighs. “By using your heroism against you. Don’t you understand? They want to warp everything that is good and right and just. They don’t care about the innocent--- or the guilty. All are damned.”
I heard this all before. I heard it with Darkseid, with Trigon… But there is something more insidious about this threat. Something ancient and inevitable…
“Just tell us what happened to the Ray, Dr. Dayzl.”
Dayzl turns back to me. “He told me he was going to rescue the girl from the clutches of the Circle. I followed him, hoping to dissuade him, make him understand. But I arrived too late. There was a battle inside the church. Supervillains with supercharged powers attacked him! But he fought them. He resisted! Only then, they summoned the shining trapezohedron. I cannot say for sure what it is, but it is written in the Ineffable Libram that a sliver of that Primordial Light was lost and enslaved to corruption, had become a tool for dark powers. It sapped the Ray of all his power, left him helpless and enthralled. They dragged him away, laughing, and all I could do was hide in the shadows. I approached only after they had gone, and was ensnared myself, as you had been, Batman.”
“Then all is lost. They’ve depowered the Ray and we have no weapon against this Great Darkness…? What about the original Ray, his father?” Starman asks.
Dr. Dayzl shakes his head. “The Ray is in the clutches of evil, and yes, they’ve depowered him, but make no mistake: the Ray is[/i] his power! He is the incarnation of the Living Light; it is as much a part of him, as being human is a part of you or I or Happy, for that matter. To take that from Raymond, they would have to kill him, and I don’t believe that’s possible. Light cannot be[/i] destroyed, only shrouded or contained. This is why Happy is not a threat: he is a child’s squirt gun, compared to the geyser that is his son…”
The old scientist goes on, to David Knight’s growing horror, but I turn away. I’ve heard enough. Something bad is coming, something big and dark and dangerous. In order to fight this thing, we’re going to need Raymond Terrill, and so I won’t stop until I find him. My first stop will be back to the derelict Church of the Starry Wisdom. The trail is cold, but if I can’t find some clues as to where they’ve taken him, I might as well hang up the cape and cowl and go back to the tunic and short shorts.
Before I’m out the door, Starman calls to me to wait. An alarm has gone off on his instrument panel and he has gone to investigate it. I pause at the exit to the observatory, loathe to delay the search any longer.
“Batman, you’ve got to see this…” There is confusion in his voice, but also something like panic.
Both Dr. Dayzl and myself join him at the control panel, as Starman toggles the control to open the shell of the observatory. The motors work soundlessly as the roof opens like a clamshell above us, exposing a gray dawn sky, tinged with red…
“I’ve been tracking an unusual phenomenon all night, and now it seems to be manifesting,” there was no mistaking the fear now in David Knight’s voice as he reviewed the data streaming across his screen. I glance at it over his shoulder, but the calculations make no sense to me.
“I don’t understand,” I frown, knowing I must be mistaken. “Those readings from the electro-magnetic spectrum are off the charts, and the strong gravitational force seems to be fluctuating… How is that possible?”
“It’s not,” David Knight swallows hard and points up.
As we watch, the morning sky seems to grow darker, as if all the light of the rising sun was being drained away. A chill falls over all three of us as we spot it at the same time: hanging over the horizon, like the bloated stomach of a spider, is a seething disc of roiling ebony. It seems to suck all light and color out of the sky, ascending like the promise of despair.
“Aieeee! The Great Darkness is come!” Dr. Dayzl wails, transfixed by the new object in the heavens. “The Black Sun is risen…![/i]”
“Can you feel it in the sky, Raymond Terrill? The Black Sun has broken open, like an egg cracking, hatching a harvest of death!”
The voice is little more than an ecstatic hiss, but it’s all I have to latch onto. I am so alone, alone in the dark. Alone and empty. My only companion is the tormenting voice. They haven’t fed me in a week. I haven’t had any water. I haven’t seen a speck of light… I should be dead. But Dr. Dayzl told me I wasn’t fully human… That I am some sort of hybrid, imbued with the primordial light of creation itself…
“Existence as you know it is over[/i]…! Reality teeters on the edge of a precipice, and soon all will plunge into the endless chasm that awaits us all.”
I manage a defiant growl. “You’re wrong. We’ll stop you. The JSA. The Justice League… All of us…”
“Fool. You’ve already lost. All that’s left is the harrowing[/i].”
And at last I recognize the voice. It’s her. Frankie Reynolds. She never needed saving at all; she was with them all along. I am[/i] a fool.
“Even now, Nekron whispers to all living things, can you hear him, my dear sweet Raymond? Isn’t it beautiful…?”
No. It’s not. It’s repugnant and stinks of rot. I try to block out the words I hear with every other living soul on the planet: From before creation, from before time itself, I have existed. Battling Star-Gods across the tapestry of the universe itself…[/i]
“I don’t care who you are,” I mutter, every word a herculean effort. “I don’t care what you want…” I don’t know if Frankie can hear me, or if she is even really here at all. “All I know, is you’re afraid of me for some reason, and that’s enough.” Summoning all of my strength and energy, I yell for all and any to hear: “I’m coming for you, Nekron! My name is the Ray, and all it takes is a spark to break the darkness! [/i]”
This makes me laugh a little, an hysterical giggle that I’m glad no one else can hear. How can I[/i] die? I’m a superhero! This isn’t how it’s supposed to be… The superhero beats the villain, rescues the damsel in distress, and lives to fight another day.
But I’ve failed the damsel, and I’m not quite sure there will be[/i] another day…
“The long, dark final night is upon us, hero,” a rasping voice like the grinding of stones comes from out of the pitch blackness all around me. I am not immobilized. If I had the strength, I could move… but I don’t have the will to pick myself up off the cold floor, or the energy to summon a scintilla of my power. But even if I could, there isn’t a spark of light anywhere from which to draw power from!
“The Great Darkness is come!” the voice taunts me. “He-To-Whom-We-All-Must-Come has entered this plane of existence, and the Tribulation has begun!”
There was no mistaking the religious ecstasy in the voice, or the gloating. The world is royally screwed, and I think somehow it’s all my fault. But I can’t face that now. I can’t let them break me.
“Where’s Frankie Reynolds?” My voice is little more than a hoarse croak. My eyes can’t pierce the shadows but I have no problem hearing the derisive laughter.
“As if it mattered. As if you will ever leave this place.”
“They’ll come for me. My friends.”
“Fool, haven’t you heard a word I’ve said? Nekron is come! [/i] Your friends are in the fight of their lives… They aren’t even looking for you! [/i]”
Scornful laughter echoed in the void that encompassed my existence. My name is the Ray, but all the light within me seems to have gone out…
DC2 Nemesis
Special #1: “Whatever Happened to the Ray?”
Story by House Of Mystery and David Charlton
Written by David Charlton
Cover by Boris Mihajlovic
Edited by House Of Mystery
Before:
[/b]Though I operated out of New York with the Titans, this is my first time at JSA HQ--- or to give it its full name, The National Museum of Golden Age Mystery Men and the World Headquarters of the Justice Society of America[/i]. It is every bit as stately as Wayne Manor, with gleaming marble tile floors, warm wood accents, and intriguing mementos encased in glass; there is no giant penny or full-sized T-rex, but there is a model of Blackhawk’s plane suspended from the ceiling and a towering holographic image of the Spectre. This place is not just a working headquarters for the team and a museum and archive open to the public (you can buy little plastic replicas of Starman’s cosmic rod-- various versions, even!-- in the gift shop), but it also feels like a cathedral. A celebration of the masked mystery men and women. I feel like I am on hallowed ground. I wonder if Bruce ever came here, as a child perhaps, with Alfred…
I broke in, of course. The Museum is one of the securest places on Earth, but I was jimmying locks even before I put on pixie boots and the domino mask. Not that the JSA wouldn’t have gladly opened their doors to me, but I was hoping to get an unrestricted, un-chaperoned look around the place. Bruce once told me you can learn more from what people don’t[/i] reveal, than from what they do…
A few days ago, the Ray came to Gotham looking for a girl named Frankie Reynolds. Then he disappeared. Then the JSA asked me to find him. Then it got interesting. Francine Louise Reynolds, 20 years old, from Gotham City. Left home to study dance in the Big Apple, but got caught up with some bad people. Worked in one of the Penguin’s NY clubs, dancing for the highest roller. Then she found religion. Quit the club, and joined an organization called the Circle. Big surprise there. That cult seems to be at the center of something big and nasty coming down the pike. But how did she know the Ray, and how is she tied to his disappearance?
It isn’t difficult to find his apartments on the third floor of the Museum. According to JSA files, Ray Terrill had, along with many of his younger teammates, spent most of his youth in the past, being brainwashed by Nazi whackos, but in the few years he’d been with the JSA, he’d developed a brash and headstrong personality. Posters of speed-metal bands covered his walls, and his voicemail-box was full of offers from casting agents wanting to market him. I needed to find his connection to Frankie Reynolds…
“Are you lost, Batman?”
The flashbomb is sailing from my gloved-hand as I turn, cracking on the wood-paneled floors and awashing the room in blinding phosphorescent light, even as I tuck and roll out of the way, coming up with a brace of batarangs between my fingers. The lenses in my cowl protect me, so I can see that my feint was for nothing: the light only makes obvious the living shadow moving across the walls of the room, melding back into the deeper darkness.
“Obsidian,” I rasp, tracking across the far wall the twin pinpricks of light that are the eyes of Alan Scott’s son, cursing myself for being discovered. “Get lost. I’m here at the request of the JSA.”
The shadow flitted from wall to ceiling then down another wall, all the while, the eyes burning white-hot upon me. “Then why didn’t you use the front door? You may have gotten past Robotman’s sensors, but I knew you were here the minute you crept into the shadows. Those are my domain, Dark Knight. I own[/i] the shadows…”
“I’m not sure I like the sound of that.”
“Too bad. You’re here about the Ray.”
It wasn’t a question. Obsidian stepped from the wall, taking on corporeal form. It might have been an unnerving sight, if I hadn’t been used to that sort of thing: his cape flowed around him much like Bruce’s used to, like a living thing, a shroud in which to hide.
“Tell me about Frankie Reynolds, Obsidian.”
“I’ve never heard that name before.”
“Young woman. Very pretty. A dancer. Possibly religious…”
“Oh, is that her name? Frankie? Ray had her over here once or twice, gave her a tour of the Museum. A private tour. He gave a lot of girls private tours. Come to think of it, though, she was the only one I ever saw more than once…”
“Maybe you saw something else?” I hedged, watching him, as he moved casually around the room. “Watching from the shadows…?”
“I see a lot in the shadows,” he muses, absently. “They were very… familiar. I think he had saved her life. Something to do with a mob hit. She was very grateful… They grew close… Then she saw the light.” Obsidian laughed at this, a cynical laugh.
“She got involved with that cult. The Circle.”
“Yes. She begged him to join her, but by then I think he had tired of her. He broke it off. She wouldn’t stop calling him though. And that’s all I know.”
I grunt something like gratitude, them make a move to leave--- only to have a living shadow blocking my way. Obsidian’s eyes burn into me, and his shadowform hand grips my arm tightly.
“Beware Batman, there are deeper shadows falling all around us, wells of endless nothing that even I could get lost in… Something bad is going to happen… soon. And I can’t help thinking it has something to with that cult.”
Whether it’s his touch or his words, I feel a chill run through me. What has the Ray gotten himself into? [/i]
* * * *
[/b]Obsidian said Frankie wouldn’t stop calling the Ray. It was a simple matter to palm the phone on the nightstand in the apartment, and a quick trace shows a number of calls coming from an address in Opal City.
Again, the Opal. The Circle seems to have some sort of headquarters here. I guide the Batmobile through the labyrinthine streets of the section of Oldtown called the Alleys, drawing little attention from the jaded Bohemian denizens far more used to looking to the skies for their superheroes. The place I’m looking for is in a less fashionable part of the Alleys, the part not frequented by art dealers or musicians, the original Port o’ Souls. Here, abandoned homes from the Victorian era or older are boarded up to keep out the squatters, but that doesn’t stop them from camping beneath once-elegantly arched footbridges, or huddling around metal drums filled with burning trash for warmth.
The building was once majestic and magnificent, a church--- or something very like it: it had all the architectural hallmarks, like the bell tower and the stained glass, but none of the religious iconography. The images in the stained glass showed a crowed of people worshipping before a curious figure, a cavorting skeleton like one in a Renaissance memento mori[/i] painting.
I park the car and leap out, startling a drunken hobo sleeping nearby. I glare at him as the Batmobile seals itself against would-be thieves, then bound up the steps towards the wooden front doors of the dilapidated building.
A faded plaque by the door reads “Church of the Starry Wisdom, est. 1799 by the First Archon Hawksmoor St John.” I spare little time to ponder this, as I can see light leaking through the cracks of the door, which is slightly ajar. Readying a batarang, I nudge it open and look inside.
The lenses in my cowl adjust, but I still have to shield my eyes from the intense light. In the center of the abandoned hall of worship, suspended above the floor is a throbbing, revolving, constantly morphing[/i] shape of crazily angled crystal. Against my will, I find myself moving into the room, obeying a siren-song call emanating from the object, drawing me to it. The song is weird, unearthly, jarring and atonal. Yet it is irresistibly compelling. I am dimly aware of another figure in the sanctuary. Like me, the man in the long white coat is enthralled by the shining trapezohedron--- we are both irrevocably snared.
There’s no telling how long I stand there, minutes, hours--- days! All I know is that hypnotic coruscation of crystal, that beguiling alien music… Then there is a loud rending sound of crumbling rock and snapping wood. Plaster and splinters fall down around me like rain as the roof of the church is sheared off, revealing the star-pocked night sky, and a figure in red, green and gold. A part of me registers that this is Starman, Opal City’s premier superhero, and like the Ray and Obsidian, a member of the Young All-Star squad of the JSA. His cosmic rod seizes the shining trapezohedron in a golden beam and lifts it up and out. The alien music becomes a raucous cacophony, but Starman gives it no time to ensnare him: he hurls the strange artifact out into space. As it dwindles into the distance, its hold on me is released; I stagger but the man next to me in the lab coat collapses.
I go to the man, who is very old, with wild colorless hair and watery eyes. He is conscious, but barely.
Starman sets down next to me, his plain, honest face creased with worry.
“How--- how did you find me?” My throat is dry from disuse--- how long was I under the spell of that thing?--- so I don’t have to work hard for the trademark rasp Bruce perfected.
“Todd--- Obsidian, that is--- called me. I made some inquiries and heard that your car had been sitting outside this building since last night.” Starman answered, looking from me to the hole in the roof. “What was[/i] that thing…?”
Before I could answer, the old man in the lab coat croaked “It--- it was a trap.”
I frowned. “For the Ray---?”
“Yes!” the old man interrupted me. “The boy is the only real threat to them… To Him! [/i] So they summoned that light entity from out of space and time, bent it to His awful purpose… What they have done is monstrous…!”
I share a grim look with Starman, who is taken aback; he’s relatively new to the cape and cowl game, and I can tell he’s out of his depth here.
“Who are you?” I ask the old man, helping him sit up.
“My name is Dr. Chandler Dayzl. I created the Ray back in the 1940s,” there is panic in his eyes and voice. “And that young man is the only chance we have at saving all of existence…!”
* * * *
[/b]Twenty minutes later we are outside the city limits of Opal, within the cavernous shell of the Knight Observatory. The mechanized roof is closed, blocking out the oppressive night; the stars shine down now with a kind of gleeful malevolence, and it has never seemed so dark…
Dr. Dayzl is slumped in a chair in front of me, and Starman, his fin-topped cowl down around his shoulders, is he checking some instrumentation for the giant telescope.
“Do you know where the Ray is, Dr. Dayzl?” I ask, crossing my arms over my chest. “Or where I can find him?”
The old man moves a trembling, mottled hand in front of his face, shaking his head. “No. That is to say, I did have a lead on him, but I’m sure it has long since gone cold. All I can say for certain is that the Circle has him.”
“You said Ray is the only chance we have at saving existence,” Starman called over his shoulder from his instrument panel. “I don’t understand. How can that possibly be…?”
Dr. Dayzl swallowed heavily. “That young man is one of the most powerful entities in the universe,” he declared. “Light is a fundamental force of nature. It exists in all things, across every spectrum. It is the conqueror of the void, of the darkness… and not only is Ray Terrill its master, but he is of[/i] it…!”
He has my full attention. “Perhaps you’d better start at the beginning, Dr. Dayzl.”
The old scientist takes a deep breath and begins. “In 1937, I led a secret government project called R.O.N.O.L.-- Research on the Nature of Light. After extensive research studying ambient particles common to all visible objects--- from the smallest flea, to the most distant sun--- I had come to believe that there is a primordial photonic source as old as the universe itself. Furthermore, I theorized there was a kind of sentience, though one unlike anything the human mind could comprehend, which if harnessed could be a source of unlimited power… The bureaucrats who ran the division thought I was crazy, and they cut off my funding, closing down R.O.N.O.L. in favor of developing the Atomic bomb. I believe your father had a hand in that, Mr. Knight….?”
Starman, whose secret identity as David Knight was not that closely guarded a secret, nodded and said over his shoulder “Yes, but I’ve read my father’s notes from that era; he actually thought there was some merit to your work. He admired you greatly. In fact, he adapted some of your theories for the later models of his cosmic rod.”
Dr. Dayzl grunted in grudging approval. “Well, Ted Knight was[/i] always a gentleman… No matter. I continued my work privately. I was looking for a way to tap into that primal photonic source. At a loss, I turned to an obscure text called the Ineffable Libram, the translations of which were made available to me at the time by my remaining government connections. You will scoff, but I found within the eldritch passages the means by which to connect with the Primordial Light! [/i] The experiment was a relatively simple matter to arrange, conducted in a hot-air balloon in the upper atmosphere. I brought along with me only one assistant, an acquaintance, actually, a reporter who was interested in my work.”
“Langford ‘Happy’ Terrill. The original Ray. Our Ray’s father.” Starman supplies, coming over from his instrument panel, fully engaged now in this story.
“Happy Terrill was never meant to be the recipient of the powers of the Ray; it was supposed to be me! In fact, what happened in the skies that day was either an accident or the design of a cruel god. Just as I was activating what I can only refer to as a type of homing signal, the balloon was struck by lightning. More precisely, Happy was struck by lightning. He was not killed, but transformed, charged with wondrous powers…! He became the superhero called the Ray, fought crime and Nazis and many years later had a son. As I suspected would happen, not only would the father’s powers pass unto the son, but the son’s very genetic make-up was unique… Raymond Terrill was not exactly human, but also a being imbued with the essence of the Living Light that existed even before the universe was formed! His father kept him from me, wanting him to grow up as normal as possible, and of course, we all thought him lost when he had been kidnapped by Per Degaton, but--.”
I hold up a hand, cutting short the old man’s ramblings. “Doctor, what does this all have to do with the Circle, and the end of the world?”
Dayzl opened his mouth to answer, then clamped it shut. His jaw worked, and he finally admitted. “I don’t know for sure. You see, his birth did not go unnoticed. My delving into the occult attracted the attention of certain people, people who monitored my research, people who only recently discovered the origin of the Ray.”
“The Circle.” I prod him.
“Yes. Only in the 1930s, they called themselves the Church of the Starry Wisdom. They’ve been around for millennia, Batman, in one form or another. They seeded the Mayans and the Egyptians both with their chthonic lore. I have made a study of them, though they are very secretive and dangerous: they preach of a Great Darkness, and that day is at last at hand. Naturally, they fear the Ray, the antithesis of darkness, the only sentient embodiment of the Living Light. He is a spear pointed at the heart of their dark god[/i]…”
His words drop like stones falling down a bottomless well. Our last hope. Missing. In the hands of the Circle.
“How did you come to be at that Church, then? You were looking for the Ray, too?”
Dayzl nodded. “After all these years, I had finally made contact with Raymond a few days ago--- a week now, as I had been ensnared by the shining trapezohedron for four days before Starman rescued us. I warned him of the Circle, and their interest in him. He must have thought me a madman, ranting on about Primordial Light and a Great Darkness…! But he told me about a girl… someone with whom he had become romantically involved, who had gotten caught up in the Circle… I know he was worried, that he would go after her. I told him it was a ruse, a trap. They were using her to get at him… Either he didn’t believe me, or he didn’t care.”
“The Ray is a hero,” Starman interjects on his friend’s behalf. “He’ll do whatever he needs to do to protect the innocent.”
“And that is how they will win,” Dayzl sighs. “By using your heroism against you. Don’t you understand? They want to warp everything that is good and right and just. They don’t care about the innocent--- or the guilty. All are damned.”
I heard this all before. I heard it with Darkseid, with Trigon… But there is something more insidious about this threat. Something ancient and inevitable…
“Just tell us what happened to the Ray, Dr. Dayzl.”
Dayzl turns back to me. “He told me he was going to rescue the girl from the clutches of the Circle. I followed him, hoping to dissuade him, make him understand. But I arrived too late. There was a battle inside the church. Supervillains with supercharged powers attacked him! But he fought them. He resisted! Only then, they summoned the shining trapezohedron. I cannot say for sure what it is, but it is written in the Ineffable Libram that a sliver of that Primordial Light was lost and enslaved to corruption, had become a tool for dark powers. It sapped the Ray of all his power, left him helpless and enthralled. They dragged him away, laughing, and all I could do was hide in the shadows. I approached only after they had gone, and was ensnared myself, as you had been, Batman.”
“Then all is lost. They’ve depowered the Ray and we have no weapon against this Great Darkness…? What about the original Ray, his father?” Starman asks.
Dr. Dayzl shakes his head. “The Ray is in the clutches of evil, and yes, they’ve depowered him, but make no mistake: the Ray is[/i] his power! He is the incarnation of the Living Light; it is as much a part of him, as being human is a part of you or I or Happy, for that matter. To take that from Raymond, they would have to kill him, and I don’t believe that’s possible. Light cannot be[/i] destroyed, only shrouded or contained. This is why Happy is not a threat: he is a child’s squirt gun, compared to the geyser that is his son…”
The old scientist goes on, to David Knight’s growing horror, but I turn away. I’ve heard enough. Something bad is coming, something big and dark and dangerous. In order to fight this thing, we’re going to need Raymond Terrill, and so I won’t stop until I find him. My first stop will be back to the derelict Church of the Starry Wisdom. The trail is cold, but if I can’t find some clues as to where they’ve taken him, I might as well hang up the cape and cowl and go back to the tunic and short shorts.
Before I’m out the door, Starman calls to me to wait. An alarm has gone off on his instrument panel and he has gone to investigate it. I pause at the exit to the observatory, loathe to delay the search any longer.
“Batman, you’ve got to see this…” There is confusion in his voice, but also something like panic.
Both Dr. Dayzl and myself join him at the control panel, as Starman toggles the control to open the shell of the observatory. The motors work soundlessly as the roof opens like a clamshell above us, exposing a gray dawn sky, tinged with red…
“I’ve been tracking an unusual phenomenon all night, and now it seems to be manifesting,” there was no mistaking the fear now in David Knight’s voice as he reviewed the data streaming across his screen. I glance at it over his shoulder, but the calculations make no sense to me.
“I don’t understand,” I frown, knowing I must be mistaken. “Those readings from the electro-magnetic spectrum are off the charts, and the strong gravitational force seems to be fluctuating… How is that possible?”
“It’s not,” David Knight swallows hard and points up.
As we watch, the morning sky seems to grow darker, as if all the light of the rising sun was being drained away. A chill falls over all three of us as we spot it at the same time: hanging over the horizon, like the bloated stomach of a spider, is a seething disc of roiling ebony. It seems to suck all light and color out of the sky, ascending like the promise of despair.
“Aieeee! The Great Darkness is come!” Dr. Dayzl wails, transfixed by the new object in the heavens. “The Black Sun is risen…![/i]”
Today:
[/b]“Can you feel it in the sky, Raymond Terrill? The Black Sun has broken open, like an egg cracking, hatching a harvest of death!”
The voice is little more than an ecstatic hiss, but it’s all I have to latch onto. I am so alone, alone in the dark. Alone and empty. My only companion is the tormenting voice. They haven’t fed me in a week. I haven’t had any water. I haven’t seen a speck of light… I should be dead. But Dr. Dayzl told me I wasn’t fully human… That I am some sort of hybrid, imbued with the primordial light of creation itself…
“Existence as you know it is over[/i]…! Reality teeters on the edge of a precipice, and soon all will plunge into the endless chasm that awaits us all.”
I manage a defiant growl. “You’re wrong. We’ll stop you. The JSA. The Justice League… All of us…”
“Fool. You’ve already lost. All that’s left is the harrowing[/i].”
And at last I recognize the voice. It’s her. Frankie Reynolds. She never needed saving at all; she was with them all along. I am[/i] a fool.
“Even now, Nekron whispers to all living things, can you hear him, my dear sweet Raymond? Isn’t it beautiful…?”
No. It’s not. It’s repugnant and stinks of rot. I try to block out the words I hear with every other living soul on the planet: From before creation, from before time itself, I have existed. Battling Star-Gods across the tapestry of the universe itself…[/i]
“I don’t care who you are,” I mutter, every word a herculean effort. “I don’t care what you want…” I don’t know if Frankie can hear me, or if she is even really here at all. “All I know, is you’re afraid of me for some reason, and that’s enough.” Summoning all of my strength and energy, I yell for all and any to hear: “I’m coming for you, Nekron! My name is the Ray, and all it takes is a spark to break the darkness! [/i]”