Zatara #1

Zatara
Issue #1: “La Dolce Vita”
Story and Art by Hushicho
Edited by Mark Bowers

“Where's that good-for-nothing PA? What does he think I pay him for?”

“I saw him about half an hour ago...”

“Great. What was he doing? No, don't tell me – playing Grumpy Ducks on his KordPhone is my guess.”

“No, uh, actually I think he said he was going off to get coffee.”

The morning wore on as the sun climbed the sky, but none of the crew had seen the sunrise. Since 5 AM, the stage demanded full attention. Huge posters of a handsome, well-groomed young man with black hair and a mysterious look in his piercing green eyes gazed out at the seats from gilded stands.

“Coffee? Ugh, I just hope he remembers my soy latte.”



The faint sounds of music, about thirty years out of date, suddenly drifted wisplike through the place. It began abruptly, at exactly 10:16 AM.

“Have to believe we are magic,” the pleasant voice purred along dreamy accompaniment.

There came a particularly unpleasant rumbling from the bedroom. The door swung open to reveal a half-worn tuxedo, crumpled and creased and draped upon the sleek frame of the Great Zatara. At the moment, he was looking considerably less than great, his head had left “great” behind somewhere the night before, and his hair had gone from an insouciant tousling to looking like the magician had slept on his head before wandering into a wind tunnel.

“Zach!” The cheerful voice came from what could generously have been called the living room.

It wasn't terrible, as temporary living quarters went, but it was far from the fanciest place that Zatara had stayed. At least it was free, thanks to the source of that voice: Eddie was apartment-sitting.

Zach's eyes slowly found their way to his roommate. In all honesty, he was hard to miss: glowing gold eyes, white hair, curling spaded tail, and red all over. It was like having someone around who was permanently dressed in one of those “sexy devil” costume kits for Halloween.

“Hot stuff,” Zach replied, squinting as he approached the chair the other man perched upon like some diabolical bird of paradise. “Is there...any way you could turn down your eyes? No, that's stupid. Never mind.”

The magician made a face and leaned against the arm of the chair, which had to be at least as old as the music still floating through the place.

Eddie opened his mouth at first, but words didn't form before the question found its own answer. “Uh, well, you're in the news again.”

“The real news, or tabloids?” Zach leaned closer, to scan the tablet carefully positioned in Eddie's semi-clawed hands. “Oh, tabloids. I see.”

“You can still put a spin on it! Like you always say...no such thing as bad publicity...” Tail swaying slowly back and forth, he tried as hard as he could to keep things upbeat.

The magician ran his hands through his own hair and breathed slowly in, then out again in a heavy sigh. “Zach Zatara in Satanic Gay Witchcraft Orgy,” he at last muttered. “I knew answering the door was a mistake.”

“The, uh, paparazzi are getting creative.”

“He's lucky I don't get that broom he left by the door and rocket-propel it somewhere it won't easily get sunburned.” Zach snorted and flopped back against the chair, half-draped across it. “That's ridiculous. Are they really that desperate?” He sighed again. “At least Liz Taylor got some respect from them.”

“They come and go with Liza, though. I mean, there's a silver lining. Clearly you sell as well as Liza's probably extremely-fictional latest binge of booze and violence.”

Zach pursed his lips. He couldn't argue with that. After a moment's introspection, he spoke again in a gentler tone. “How's the fan response?”

With a few delicate taps of a fingertip, Eddie began to navigate the site. A little scrolling and a pinch or two later, and a quiet clearing of his throat brought Zach sitting forward. Eddie clicked the menu button, sending the browser back to a simple icon as he coughed out a puff of smoke.

“What?” Zatara gave a look in Eddie's direction. “Is it that bad? Tell me. Do I need to get on the phone right now to PR? Are we talking charity luncheons?”

“Well, uh, you know that game where you do the image search and see how many clicks it takes to reach, um, adult content?”

Zach rolled his shoulders back and began to button his shirt. “Yes.”

“Look,” Eddie finally, unsteadily managed, “let's just forget it. I mean, fanart doesn't matter, right? It's good you have fans who like to express themselves creatively, and they're very talented with their art programs and–”

“Fanart?” A brow shot up. “You mean people are drawing pictures of me?”

Eddie winced at once. “Us,” he replied in a small voice.

Zach rolled his eyes and reached out for the tablet. “Oh, come on.”

“You really don't want to do that!”

Eddie scrambled to keep the tablet, but his clumsy grappling proved no match for the magician's nimble fingers. The devilish youth covered his face with his hands as he heard the inevitable gasp from Zach.

“That's ridiculous!”

Gathering his strength, Eddie peeked from between two fingers and then slowly lowered his hands before him. “It's okay Zach, it's just–”

“I'm not that hairy!”



“I really don't like going out much, Zach...”

“Just try not to set your clothes on fire again and we'll be fine.” Zatara continued to tap at the tablet. “Oh!” He started grinning again. “Look at this one.”

Eddie coughed smoke again, cheeks practically glowing as he pulled the hood of his sweatshirt over his eyes, which glowed behind the fabric. “Nonononono!”

With a chuckle, the magician returned to tapping through the internet. “Hm. You know what? I want some coffee. Or chai, or something. Let's stop at the coffee shop.”

“Can we get it to go?”

At first it seemed as if Zach would refuse, but he bounced his shoulders and reached down to pick up the receiver. “Hello, yes? Stop at the next Sun Doller, it's just about a block from here. Thanks.” He replaced it on the cradle and turned his attention back to the lurid thumbnails from the image search.

Before he could open a single one, the tablet sounded its ring. He tapped the phone icon.

“Speeeeak to the Great Zatara!”

An awkward silence answered him on the other end at first. After a few seconds, a woman's voice sounded over the connection, a bit distorted by static and ambient noise.

“Hello, Mr. Zatara? This is Deborah, the stage manager.”

“We're literally in the car,” Zach replied instantly. “We're picking up drinks at Sun Doller, then we'll be right there for the show run-through. Did you want me to pick you up something?”

Another little pause, before the woman continued. “Actually...one of our PAs was supposed to be going there about two hours ago, and he hasn't come back.” Another voice sounded from the theater, an indistinct murmur over their connection. “Oh. Um, Georgie says one of the lighting guys went to get coffee an hour ago and he hasn't come back either. Could you check where they went? I'm sure it's fine, but if you're going to be there anyway...”

“Sure. See you in about half an hour. Ta, darling.” Zach touched the icon again to hang up, then switched the tablet off and set it on Eddie's lap. “Hm.”

“What's up?”

“Nothing.” Zach shifted to open the door, glancing back at Eddie. “What should I bring you? Cafe au lait?”

“Pumpkin spice!” Eddie grinned, pulling the hood back. “It's about that time of year.”

“Pumpkin spice...latte?”

The devil-boy nodded.

“Back in like five minutes.”

He closed the door and turned to cross the lot to the door. Funny, he thought. To be such a busy location, it doesn't seem to be...well...busy, at all.

Finally making his way to the entrance, he pushed the door open and stepped in. Trendy indie music filled the air, faint and ambient. The scent of coffee hung heavy around him. But something else joined that bouquet, something not quite right. Something unpleasant, inhuman. A faintly musky scent, but not the odor of any beast wild or domesticated.

Zach wheeled around at the slightest movement and immediately regretted it. He quietly cursed the fashionable low lights and trendily-shaded windows; they'd kept him from noticing the all too quiet figures at the tables were only humanoid, hunched over drinks that might have been hot hours ago but which now sat cold and disregarded.

The figures resembled the shapes of what they surely must contain. Zach set his jaw and extended his hands before him. “Right, let's see...eerf meht morf snoococ!” Then he chuckled to himself. “Snoococ.”

The spell began to do its work, unweaving the masses of what seemed like some sort of silk, some sort of webbing, breaking the fibers apart to reveal surprised and horrified patrons of a coffee shop. Some staggered to their feet, others half-stumbled, half-raced to the door and out of it, screaming incomprehensibly.

The magician found himself jostled by the rescuees. He slipped back to the counter and slowly turned to look behind it: empty. Not a barista around, and the customers weren't exactly forthcoming on who apparently didn't get the memo that humans don't turn into butterflies.

The door swung open again, this time to admit Eddie. “Zach? Are you okay?”

“I'm fine,” he answered, distantly.

The magician cast his eyes around the room, slowly, and settled on a doorway leading back to the kitchen. He waved a hand over his shoulder, then started walking slowly in that direction.

“The people running off were maybe kind of unsettled, but they didn't stick around and I'm not a doctor. I mean, they could walk, they could scream, they'll be fine after a year or two of therapy and probably lots of drugs.”

“I think I could maybe use some of those drugs about now,” Eddie mumbled, glancing around as they continued into the kitchen.

“Patience.” Zach reached out to switch off a grinder that must have been crushing dust-flavored air for the past hour or two. “The last thing I need right now is a stoned devil. And I'm pretty sure that the munchies in a place like this would lead to something terrible.”

“You think it's in the food?” Eddie's eyes widened, and he stepped back from a platter of scones that had long since cooled.

“I don't know. It's weird, though. I remember something about...” the magician waved a hand, “something something, cocoons, something food, et cetera...”

“Could you be more specific?”

“This is your territory.” Zach glanced around, picked up a rolling pin, and pushed at the supply room door. “You're the one who geeks out over aliens and musclemen from Mars. And if this isn't some sort of muscle...alien...thing that came straight from one of those cheesy sci-fi movies you watch all the time, I'll eat my hat.”

“Lots of fiber.”

“Too many carbs.” Rolling pin in one hand, Zach flipped the light switch with the other.

The fluorescent lights flickered on, illuminating the cramped space. The half of the tiny room near the door looked much like any normal such room might. But the back half glistened with crystalline strands of once-mucouslike secretions. Not a cocoon like the rest, this looked more like a chamber of some sort. It pulsed, like breathing.

“Well, there we are. Sci-fi movie. I thought so.”

Eddie narrowed his eyes, creeping closer to it. He reached out with the tip of his tail, to tap on the chitinous substance.

“Don't touch it!” Zach reached out to haul him back.

“Why not? I don't think it's going to do anything. I think you have to be inside one of these things to have anything happen.”

“But what do you think triggers them to open, genius? You saw Alien, we watched it together! I am not going to be the next space jockey!”

The conversation derailed at that moment. The webs, the moorings, crackled and snapped off the walls and ceiling, and the chamber itself split. A hiss of green mist hissed out of the opening, and then a clawed hand pushed its fingers out.

The two were back in the kitchen like a shot, pulling the door firmly shut.

“I told you!” Zach frantically looked around the room. “Get me a chair, quick! Uh...kcol tlem!”

Instantly the door glowed red near the latch. Whatever might come out of the mass of hardened alien snot, it wasn't going to be walking out through an open door. For all that was worth.

Eddie scrambled into the other room. He frowned as he saw the options available to him. A few seconds later, he returned holding a stool with a back.

“This is all they have out there that isn't easy chairs.”

“It'll have to do!” Zach took the top of it, and they tried to jam it under the handle.

It slowly slid to the floor with a CLUNK.

“Okay.” The magician didn't miss a beat. “Bring an easy chair. Bring two, we can stack them.”

The door exploded out at that moment, sending Zach sprawling back atop Eddie, on the floor and covered in dust and debris.

Coughing, Zach got to his feet first, reaching down to pull Eddie up. The light smoke began to clear, revealing a terrible figure – vaguely humanoid, but with distinctly inhuman features: pincers, claws, multiple insectoid arms, wiggling as if vestigial. A tail of sorts that appeared almost a continuation of the body, and most prominently a mask of huge, crimson eyes multifaceted like a mirrorball.

A powerful ululation filled the air, reverberating against the tile and metal of the kitchen.

Eddie shrugged out of his sweatshirt, tossing it across the nearest flat surface. His body temperature began to rise, smoke curling from his mouth. “Zach, whatever that thing is, we can't let it leave here. If it can put people in those cocoons, who knows what'll happen if it gets away?”

“I'm...I don't know.” Zach dusted off his suit jacket. “Don't do anything reckless. It doesn't look like it's particularly a danger at the moment. It just seems...confused.”

The creature turned slowly, as if taking in its new surroundings. It first looked to Zatara, then its gaze settled back onto the devil. It began to advance towards him, its utterances repeating intermittently and becoming more and more frantic. Eddie slowly backed towards the door, leaving Zach to keep going into the main shop.

His mind raced. How was he supposed to work with this? He cursed inwardly. This was a job for someone with bigger muscles and a more garish wardrobe.

Then, so quickly, things went from tense to violent. The thing reached out and ripped a machine out of the wall, hurling it at Eddie. The nimble youth leaped out of the way just in time, puffing a cloud of flame at his new antagonist, which sent it stumbling back over its own legs and tail.

It really was confused. That made things easier.

Zach raised his hands again, extending his arms before him, and intoned with his projecting stage voice: “Elbahtaerb suonitaleg ebuc!”

A hiss like a jar sealing cut into the air, and then in the blink of an eye, a massive jiggling cube encased the creature: a sort of gelatinous form around it, holding it in place, in the same pose.

“Whoa.” Eddie stared at it, looking from it back to Zach. “Is it...gonna be okay?”

“It can breathe, but it can't do much else.” The magician wore a satisfied smile. “The cube should be able to restrict its movement. Anything it can do will either be absorbed or reflected back to it, at least until we can get someone in here to restrain it better.”

Eddie's lips spread into a fanged grin. “Impressive.” He uncurled a finger, to touch at the cell that seemed to quiver perpetually before him. “I'm shocked you didn't make it lime.”

“I didn't want to take the chance it might cause a reaction or something, and then there goes my standing with like fifty charities. I thought about aspic, just because it's a shorter word to turn backwards.” Zach leaned lightly to one side, placing one hand on a hip and gesturing with the other. “But then I didn't know if it's a vegetarian creature. I mean, literally all we know is that it looks creepy and for all we know could be an upstanding Buddhist–”

“Hellgrammite!” Eddie suddenly burst out.

The magician turned to stare at his companion.

“That's what this thing is. I remember reading about it on the Hero Boards.”

“You read about this?” He stepped to Eddie's side. “Is it a serial coffee shop vandal?”

“No, no.” Eddie slowly walked around the thing, looking it carefully over. “I think I remember reading something about it, but...” He turned back to Zach. “Do you think you could...well, if it were a human – recently I mean – do you think you could turn it back?”

The magician folded his arms over his chest. “Well you know how my magic works. The more complex a living organism is, the less staying power a direct spell has.”

“But like...” Eddie spread his hands, “you heal yourself though. And other people. I've seen you do it.”

“Right,” he answered. “It's easier to do because it's the body's natural state and it's just been disturbed. It's like how I can turn people into doves for about a minute and then just pop them back to human form in their seats. That's easy. It's doing something lasting, like turning someone into a newt or something, that I can't do.”

“Perfect!” Eddie pranced to Zach, placing a hand gleefully on each shoulder. “Turn him back! It's been a couple of hours, tops. He's lived his whole life as a human. If what I read was right, Hellgrammite makes little clones of itself, so this guy's probably just a really unfortunate person in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Zach looked skeptically back to the other man, but with a shrug he stepped to the side. “At least if it doesn't work, he's still in there. All right – nrut kcab ot namuh!”

For a few seconds it seemed like nothing had happened, but soon enough the effects rippled across the form suspended in the clear gelatinous material. Bones and muscle slipped back into their proper positions, claws vanished, the tail and face – revealed to be an integrated mask – dissolved, and the now-unconscious form of a twentysomething man replaced the monstrosity.

“He looks faintly familiar.” Zach took a step back and tilted his head to one side, then to the other. “Oh! It's the PA!”

“You must have a good memory for faces.”

“I have a good memory for tacky polo shirts,” the magician answered. “And unfortunate facial hair. The only reason anyone ever shows off a PA is if they're nailing them on the side.”

Eddie chuckled weakly, half in disbelief. “Oh come on. They can't be.”

“I was right with the sci-fi horror, I'm right with this. I mean, that's my field of expertise. I can tell when people are playing bump the–”

The silence made Eddie turn to look. “Zach?”

“I didn't see anyone from the lighting crew.”

“Huh?”

“Come on. You can notify the authorities on the way to the theater.”



“He's still not here!” Deborah paced the stage. “A PA and part of the lighting crew, that we could get by without. But without a headliner, we might as well just bend over and hand people money to kick us in the–”

One of the doors to the lobby burst open, with an enthusiastic crewman practically leaping towards the stage. “Deborah! They're here!”

“Oh thank freaking heaven!” The stage manager put a hand to her forehead.

She was not an unattractive woman, barely middle-aged, but her tendency to worry more over things than they were worth had prematurely aged her. More of the “laugh lines” on her face were from the opposite of mirth.

“Deborah...”

The voice didn't sound much like anyone she knew on crew. She'd have to speak to anyone onstage who wasn't supposed to be there. But when her gaze settled onto the source of the voice, her own caught in her throat. The rest of the crew scampered over themselves and each other to beat a path to the exit.

Less completely transformed than the monster in the coffee shop had been, this one staggered along in the woman's direction. Its insectoid extra arms moved in waves, much more controlled than the other creature, but it barely had a tail, and its mask sat incomplete over not-entirely-obscured human features.

“Evan...?” Deborah gasped. The missing lighting crew.

Her mind raced – was this the zombie apocalypse everyone always talked about? He didn't look particularly dead though, more kafkaesque than anything. He remembered her name, that could either be seen as really good or really bad.

But maybe, she thought, he was just returning to the place he knew so well in life, carrying on with the pattern of everyday living – wait, she had to remind herself, he's not a zombie.

As she tried to put some distance between the two of them, she sensed some presence, some movement near her. Before she had any time to pivot and face it, strong hands plucked her off the ground. She screamed at the top of her lungs for less than twenty seconds before her cocoon rendered her insensate.

“Put her down this instant!”

The words, immaculately enunciated, cut across the distance. Hellgrammite turned, dropping from the shadows and tossing the wrapped form onto the thick wood of the stage. The creature that had been Evan began to stagger towards the double doors that now stood open.

There, silhouetted by the light from outside, pouring in from the glass at the front of the theater, stood Zatara and Kid Devil. The first cut such a striking figure, having touched up his attire a bit, with the devil having opted for what amounted to bicycle shorts with a hole for his tail.

Zach never liked costumes. Not unless he happened to be attending a party. They were all right for other people, but he preferred the look and feel of a well-tailored tux any day. Costumes just felt like being a stripper except without the luxury of tips.

He glanced to Eddie as the thought occurred to him. Well, he thought, he can't help it. If he gets too hot in the middle of a fight, he'd become Kid Exhibitionist. His expression went sour for an instant. That's a terrible codename.

“And what do you propose to do? Stop me with a card trick?” Hellgrammite sneered, jagged and deformed teeth barely resembling a human mouth. “Or did you intend to poledance me to death?”

Eddie gritted his teeth and pounced to the stage, crashing through the wood and taking the villain with him. As boards splintered up around them, a heavy velvet curtain descended upon them.

“Devil...!” Zach reached out, a second too late to stop his partner.

He hurried towards the stage, stretching his arm in Evan's direction. “Nruter ot namuh!” He called, and with less of a delay, the crewman returned to his human form and collapsed.

“I wonder...it worked so well on those two. What would it do to the original?” The magician lifted his chin, taking in a breath.

“You'll never find out.”

He paused, wordless, to look to the voice. A woman stood a few feet away, as the velvet-covered brawl rolled unceremoniously in the other direction. In her hand she held a revolver, trained on Zach, her eyes barely blinking as they stared at him.

“Wait a minute – that was your PA, wasn't it? He's going to be fine, I found him and turned him back. This monster's called Hellgrammite, it's responsible for all of this whole mess. We'll take care of it, guns would just make things worse.”

“I know who Hellgrammite is,” she answered, jaw set. “I'm the one that hired him.”

Oh for pity's sake, Zach groaned inwardly, as he raised his hands slowly. “Hellgrammite is a dangerous...uh, insectoid...entity...thing. I'm almost entirely sure it's not going to go for a payoff, and I'm pretty sure that pea-shooter isn't going to intimidate it either.”

“It's not for him,” she snapped, “it's for you. You've already interfered enough. If you hadn't been here, Deborah would already be out of the way!”

“Oh?” Zach flicked his eyes to the cocoon, then back to the woman in front of him. “Oh. And, er, humor me a bit here, but what exactly do you get from getting her out of the way and losing your PA in the process?”

“He was an idiot, I'd be better off with a trained monkey in a wig.”

“Didn't know you swung that way...”

“Shut it, Hocus-Pocus!” Now her eyes began to show how imbalanced she really was. Gesticulating wildly with the revolver, she motioned with her other hand for Zach to move. “You can't possibly understand what it's like. She's always keeping me down. I'm always the 'organizer this' or the 'assistant that' – when do I get to be the stage manager? Who do they think has been working so hard to make sure things work, only for Deborah to get all the praise?” A sneer crept across her features. “Oh, I get the cast-offs...the assistants nobody wants, the prima donna productions...”

“Excuse you,” Zach broke in.

“I told you to shut it!” the woman barked, as the curtain finally ripped, half-singed, and the two figures arced to grapple along the other end of the stage. It distracted her, making her have to choose between the twin threats of the two heroes.

Zatara calmly strode towards her. She snapped the weapon back in his direction, finger tightening on the trigger.

“I think I've had about enough of all this Scooby-Doo crap, so if you don't mind, I think we're done here.” Undaunted by the threat, he continued on his path.

She lifted the gun and pulled the trigger. There was a flash, a moment that seemed to stretch into eternity, and then she became aware that she had been covered in scalding cheese. Fortunately the gloves she wore protected her from the worst of it, but the surprise was enough to push her over the edge. She leapt, baring her teeth, at Zach.

He stepped to the side and administered a sound chop to the shoulder, followed by a leg-sweep. She went down like a sack of potatoes.

Cheesy potatoes.

“Hctib esaelp.”

The magician turned to the other two. They seemed evenly matched; he had never seen Eddie fight so fiercely before. The webbing, or whatever it was, that Hellgrammite could produce proved highly flammable, so spewing it at Kid Devil, he quickly learned, was not a good idea. The resulting battle concentrated on purely physical attributes: Hellgrammite may have been stronger, or at least more physically imposing, but Eddie was unquestionably the nimbler of the two.

All right, Zach thought. So. Despite my best efforts, here we are. Fighting with some horrible villain that an idiot brought upon the venue I'm headlining at tonight. It's a giant insect guy, it probably wants to eat us, and I don't know if it was ever human. But it's worth trying. Two out of three isn't bad, right?

He took a deep breath, raised his hands in front of him, and spoke. “Nruter ot namuh!!”

Eddie got in a powerful right hook, but Hellgrammite backhanded him off the stage to crash into a cluster of seats. As the villainous creature approached, a purplish, shimmering aurora flared around it, then gleamed, and then there was a blinding flash that threw Zatara off his feet. A flare of black flame, luminescent but not physically hot, belched from around the thing. It screamed, but the voice was not a human one, nor could it have truly been; it lingered in the ears and the memory, perhaps even the spirit. This was the lament of a lost soul.

And then it was gone. The only evidence that it had ever been there was the damage that remained. The theater more closely resembled a disaster area.

“You okay?” Zach reached out to take Eddie's hand, pulling him up to his feet.

The devil-boy carefully cooled his body and stood, groaning faintly at the soreness. “I will be. Hellgrammite packs a powerful punch. What'd you do to him?”

Zatara shook his head, turning back to the stage where the monster had last stood. “I don't know. I tried to turn it back into a human, but I don't know what that was. I'm going to have to do some reading. Some asking around. Something wasn't right about that thing, and that moron was in over her head.”

“Huh?”

“Her.” He motioned to the woman lying face-down, likely now glued to the stage with cheese. “Dairy Queen over there. Apparently she hired Hellgrammite to take care of Deborah. Speaking of which, eerf reh morf noococ.” He kept his composure for an impressive six seconds. “Noococ. I swear, sometimes I don't know how Uncle John keeps it together.”

The stage manager slowly stirred, returning to her senses and sitting up. “What...happened?”

“Riaper retaeht.” Speaking quietly, almost under his breath, Zach motioned around him. The stage, the curtains, the lights, all of it returned to its arranged and ready state of only a few minutes before. He turned to smile at Eddie. “Oh, your assistant organizer had a breakdown, happens all the time. I know a fantastic therapist.” Then his face turned serious, and he leaned in, lowering his voice. “Call the police, let's get to the dressing room.”



“Hellgrammite? Zach, are you sure?”

“Eddie's done some checking. Kind of hard to think he could be anything else but a twisted insectoid supervillain who can clone himself with other people and generate disturbing secretions like an H. R. Giger creation.”

Zach sat in front of a large crystal ball on an ornate pedestal, Eddie pressed up beside him. The image fluttering above it unmistakably reflected Zatanna.

“Fair enough.” She picked up a large book and began to flip through it. “Hellgrammite...Hellgrammite...that's kind of a catchy name, got to give him that. I mean, you'd sort of expect something hellish and foul.” Suddenly she looked up. “Oh. Sorry, Eddie.”

“It's okay. I'm kind of used to it by now.” The devil-boy shrugged his shoulders.

“Um. Okay. So. What I'm seeing here is...okay.” Zatanna's brow flattened. “I'm going to need to do some checking up. Can I get in touch with you here?”

Zach looked to her, then the crystal ball, then back as he pursed his lips.

“Oh. Right.” She shook her head. “Sorry. You would not believe the week I've had.” Then she paused for only a moment. “Or maybe you would. Sorry, we'll catch up sometime soon.”

“If you can ever tear yourself away to pop in.”

“I'm really sorry, I've been busy, and–”

“Uncle John did.”

“I know, but I–”

“Sargon did.”

The only sound hanging in the room between them, for at least a full minute, was the faint ethereal static generated by the sphere.

“Zach, I don't think you should hang around Sargon.”

“Says the woman whose on-again, off-again paramour has the bouquet of an eau de cologne called 'Flophouse'.”

“Constantine does not–” Zatanna started to respond, and then she went suddenly silent. Her eyes diverted for a moment, then they returned to Zach. “Fair enough.”

“I'm not going to do anything that dangerous, I promise. If I get bad vibes, I'll leave immediately. Eddie's going to be my...Jiminy...Christmas. Or whatever.”

“Cricket,” Eddie helpfully suggested.

“Cricket Christmas,” Zach corrected, not noticing Eddie's steepled brow. “Anyway, if you really want to stop me, you can just come here and do it, you know?”

“Zach, I promise I'll come see you. And soon. Okay? I really miss you. Believe me, I'd rather be hanging out with you back in Vegas, sipping daiquiris by a poolside somewhere...”

“I'm not in Vegas,” Zach replied. “Vegas is next week. So there's still time.”

She looked around herself and reached down, pulling some sort of gadget into the image: a computerized personal assistant. “So it is! Okay, so making a date of it...next week...you, me...Eddie?” Zatanna offered a smile to the other man. “Daiquiris by the pool. If you wear the 'tux-speedo', I swear I'll clobber you.”

Zach just laughed. “If you say so. I'll wear it on off days. See you then.”

“See you then! Bye!” Zatanna waved, and then her image was gone and the crystal dim again.

“But you love that swimsuit,” Eddie finally commented.

“She thinks it's too showy to have a red bowtie punctuating my happy trail. Don't worry, I'll wear it when she's not here.” The magician rose, taking the drape and covering the pedestal with it.

“So what are you going to wear when she is?”

“Gold glitter thong.”




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