Weird War Tales presents:
“Ride of the Valkyrie!”
starring Mister America and Miss X!
Tex Thomson was on the case, and it left him with a feeling of pride. In his costume of red (cloak, fluttering in the stiff December breeze), white (heavy denim shirt, helping him against some of the bitter cold) and blue (heavy pants also protecting from the raw weather), Mister America quickly moved through the light woods of upstate New York and toward the clearing where a makeshift airfield had been hastily built. He was on a mission for his country, called upon by J. Edgar Hoover himself and tasked with tracking down Nazis operating a smuggling ring. For nearly a month of work was about to pay off, and Mister America, Tex Thomson, grinned at the thought of the payback he was going to unleash for the pain America was suffering now.
Only three weeks before, America was pulled into the global conflict, and Tex Thomson had begged the Army to let him serve, to let him go abroad and be a symbol for his people, fighting the Axis on either front, but the War Department nixed the idea. Mister America was brave and tough and skilled, but normal, and too vulnerable. But Hoover, he had another mission, something of equal importance, that would provide the sort of boost to the country that Thomson was looking for.
Mister America paused at the edge of the clearing, dark eyes behind the domino mask carefully looking over the area. He marked out a pair of guards casually watching the area, and he could see the storehouse on the far side of the field. There could be more in there, he knew there were a half-dozen in the smuggling ring inside the country, another three that came in on the plane from up north. He peeled the blue glove down and glanced at his watch and nodded to himself as a vicious gust of wind whipped around him. He shivered and briskly rubbed his hands over his biceps to generate a little warmth.
“Fifteen minutes,” he muttered to himself.
Fifteen minutes and then the plane arrives. I can take these guys out in fifteen minutes.The patriotic hero skirted the edge of the clearing, sticking to the shadowy treelike, moving up slowly and steadily toward the huddled guards, trying to keep warm, rubbing gloved hands and puffing at their cigarettes. They never knew what struck them as the American Commando tore from the forest and barreled into them. Thomson was dusting his hands off as he looked at the two unconscious guards, the binding them up in rope before turning to the lone building, hastily-built, simple wood, simple box, standing under the skittering moonlight, holding hidden the treasures waiting for the Nazi plane.
Mister America sprinted toward the building now, easily closing the distance to the main doors of the building, boots crunching in the thin, ice-crusted snow that covered the ground.
Four more men, he mused on the way there.
Four more to take into account. Most likely in the storehouse. Move fast, old boy, move fast, and you just may have them all before you even hear the plane. The wind scraping his cheeks red, the cold nipping at his blood, the excitement of his big case for the government, all made his smile broaden, his eyes twinkle in anticipation.
Mister America, defender of liberty. I might even get invited to join the Justice Society! Best of all, the faces...the kids...I can see the ones on my block. They've been so upset, so nervous, scared. They'll smile...they'll know we can make it, we're far from down!It was the speed of his charge across the field combined with the adrenaline screaming through his veins from such thoughts that formed the plan of attack by Mister America. A thick shoulder was pressed forward, and the heavy, muscled body crashed through the wooden door. Splinters rained out across the center of the room as the caped hero rolled into the building and leaped behind the first obstruction he could see, a tall toolbox.
“Was ist das?” A man pivoted toward the crash, and two other heads poked up from the rear of the building, trying to make out what had happened. A gun was out in a minute, but that first man had no hope as a wrench came spinning from the semi-dark and crashed into his temple, sending him tumbling to the ground in a heap.
“Erlhaten sie ihn!” cried out one of the other men as they too pulled tommy guns and aimed for the source of the attack.
“And me only bringing a whip to a gunfight!” Mister America taunts as a coil of rawhide lashes out, slapping around the barrel of one gun and tore it away from the smuggler. He had kicked a small wooden crate up and toward the other gunman, serving its purpose as it soaked up a spray of bullets. Mister America never slowed down, closing with the disarmed Nazi and landing a pair of punishing blows that dropped his enemy before spinning and letting his whip snap into the face of the third man.
“Verdammter held!” the man cried as he clutched his weeping eyes and staggered back. This pain was quickly ended by a blow to his jaw that sent him spiraling into darkness.
With the three men down, Mister America took his first pause and slowly turned a wary circle, trying to find the final Nazi agent, the sixth man that would end this portion of his attack.
“I believe, Herr Amerika, you are looking for me?” A light clap of the hands accompanied the declaration, the tall German dressed in heavy black overcoat, his pale skin and straw blond hair washed out by the weak moonlight. Next to him was a seventh man, thickly-set, with a pair of Mauser pistols pointed at the mystery man, thin lips set into a cruel, excited smile.
“Helmut Streicher, I presume?” Mister America returned, taking a slow step to one side, hand holding his whip held out to one side, cape draped over his other arm. He kept his calm, preparing to talk until he had a better situation to work from.
“You're aware of me? I'm flattered, truly. I have been working hard to get my name feared by your people,” he admitted with a laugh. “It's not easy, there are many competing for your spotlight.”
“I'm shutting you down, Streicher. Whatever you're trying to smuggle into the country, I'm cutting it off here,” Tex said in a firm voice, taking another step to his left. Streicher stayed in one spot and watched the mystery man slowly circle him, while the armed German mirrored the wary warrior's dance.
“I'm not bringing anything in, Herr Amerika,” Streicher admitted. “I am instead relieving your decadent, Jew-dominated land of something much more useful to the Reich.”
Tex Thomson wasn't prepared for that. He paused a moment, trying to figure out what he could mean, but had no real idea. The problem was, he didn't see how he was going to find out with Streicher's man holding guns on him. He couldn't get close enough to the man, not before he fired, and Tex couldn't be confident of avoiding bullets at this close range.
“Otto, please finish this interloper off before our contact arrives. She'll not be happy to see this, and I would not face the harpy unhappy,” Streicher ordered his companion.
Mister America held his breath, but didn't lose his veneer of calm. Instead he smiled at Otto, who was standing before a stack of wooden crates, but it was the shape beyond them that eased Tex's worries.
Miss X had done what she had always done. When Mister America went on the trail of Nazi smugglers, he had told the would-be assistant that this was important government work and she couldn't be involved and to go home where she belonged. So of course, Miss X ignored the brave, patriotic, well-meaning hero and took up trailing his activities. She knew he'd get in over his head, and here he was, right where she expected.
“Hey, Otto, shoe's untied!” she called out from behind the stack of crates before ramming into them with all of her might. She was a fit woman, slender, lacking some of the fuller curves of her fellow heroines, but she made up for it with tenacity, smarts and a lack of concern for her physical well-being.
Otto glanced at his shoe for the briefest of seconds, then turned to find the female voice that had called to him, and then collapsed in a heap under the heavy wood that splintered over him. He pulled himself up out of forged currencies Streicher had brought into the United States to further his operation, but not before Mister America reached him and pummeled him motionless.
“Still don't belong here, Mister?” Miss X taunted her friend, the man she was reasonably sure she loved, if he was indeed the man she thought he was under that mask. She folded her opera gloved arms over her chest with a smirk under the thick black-tinted glasses she wore.
“You were perfect, right on time. Knew I could count on you,” Tex said with a jaunty tone of voice and smug look on his face as he turned to face Streicher. The top agent was even now backing out of the building, preparing to retreat under the changed circumstances. “Oh no you don't, buddy! We got a special place for spies like you!” Mister America started to give chase, back out into the cold, pale night.
Miss X busied herself with securing the unconscious Germans before hurrying after Mister America and his quarry. She expected to have a long run, and had wrapped her mink stole tightly around her shoulders and neck in preparation of the cold. Instead she stopped abruptly at the ruined doorway.
Out on the field, Miss X saw a powerful woman in what looked like a bronze breastplate, astride a winged horse as black as the night skies above, clutching a wicked looking spear in her right hand. All three people stared at the sudden arrival, and Streicher seemed horror-struck.
“No! You're early! I...I...” Streicher stammered in English, before slipping into his native language to add, “Dieses isn' t-so Schlechtes, wie es schaut, gefallen, glauben mir, oh bitte!”
The woman had long, wavy blond locks that flowed over her broad, bare shoulders. She wore a heavy skirt of leather strips and the breastplate and the rest of her was bare, but had no care for the cold air. She stared with terrible disdain at the pleading German, and the butt of her spear lashed out to strike him in the center of the forehead, knocking him unconscious. “Be silent!” she shouted at him.
“Who the hell are you, lady?” Mister America demanded to know as the horse stepped toward the mystery man.
“My name is Gudra, of the Valkyries,” she replied as she rode the horse toward the building. “I am here for my prizes.”
“Prizes?” Tex asked as he watched the woman and the strange horse move past him and then past Miss X. It took all his effort to snap out of the stupor this person had put him into and chase after her. “You're here for whatever Streicher was smuggling out!”
“Yes, mortal.” The answer was short, to the point, and she moved up to a small box and smashed it open with her powerful fist. She hefted up an antique copper urn that she placed into a saddlebag. “But that is not all.” The horse was turned around by a deft switch of the reins in her thick hand.
“Not all? Not all? How about, that's not anything you're taking, you witch!” Miss X countered, charging at the warrior woman. The haft of the spear slammed into her side, and the heroine hurled to one side, crashing into the floor hard.
“I gotta agree with the young lady. I'm not letting you waltz out of here with that urn, or anything else you think you're entitled to!” Tex declared as he lashed out with his whip, letting it wrap around the spear and pulling at it with all his might.
Gudra was unmoved as she looked at the struggle, her spear held firmly in her hand. She tugged her weapon, and Mister America stumbled forward, where she backhanded him. Blood welled up in his mouth and a tooth spilled to the floor as he dropped to his hands and knees.
“You are in no position to deny a Chooser of the Slain. And you, Tex Thomson, are chosen this night!” The spear lunged down and jabbed into his side, sliding easily through the thickened, padded costume, passing through flesh, muscle and bone to find his heart and stop it. She drew her weapon out, the head of the spear glittering and swirling with a strange silver light that almost seemed to scream to the staggered mind of Miss X. “You are not so chosen. Thank whichever god you look to for that.”
And then Gudra spurred her horse and it trotted from the building, and climbed into the air, blending into the dark night.
Miss X crawled to Mister America, rolling him into her arms as tears slipped out from under her glasses. “Tex...Tex, it's you, I knew it was you, you can't be dead, not now, no, not now, we...our game, this is our game...our courtship...our...courtship...” she sobbed into the unmoving body as she peeled his mask away and then tossed her glasses to the side. Puffy green eyes stared at Tex Thomson's face as she shook him and yelled at him. “It's Peggy, you were right! It's me, and Daddy thinks you're great...and we...we're...this is our game...a game...our dating...dates are supposed to end with kisses, you stupid, selfish bastard!”
The morning sun slowly crept up over the horizon, peering through the trees, golden rays sliding over the makeshift airfield and the six captured Germans. All of them were waiting as the federal agents finally arrived and flooded the field and finally entered the building.
She was still crying over him. Despite her pleas, and demands, and tears...
...he remained chosen.
