Marshall Conrad: A Superhero Tale Read online

  Mud caked my feet all the way up past my ankles and I shivered as I tromped on the accelerator and bumped my way back onto the highway. It was deserted, save for another family of mule deer that grazed along the median. Startled, they looked up and then leaped into the brush, with the grace of, well, a mule deer, I suppose.

  I shivered. My skin was still ice-cold from the flight, so I cranked up the heat, flicked on the headlights and turned on the stereo for an update.

  I pressed the auto scan button and listened. The stereo flipped through random channels, searching for a strong enough signal. Surprisingly, every single radio station I heard was talking about Mrs. Aldrich’s rescue and the picture that appeared on the Drudge Report. It finally settled on a good signal from AM 620, Greenfield’s “all news, all the time” station. Dave Valenzuela, their morning phone-in host, was reporting live outside the hospital, describing the scene.

  “Mark this date on your calendar folks,” he shouted. “May third is the date when Greenfield became the most talked-about place in America.”

  “Lovely,” I muttered, as I switched on my wipers. A damp mist descended over the highway, coating the Tempo’s windshield with a film of drizzle.

  “I have a prepared statement from Representative Byron Aldrich which I’ll now read,” said Valenzuela. “The past thirty-six hours have been the most harrowing and painful of my life. I am happy to report that my wife is out of the woods and I’d ask everyone to respect our privacy during this difficult time. The circumstances surrounding her rescue are, in a word, miraculous. I have no reason to disbelieve the terrifying story of my wife’s ordeal even if the events of this evening are too astounding to believe. I’m just a humble and God-fearing public servant, but my faith tells me that God had a hand in saving my wife and I’m not about to question His will. It is my sincere hope that whoever or whatever is responsible for delivering Marilyn safely to the loving arms of her husband and children, knows that I and my family are eternally grateful. My wife said he was an angel, but I say he’s a hero. Thank you, whoever you are.”

  I switched off the radio.

  “I save his wife and the guy invokes the supreme-being,” I grumbled.

  I pulled off Highway 9 and headed up the Interstate. This time there was traffic, just not the regular volume you’d expect when most people are at home watching the news. I imagined Greenfield residents were peeled to their TVs or chatting up a storm online, and I made a mental note to check out Americanconspiracies.net, half-thinking that Marnie might have posted more pictures.

  I wasn’t angry with Marnie.

  I didn’t feel betrayed or used, either. In the short time I’d known the woman, I’d learned that while her values didn’t entirely match mine, she was still an honest person. She hadn’t sent that snapshot to the Drudge Report for profit or fame, she did it for her sanity. She needed to do it. She needed other people to see what she had seen and experience her shock and dismay at questioning their sanity, too.

  I decided that when the time was right, I’d explain my reasons for keeping her in the dark. I still had feelings for her. Strong feelings. I just hoped my outburst that evening hadn’t scared her off for good.

  I passed the “Welcome to Greenfield” sign and took the Shelby Avenue exit. The streets were empty, save for the occasional alley cat prowling around. I drove past Delaney Park and noticed a large group of people standing near the gazebo, staring up at the heavens. A handful of them carried binoculars, and one person had a large telescope mounted on a tripod aimed towards the Greenfield County Hospital.

  “At least they’re not talking about the murders,” I muttered, as I spotted The Curiosity Nook about two blocks away. “Maybe Stella was right about this being a distraction.”

  I stopped my car in its usual spot and hopped out. Stella was standing in the alcove, holding the door open and Ruby was nowhere in sight.

  “Welcome back,” she said. “Did anyone see you?”

  I shook my head. “I doubt it. Hey, have you seen my boots?”

  Stella gestured with her thumb. “They’re in the office ... the damned things fell on my head when you took off.”

  She locked the door behind me as I headed to the backroom.

  “I need to lie down for a while,” I said. “Do you have a cot?”

  “It’s already set up in the back. Ruby went to her hotel room and I’m going to do some research. Go get some sleep.”

  “Will do,” I said, yawning. “It’s been a helluva day.”

  “That it has, Marshall,” Stella said, smiling. “Get as much rest as you can, because tomorrow you’ll need it.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “You’re getting a crash-course in sorcery starting at ten AM.”

  Chapter 38

  “Get up Conrad, we’ve got a busy day ahead,” said Ruby, kicking at my cot.

  I slowly opened my eyes, blinked at Ruby, and then dropped my head back on the pillow. “What time is it?” I asked, in a lucid voice.

  “Quarter to ten,” she said, handing me a steaming mug of coffee. “I had to run the gauntlet to get here this morning, so get your lazy ass out of bed.”

  I swung my legs over the edge of the cot and took a sip of coffee. On the chair beside me was a folded set of clean clothes and a new pair of tennis shoes. Ruby tapped her foot and frowned at me disapprovingly.

  “What?” I muttered.

  “You owe me forty dollars for the sneakers,” she said, presenting me with the receipt.

  “Right. Do you take credit cards?”

  Ruby shook her head and walked up the hallway to the front of the store while I got dressed. I gulped back a huge swig of coffee and staggered to the bathroom. The TV blared from Stella’s office while I freshened up.

  “All eyes are on Greenfield this morning after the stunning rescue of Marilyn Aldrich by what appears to be a flying man. That’s right folks, you heard correctly, a flying man.”

  “Lovely,” I grumbled, splashing water on my face.

  “Police are baffled about how Mrs. Aldrich wound up on the roof of the Greenfield County Hospital. However they confirm that investigators found the barn where she’d been held captive. Meanwhile, federal authorities are collecting evidence from the family cottage at Crystal Beach where she was last seen. When asked if he could explain how someone could have painted a large red spiral on the roof of the cottage without being detected by security, Greenfield County Sheriff Don Neuman declined to comment. The fantastic events of the last twelve hours come on the heels of a series of unsolved murders in the small New Hampshire city. Authorities are looking into an outbreak of vandalism as hundreds of spirals similar to the one found on the roof of the Aldrich family cottage have appeared all over town, prompting an investigation by the Office of Homeland Security.”

  I emerged from the bathroom feeling half-human and headed to the front of the store as Stella and Ruby looked over the Big Black Book. Walter was sound asleep in the leather armchair next to the front counter and a big Closed sign hung in the front window beside Boris Yeltsin.

  “Good morning,” I said, yawning.

  Stella looked up and smiled. “Good Morning Mr. Conrad. How are you feeling?”

  “Like crap.” I shrugged. “What’s the good word?”

  Ruby closed the Big Black Book and looked at me through her bifocals. “You mean apart from the fact that every news outlet in the country has a reporter covering what you did last night?”

  “You’re not going to berate me again,” I said, sourly. “Because if you are, I’m going to stick my fingers in my ears and start chanting la-la-la-la.”

  “Will you two stop?” Stella pleaded. “There’s nothing we can do about the news coverage. Marshall is just going to have to lay low for a while until this blows over.”

  “Fat chance,” Ruby sneered. “The kooks are coming to town.”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked.

  “Supermarket tabloids, Conrad,” she said. “The Nati
onal Monitor is offering a one-million dollar reward for conclusive proof that what happened last night wasn’t a hoax. Even the Sci-Fi Network is in on the act.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “They’ve preempted their regular programming for a superhero movie marathon, and during the breaks, they’ve assembled a panel of geeks and pseudo-scientists to help viewers ‘come to terms’ with the knowledge that a man can fly.”

  Stella frowned, pressing her lips together. “I hadn’t foreseen that,” she said. “The news coverage will certainly distract everyone from Grim Geoffrey’s plan, but I hadn’t factored in The Roswell Effect.”

  “Roswell?” I asked. “As in New Mexico?”

  Stella nodded. “It’s the planetary nerve center for UFO watchers. Ever since that crash back in forty-eight, the city has become a symbol for anyone who believes in government coverups and unnatural phenomenon. Hell, its number one industry is tourism and you can’t walk anywhere in that town without bumping into people wearing ‘ET Phone Home’ t-shirts—even the Chamber of Commerce sponsors an annual UFO festival.”

  I tilted my head. “So we should plan on an invasion of geeks and freaks, is that it?”

  Ruby waved her hand in the air. “Don’t forget the lure of one million bucks,” she said. “For that kind of money, I’m almost tempted to club you over the head and drag your sorry ass to The National Monitor in person.”

  Money. It brings out the worst in people.

  I’d scraped a living by selling crap on eBay and designing websites. It wasn’t much, but it paid my bills. A one-million-dollar reward was sure to attract throngs of people to Greenfield. If everyone was distracted by the discovery of a superhero and the quest for a huge financial windfall, it would decrease the level of fear that Grim Geoffrey needed to hatch his plan. That meant only one thing: he’d have to do something spectacular that would grab everyone’s attention while simultaneously scaring the living hell out of them.

  “Sorcery,” I said, changing the subject. “We’re doing a crash course today, right?”

  Stella nodded. “Yes, we are. I’m going to talk about pure magic, and Ruby here will fill you in on dark magic. It’s going to come at you fast and furious, so we’ll head to the back room and get started.”

  I stuffed my hands in my pockets and followed the pair down the hallway and into the back room. We walked over to the dinette and Stella motioned for me to sit down. Ruby went to the office and dragged back a flip board, then handed a red magic marker to Stella.

  “I feel like I’m back in high school,” I joked. “Is there an exam after this?”

  Ruby shot me a dirty look. “Yeah, Conrad, it’s what will happen during the summer solstice. You’ll know you passed if you live through the night.”

  “Point taken,” I said, trying to sound apologetic.

  Stella popped the cap of her magic marker and drew a large circle in the middle of the flip board. “This circle represents living energy,” she began. “It is neither good nor evil, it simply exists. It surrounds both the near and unseen worlds and is responsible for preserving the life force of those who occupy both realms. It is neither conscious nor unconscious.”

  “What does that mean?” I asked.

  “It means that living energy is neither self-aware, nor is it unaware at the same time,” said Ruby. “It is not a conscious body or a blind force that simply exists for the sake of existing.”

  This was way over my head, and all I could think of was a mental image of Luke Skywalker sticking his hand out and summoning his light saber while he dangled upside down in a snow cave as the drooling Wampa snow beast approached.

  “You mean, like The Force?” I asked, immediately feeling like a complete idiot.

  Stella gave a huge frown. “No Marshall, this isn’t like Star Wars,” she continued. “Try to think of living energy as an enormous stew of supernatural energy. It occupies our bodies, for example, acting as a catalyst for our thoughts and emotions. Living energy is the spark of life at the precise moment of conception. When we die, the living energy that dwells inside all of us leaves our bodies and returns to the source.”

  She drew a series of smaller circles around the large circle in the middle of the flip board. “Living energy acts similar to how you can draw power from evil intent, but with one qualification. Just as evil intent is a supernatural battery that fuels your body, evil exists because of living energy, and that’s where sorcery comes in.”

  “Living energy can be shaped to serve a purpose,” said Ruby, pointing at the smaller circles. “Sorcery is the influencing of events, objects, people and physical phenomena by mystical, paranormal or supernatural means. It refers to the practices employed by a person possessing a combination of skill and conscious focus to wield this influence. Spells are simply a complex variety of tools that help the individual strengthen their focus.”

  “Like a compass, then?” I asked. “Spells direct a sorcerer’s capacity to influence living energy?”

  “Pretty much,” Stella nodded, as she pulled a small glass sphere out of her frock and placed it on the table. “Marshall, I want you to levitate this orb.”

  “Sure thing,” I said, beginning to concentrate. I imagined the orb lifting off the surface of the table, and invoked the feeling of lifting a box off the floor. I closed my eyes tightly, increasing my focus, and drew on the energy in my body to make it move. But nothing happened.

  “It’s not moving,” I said, rubbing my temples.

  “That’s because Ruby put an immobilizing spell on it.”

  Ruby grinned.

  Stella pulled another glass orb out of her frock and placed it a few inches from the first one.

  “This time, I want you to focus all of your energy on the levitating the first orb. When you’ve done this, you’ll want to channel that energy into the second orb.”

  I stared at the second orb and then closed my eyes. I imagined the first orb lifting off the ground, and I directed the mental image onto the second orb.

  “Open your eyes, Conrad,” said Ruby. “Keep concentrating on the second orb.”

  I looked at the second orb and noticed the enchanted orb floating above the table. “Wow,” I said, as the floating glass ball fell to the floor and shattered.

  Stella clapped her hands and smiled warmly. “Well done, you’ve just passed your first lesson.”

  “I don’t get it,” I muttered. “What happened?”

  Ruby took the second orb off the table and flipped it in the air, snatching it with her left hand. “What you succeeded in doing, Conrad, was a counter spell. The only difference is that you didn’t use an incantation or a potion. Instead, you used your mind.”

  “Try to think of the second orb as a crude representation of spell recipe,” Stella added. “Your goal was to levitate the first orb, but you needed the second orb to get the first one in the air.”

  “So a spell is like a ratchet wrench,” I said. “If I want to remove a bolt, I need to use the right socket. I can’t just remove the bolt through sheer force of will.”

  “Bingo,” said Ruby. “You channeled living energy to levitate the first orb by focusing on the second one. Don’t get me wrong, as a Vanguard, you could have levitated the first orb if it didn’t already have a spell on it. This experiment allowed you to draw on your pedigree as a sorcerer to shape living energy.”

  “So what you’re saying is that if my mom hadn’t been a witch, I wouldn’t have been able to break the spell on the first orb.”

  “That’s right,” Stella said. “Now you understand at a basic level, how to channel living energy for the purpose of magic. What we’re going to do next is employ this basic function of sorcery to find a portal to the netherworld.”

  “Whoa, now!” I said. “Don’t you think that’s somewhat beyond my scope of understanding?”

  “Under normal circumstances, I’d say yes. But the summer solstice is staring us straight iu the face and we have to begin preparing the spell,” s
aid Stella.

  “So what am I supposed to do in the meantime? I can’t go back to my apartment,” I said.

  “You can stay at my place,” Stella said. “You might as well stay there too, Ruby. It’s probably best if we all stick together right now.”

  “Is it protected by strong enough spells?” Ruby asked. “We don’t want some nasty-ass Minion trashing your place, too.”

  Stella smiled. “Like Fort Knox,”

  “Fair enough,” I said. “I’ll take Ruby to her motel so she can check out. Got an address for me?”

  Stella grabbed a piece of scrap paper from the counter top and scribbled the directions to her house. “Here you go,” she said, handing me the address.

  “Got a key?”

  “I’m a witch, Marshall, my house doesn’t have a mechanical lock. You need an incantation.”

  “Ah, what was I thinking?” I asked. “Care to share it with me?”

  Stella’s face turned beet red.

  “Just put your hand over the doorknob, click your heels three times and say ‘there’s no place like home,’“ she said.

  I glanced at Ruby, who had a huge smirk on her face.

  “You’re kidding, right?” I asked. “Do I have to wear ruby slippers that come in my size too?”

  Stella rolled her eyes and shook her head. “Very funny, Marshall. Take Ruby to get her things and for crying out loud, don’t touch anything in my house.”

  Chapter 39

  Ruby and I had just pulled out of the Super-8 parking lot when we spotted our first kook.

  He was dressed in a vintage 1966 Batman costume, complete with a yellow plastic utility belt, and he walked along the sidewalk as if his costume was something he wore every day.

  “Looks like some people are taking the news about Greenfield’s mysterious flying man a bit too seriously,” I said.

  “What did you expect?” Ruby grumbled. “America is a nation that embraces the cult of celebrity, and you, my friend, are the star du jour.”