So, all, I finished this story, and in doing so, made some changes. I inserted a section in the middle of some already published sections. Rather than go back to the two sections I previously published, i am just going to repost the whole thing here. Sorry for the re-read, anyone who has read the earlier posts...
Dan
Introduction
The Midwest needs some mystery villains, too!
Setting
Chicago, Illinois : April 1951
Convention of the Society of American Magicians (SAM)
Bilmoore Maglimar carefully placed the small, heavy, battered wooden chest into his duffle bag. Though the hastily hand-lettered sign on the cluttered vendor table proclaimed
Magical curios purchased in exotic bazaars and marketplaces around the world!’
the stuff remaining on the table screamed instead:
‘Junk recovered from trash heaps around the city!’
Bilmoore had just spent 20 minutes searching through that junk and he was sure that one of the items he’d selected was worth way more than what he was paying for the entire lot.
He headed for the door, far across the convention floor. The scruffy bag bouncing off his leg clashed with his neatly pressed and expensively tailored traditional formal stage magician’s attire of black tuxedo, tails and a tall black top hat. As he rounded a corner, he couldn’t help but overhear the loud, rude vendor he’d just dealt with crow to other vendors nearby about the sale he’d just made, and the mark he’d just fleeced.
“I love it in the last few hours of a convention, you know, when all the rubes are out looking for bargains. Say a bunch of junk used to belong to a famous magician, throw in an old trunk, tell ‘em you’re letting it go at a bargain rate so you don’t have to carry it home, and bingo - 4 times the price you coulda got otherwise, plus, you don’t have to carry it home!”
Bilmoore wasn’t unhappy with the price he’d just paid. He had never believed for a second that the old, wooden chest had once belonged to the great early 20th century magician Dante Taguchi, who had mysteriously vanished shortly after the end of World War II. But NOBODY laughed at him or called him a rube and got away with it! He stepped into a a deserted booth and sat down, closed his eyes, and concentrated. After a few minutes, he stood up again and walked casually back the way he’d come.
He stopped a few tables away - there was another customer at the target table. A very attractive woman - short and curvy, her outfit screaming ‘gypsy’ so loud it seemed more like a costume, with long straight black hair and heavy makeup.
‘Wants to look older,’ was his first thought.
‘I’ve seen her before, too - she was in that seminar earlier.’ He decided to wait until she left before he took his revenge on the vendor.
She apparently didn’t like the tall, skinny jackass either - her voice was loud and getting louder as she argued over one of the pieces of junk he was selling.
“You want me to do WHAT? I’m supposed to crawl under the table and get you off for a piece of junk!?” From farther off in the room, the off-duty police officers that SAM had hired for security had noted the commotion and had started hurrying this way - impeded somewhat by a small flow of curious civilians who were now moving in the same direction.
“You said you wanted that statuette but didn’t have enough to pay it,” he whined. “I was just trying to be nice to you!”
“You ratfelo fakement, there ain’t nothin’ in the world would make me interested in ‘being nice’ to a putoi like you.” She picked up the edge of the table, dumping everything in his exhibit on the floor. He tried to back away, stumbled and fell, and was inundated in the barrage of junk.
Behind her, she heard someone say in soft but insistent tone
“KNITS SAG NUTS!”
Instantly the people gathering to watch the confrontation were assailed by an incredible stench, and turned and started running away. Within seconds, security was fully occupied with controlling the stampeding crowd. Only the girl and the stage magician were unaffected by the stench. He took her by the hand and started to lead her away, and for the moment, she was too stunned by events to resist.
But she recovered quickly and pulled her hand free. “You cast that stink bomb spell, didn’t you? Who are you, anyway?”
“I did, indeed. Bilmoore Maglimar at your service, also known by the stage name ‘The Magist’. The guy is a real jackass, and I was going to do it anyway, but with a chance to help out a really hot gypsy chick about to get into trouble, why, how could I not?” Though he was only a bit taller than she was, his voice was a deep, sonorous, bass. “Good job burying him in his own crap, by the way!”
For a second, he thought she was going to blow up at him, but then she laughed. “When you ARE the really hot gypsy chick, you learn very young what trouble really is. Believe me, nothing that guy or security could do even comes close to ‘trouble’.” She paused for a moment, then, “My name’s Val, by the way. He didn’t ask you for sex too, did he?”
So he told her the story. “Can I see what you bought?” she asked curiously. “You must have got the last of the good stuff, because there was nothing but junk on that table when I got there.”
“A lot of what I have is junk, too. I didn’t want him to know what I was really interested in or he woulda jacked up the price. Jackass!” He chuckled. “Let’s find a quiet place to sit,” he suggested. “What were you looking for? I wanted a couple stage props for use in my show.”
“Me, too. I’m a fortune teller, just looking for some knick-knacks that fit the Gypsy theme.”
He opened the chest and pulled out a half dozen small items, each wrapped in old newspapers. Most he placed in the middle of the table. One, he unwrapped and showed her but didn’t put down. “These two pieces are what I really wanted. It looks like a real magical sceptre that somehow got broken.” The two pieces were rods of stone, one maybe 4 inches long and the other about a foot. The longer piece was topped with a globe of what appeared to be cloudy glass covered in black soot, about the size of a squash ball. He carefully fitted the jagged ends together, and proudly displayed the wand. “A little epoxy and some decorations, and ‘good as new’.” He fingered some sockets in the upper piece as he spoke. “I should be able to get some costume gemstones that fit in these. I wonder if it had real gems in it when it was young? Anyway, once I get it dressed up a little, it should really class up my act!”
She reached out to touch the wand, then snatched her hand away as if it was red-hot. “Funny you should say ‘when it was young’! That thing is OLD - and it really IS a magic wand, for controlling earth, one of the 4 ancient elements. You had better be careful with it.”
“How could you possibly know that?” he wondered, then “Oh, I get it - you’re a fortune teller.” He sounded serious, not mocking. “Can you tell me anything else?”
“You should get it fixed as soon as possible. As long as it’s broken, it’s leaking away whatever magic still remains. Once it’s empty, it’ll be dead.” She looked sad.
He quickly wrapped the wand in paper, making sure to keep the ends together. “You can have the rest of this stuff,” he swept his hand across the items on the table. “I’m going to go find a hardware store!” He stood up and before she could make up her mind, he was a dozen paces away.The broken wand
She looked at him walking away determinedly. ‘Well, so much for his interest in ‘a hot gypsy chick’.’
She shrugged, then turned back to the table, decided that his last words included the duffle bag. She picked up a fist sized item, which turned out to be a dented statuette of a toad, made of pink tin. She smiled as she re-wrapped it and dropped it back in the chest, moved on to the next, a softball-sized wad of colorful silky scarves… ‘Well, I’ll be able to use some of this stuff, for sure.’
They had a Yellow Pages directory in the conference office, and Bilmoore quickly located a nearby Deuce Hardware store. He bought some extra strong epoxy along with some c-clamps and rubber bands, and then hurried home. In his small efficiency apartment, he glued the two pieces of the staff together, painstakingly aligning them perfectly and carefully removing the excess epoxy. He then arranged the C-clamps and rubber bands to apply tension while the glue dried.
He almost dropped the whole contraption in stunned surprise when some alien emotions invaded his mind - a feeling of relief, and thanks, superimposed over exhaustion and the need to rest. There were no words, but he knew that somehow the repaired wand was communicating with him. There were other emotional overtones as well that were too confusing and alien to immediately sort out. And then there was quiet; Bilmoore’s impression was that the wand had fallen into exhausted, pain-free sleep, the first such sleep it had experienced in many years.
Awed, confused and a little frightened, Bilmore set the sleeping wand gently on a pillow. The instructions on the epoxy said it would be completely set in 8 hours. He could investigate further then.P. Horowicz, Stones of Elegance
The staff at P. Horowicz was excited, in that subdued sort of way that was appropriate for the most posh, expensive, ostentatiously understated jewelry store in Chicago. Mr. Verso, an older, expensively dressed, distinguished-looking gentleman, with graying temples and carrying an ornately hand-carved cane, clearly of the highest means, was looking for an ultra-expensive birthday gift for his beautiful niece, who was turning 16 tonight. He was simply gushing about his plans to take her to dinner at The Pump Room, where he would introduce her to all his acquaintances among Chicago’s upper crust. The more sophisticated staff members smirked and leered at one another when they thought no one else could see, while others didn’t quite get the joke.
In the store’s most private viewing chamber, Runcible, the manager, had shown Mr. Verso several pieces, and had finally produced a pendant that captured the distinguished gentleman’s interest - a circular amulet with 6 large stones, each a different color, set equally spaced around the rim. ‘The perfect thing,” Verso agreed. His voice changed, and his next words were spoken in the basso profundo of Bilmoore Maglimar:
“EMIT POTS!”
Runcible and the female clerk who had been assisting him stopped moving. Bilmoore had spent several hours prepping this spell, and he knew he had maybe three minutes before it faded. He twisted the black sphere on the end of his walking stick, which split, revealing the stone wand he’d purchased at the SAM convention not long ago. It had been covered in grime and broken, now it was repaired and cleaned almost to the point of being polished, though the 6 sockets along its length were still empty. The black globe on the end, which had originally appeared to be glass covered in soot, was now clean and shiny black, and miniature stars seemed to sparkle deep inside the translucent sphere.
Bilmoore touched the wand to the amulet. Silently, the 6 stones floated free and swarmed around the rod, and then each settled into one of the empty sockets. The shape of the gemstones didn’t quite match the sockets, and for a second or so, the gems deformed and writhed until they matched their new settings, then settled firmly in place. A dim black aura came into being a couple of inches from the surface of the sphere on the end, which now seemed to ‘glow’ with a light that appeared to be black.
“Stones, come to me!” He wasn’t sure whether he actually needed to speak his commands to the wand, but he was sure he would learn with practice. Meanwhile, speaking the commands helped him focus his will. All the gems in the room floated into the air and converged on him. “Wall, open!” he waved the wand at the marble wall, and a hole opened. He stepped through into the alley, where he spent several seconds removing his disguise - a tearaway ‘expensive’ suit, combing the gray from his hair, and pulling 2” lifts from his shoes. Then he strode confidently onto the street and merged undetectably into the stream of pedestrians on the sidewalk.
It had taken Bilmoore about a week to work through the emotional communication from the wand, and in the months since then, he’d heard nothing else from his new possession. But he’d eventually deciphered the wand’s name, Stonebender, and interpreted some of the message as directions on how the scepter could be recharged. He’d carefully cleaned the stone wand, sanded the epoxy join until it was practically undetectable, and polished the globe. After some research, he settled on a suitable location nearby - Thurston Quarry. He drove south on a weekend and scouted for an area of the vast quarry not currently being worked. Sneaking in during the night, with a carefully shuttered lantern, he approached a sheer cliff of solid rock. He held the wand near the rock face.
Eerily, a small tunnel opened silently in the solid rock, and Bilmoor placed the wand into the hole, which then closed as silently as it had opened. He’d marked the spot and returned a week later - and the same hole had reopened as he neared the location, and the wand had floated out into his hand. A carefully planned series of experiments had showed him some of the power he was now capable of commanding, though he knew that until the sockets were filled, with real gems and not stage jewelry as he had originally planned, the wand wasn’t yet fully empowered.
And now it was. And it was time to introduce the world to the real power of the Magist!
First Date
The Indy 500, 1951
“…of the days we spent with you…” Ambrose Ampere sang along with the Purdue All American Marching band as they finished a medley of college fight songs with, of course, ‘Hail Purdue’. He and his date, Priscilla Carbon, were sitting in the crowded bleachers in the infield, near the Start/Finish Line for the Indianapolis 500.
“They’re very good, and the music is rousing and it’s getting everyone excited for the race, but I'm jealous,” Priscilla complained to her date. “Why didn’t they do MY school’s fight song?”
“You just told me you went to Marble City University - does a school of journalism even HAVE a fight song?” She punched him playfully in the arm, and he changed the subject. “Whose speech do you think will be longer and more boring - the Governor or the Mayor?”
“Oh, the Mayor, for sure,” she laughed. “I cover him every day for the Ledger, and it always takes him at least 10 minutes and hundreds of words to answer a simple ‘yes or no’ question.” Her voice dropped to a whisper and he had to lean closer to catch her next words. “Don’t tell anyone, but I went snooping in his office yesterday during his pre-race press conference, and I found his notes for today. We’re going to hear, ad nauseum, how because of his heroic support, today’s prize money is almost half a million, the highest ever, and the solid gold trophies are worth a fortune, and the cars are the fastest ever, and on, and on, and on… all due to him.”
She paused and looked at him curiously. “What are you feeling? Wouldn’t you rather be on the track right now?” Almost like she was doing an interview.
“I’m thinking of giving up racing entirely,” he spoke slowly. “It was a deadly wreck. I tried a few laps in another team’s backup car the next day, but every time another car got close, I couldn’t help but slow down and steer away.”
“The TV team got the whole thing on camera, you know?” He nodded slowly; she continued excitedly. “Whiplash has already been permanently banned from all US racing associations and the Indy DA is thinking of filing charges of at least reckless endangerment against him. To me and a lot of other people it looks like he deliberately pushed you off the track. It’s lucky you were thrown free before the car exploded.” She paused again. “In the film, it actually looked like you were flying…”
He interrupted, his voice harsh. “I haven’t been able to sleep without nightmares in the week since the crash. Do you think we could change the subject?”
She looked around hurriedly, trying to think of something else to talk about. She pointed at the stage where the gathered celebrities were waiting for their turn at the microphone for their own chance in self promotion. “What’s going on down there?”
A loose cordon of policemen circled the stage, tasked with keeping racegoers from crashing the on-stage party. Even over the general hubbub from the crowd, the band, and a number of cars who were firing up their engines, those close to the stage could easily make out an unusual spoken phrase, in a low bass that almost seemed to make their stomachs rumble:
“EYE NUTS!”
The cops didn’t seem to see the small man, dressed in a black tux and top hat, who strode proudly past the police cordon and mounted the stairs. The Governor was stunned and looked around wildly when the microphone was yanked roughly from his hand. Those nearest the Governor pushed back away from the eerily floating microphone, and several people were knocked over the edge of the stage. And then a deep sonorous voice boomed from the PA system.
Those farther away from the stage, including Priscilla and Ambrose, as well as the television audience, now had a better view of the man holding the microphone. He had shiny black hair and a striking Fu Manchu mustache and beard, and a red cummerbund added color to his outfit. He raised his right arm, displaying a jeweled scepter which seemed to glow with ‘black’ light!
“Ladies and Gentlemen, you will NOT be seeing a race today. Instead, you are witnessing a much more awesome event - the debut of the Magist!” People were starting to react - some closer to the stage, who were able to see the Magist, began to approach, while others turned and headed towards the nearest tunnels to get out of the infield.
The Magist with Stonebender
“Stonebender, take hostages!” the Magist seemed to be addressing his wand, and at his command, four snakelike arms of stone began thrusting up from the ground nearby. Almost instantly, they were taller than the stage. They reached into the crowd of celebrities and grabbed some of the important personages around the waist, then retreated and held their captives in a ring around the stage, dangling with their feet a few feet above the ground.
The Golem of the Brickyard“These so called ‘guests of honor’ are now my hostages. As further protection from any interference…” He pointed the wand at the Start/Finsh line section of track, just in front of the stage:
“Stonebender, raise… the Golem of the Brickyard!”The grandstand was already emptying as fast as people could get away, but the evacuation turned into a panicked mob at the sound of an incredibly loud rumbling moan which caused the grandstand to tremble. Then the trembling became actual shaking, like a small earthquake, and then the source of the earthquake became clear, as a section of the track suddenly… came to life and sat up?
A rough rectangle of pavement, about 5 feet long and about 18 inches deep, suddenly folded upwards, and by the time it was vertical, it had deformed into a humanoid trunk, with a vaguely defined head, shoulders, arms and torso. The stone arms pushed down against the track, and the rest of the body was torn free. The golem struggled to stand, morphing as it moved into a more easily recognizable statue of the Magist, roughly 10 feet tall and made of living stone, standing in the debris of what had been the Start/Finish straightaway.
By now, everyone was screaming and racing from the grandstands towards the nearest exits. Ambrose tried to stay close to Priscilla, but she was somehow able to maneuver across the torrent of people, while he was simply swept along. Just before she slipped from sight around the corner of a trailer on the infield, she turned and yelled back to her date: “I have to call in the story. I’ll be OK!” Realizing he was unable to fight upstream to where she’d disappeared, Ambrose redoubled his own efforts, to move across the stream, and was able to similarly slip out of the rush at the corner of another trailer.
A couple of seconds later, a few of the crowd whose gaze had been knocked skyward in the crush, were heartened by what they saw. From not far away, a blonde man in a white t-shirt with a big red V on his chest over black running shorts rose into the air and raced toward the stage.
“Look! It’s Voltage! We’re saved!” At that cry a number of the rushing mob turned and looked. This didn’t stop the rush towards the exit, but perhaps the level of panic went down as people realized that their home town mystery hero was now on the job, protecting Indianapolis.
Those that didn’t turn instantly away from the sky then cried out again. “Look! It’s a flying woman! Who’s she?” She had black hair and wore a black strappy one-piece swimsuit. She, too, was racing toward the stage.
The two barely avoided a violent mid-air collision. The woman spoke first. “Voltage! My name is Marvel Maid and it’s my first time out. How can I help?”
“Can you stop the golem?” She nodded, although a dispassionate observer (of which there currently were none) might have noted a frown of doubt race across her face. “OK, I’ll free the hostages and then we’ll take out the bad guy.” She altered direction instantly.
Twin lightning bolts flashed from his hands, shattering two of the stony arms, and the Governor and Mayor fell to the earth, stunned but mostly uninjured, and two more bolts, and the Race Director, and a student in a Purdue Marching Band uniform, clutching a clarinet like a club, crashed nearby.
“Ah, Voltage, the so called ‘Mighty Man of Lightning’. Unfortunately for you, I am well prepared for this encounter.” A spire of rock, laced with threads of silver and coppery red, shot skyward at missile speed. Voltage managed to blast it with twin lightning bolts, but there was almost no effect, and the spires simultaneous crashed against his jaw and stomach, knocking him unconscious. He was thrown backward and crashed into the crowd.
“As for you, Marvel Maid, I am confident that my Golem is easily superior to your puny powers - whatever they are!” Indeed, Marvel Maid had reached the golem, and was flying around it faster than the golem could react, landing hundreds of punches in a period of seconds. Some of the punches actually broke lose chips of stone, but the damage was ‘healed’ almost instantly by new stone flowing up from the feet of the golem to the injured areas. Meanwhile, the golem flailed away wildly and while Marvel Maid was much faster, and able to avoid the statue’s mighty blows, the Magist didn’t fight fairly. A tentacle arm of stone stretched up out of the track and as she dodged the golem, it wrapped around her. Before she could escape, the stone monster smashed her with a two handed blow to the head, knocking her unconscious.
“Mystery heroes? Yes, I guess it IS a mystery why you are called heroes,” the Magist sniffed disdainfully.
“Capture the loot!”he commanded as he waved Stonebender again. A cup of stone rose out of the ground, surrounded the safe that held the prize money and the table holding the trophies, and closed up into a sphere. The golem started striding across the infield, growing larger at each step.
“Sailing Ship of Stone, come afloat. Away!”The ground next to the stage erupted as a mass of rock forced its way to the surface, eerily similar to a submarine rising from the depths of the ocean. But what broke through the surface of the earth was a mass of stone, which quickly reshaped itself into a stone replica of a pirate sailing ship, scaled to this size of a tractor trailer, complete with forever full sails and a pirate flag, all the same rocky color. The Magist strode grandly across the gangplank, struck a heroic pose on the foredeck, and the ship began moving, followed by the golem now carrying a ball the size of a VW Beetle.
The pointed prow of the pirate ship easily cut a path through the track and the outside restraining wall. Outside, it picked up speed, pushing up a bow wave through pavement and ground with equal ease, and leaving behind a curious furrow. By the time pursuit got organized, it was trivial to follow the path of the departing Magist, but about 5 miles away, just inside the city limits, it ended in a deserted rest area along side a highway. The golem was now a statue of the Magist, standing next to the highway and waving in greeting to passing motorists. And the playground area now had some new playthings, as the ship and sphere, now split in half, had been abandoned as well.
A spectacular start to a promising criminal career! And Indianapolis had a popular new tourist attraction.
A Few Days Later
“Outta my store now, punk, or I’ll have the coppers here in 5 minutes. You can’t bring that hot $#!* in here! Captain Catapult and the whole force are looking for the Horowicz loot and you think you can waltz in here and fence it?” Pop, the proprietor of Pop’s Hock Shop on the South Side of Chicago, was livid.
His potential customer had on jeans, a dingy white t-shirt under a shiny black leather jacket, his hair was combed back in a greasy DA, and he was holding out a jeweled bracelet for Pop’s perusal. Pop was pointing to a poster, pinned to the store’s ‘Community Bulletin Board’. In the poster, a stern-visaged likeness of Captain Catapult was holding a replica US Post Office ‘Most Wanted’ poster, with the giant headline screaming “Stolen Jewelry - BIG Reward” above half a dozen photos of the missing Horowicz jewelry.
“Catapult put me in the can a couple’a years ago, and I guarantee, ain’t nobody never sendin’ me back there again. Just ‘cause I’m an ex-con, and I run a hock shop, that don’t make me no fence.”
The kid was shouting now, too. “Lissen, old man - I got a buddy who told me he does business with you alla the time. So don’t preach no Gospel to me! And I ain’t scareda nobody with a pansy name like Captain Catapult, know what I mean? You read about the Indy 500 gettin’ shut down, right? That was me, the Magist, and I wiped out that milksop Voltage like he was nuthin’.”
Even Bilmoore, a talented and highly trained sleight-of-hand artist, was impressed with how quickly the pistol appeared in Pop’s right hand. He flicked the barrel twice in shooing motions toward the door.
“Sonny boy, you best go talk to your invisible friend who isn’t there, and tell him if he sends anybody else crooked around here, I’ll track him down and shut him up. And some advice - don’t go showing that Horowicz stuff around town. You might think you can handlle Catapult, and don’t need to worry ‘bout the law - but so’d a lotta other guys. Mosta them are doin’ hard time. Now beat it!”
Bilmoore eased cautiously out of the store. Without a prepared spell or Stonebender in hand, he was as vulnerable to bullets as the next guy. He thought about taking a few minutes to wreck the place, but decided that could wait until after he’d dealt with Captain Catapult. He ducked into an alley, tossed the greasy wig into a trash bin, reversed his jacket and slipped on a dickey with a collar, then rejoined the flow of traffic on the sidewalk. In the store, Pops was on the horn with the Chicago Police Department switchboard, asking to be connected to Detective Tony Spinelli.
Some of That Detective StuffAs soon as he’d seen the report about the stone-controlling wizard who had disrupted the Indy 500, Chicago Police Department Detective Tony Spinelli was sure that Mr. Verso, who’d almost certainly stolen jewelry from P. Horowicz last month and then apparently exited the building through a magically opened hole through a marble wall, had been the Magist in disguise. Their faces weren’t the same, according to witnesses and the TV coverage, and Verso was several inches taller than the Magist, but they both had deep bass voices.
The hole Mr. Verso had left in the stone wall at the jewelry store suggested that Verso had the power to to command stone, and the Magist certainly did. Tony didn’t believe that two villains with similar powers, popping up at almost the same time, could be a coincidence. The phone call from Pops seemingly confirmed this theory. Not only was the Magist a powerful sorcerer, he was also an accomplished disguise artist. From his outfit, name, showmanship and disguise ability, Tony deduced that he may have been a performer, hopefully in the Chicago area. A little research tentatively confirmed this deduction. Apparently the Magist had recently upgraded his status from obscure stage magician to powerful mystery villain, but he’d decided to keep his stage name. Before that upgrade, he’d had a small ad in the Yellow Pages and an agent.
From the agent, Tony had learned a fair amount about Bilmoore Maglimar, a small man with a big ego who had few friends and who had frequently boasted about his bright future - once he got his one good break. By all accounts, Maglimar was highly skilled in sleight of hand, but his abrasive personality, regularly displayed on stage, had usually interfered with his ability to land, and keep, paying gigs. Lenny, the agent, hadn’t seen or heard from his client in almost 2 months - ever since he’d gone to the most recent SAM conference. He had initially considered this strange, since Maglimar had been confident that he was going to learn new conjurations and techniques at the conference in order to upgrade his performances. But after seeing the news reports on Indy, the agent agreed with Tony - the Magist was his former client.
Lenny had provided an address, and Tony had barely arrived at Bilmoore’s small apartment in time. Bilmoore had failed to pay rent in the last two months, and hadn’t been seen in the building in at least 6 weeks, so the landlord had carted the contents of his to the curb, waiting for the trash collector. Detective Spinelli had confiscated some of that stuff as evidence, mainly papers. He’d felt bad that the rest of the useful items were about to be carted off to the dump, so he had called in a few favors he and some other cops had delivered some clothing and furniture to the orphanage in his precinct.
The most recent papers were from the SAM conference. Folded in half and stuffed into the program, he found what he considered the most interesting clue.
The text on the page was professionally printed on Society of American Magicians letterhead in a unique font. What made this page stand out to Tony was that when he wasn’t looking directly at the paper, each of the categories was filled out with several blurred lines of bright blue text, but this text disappeared when he looked directly at it.
He decided he needed to get hold of Dr. Sunsubiro.
Dr. Anna SunsibiroThe Society of American Magicians had her contact information and it wasn’t long before Tony had her on the phone. She apparently lived in Pennsylvania. The phone connection was poor, and the long distance charges were going to cost the department a pretty penny, but that wasn’t his worry.
“Yes, know Mr. Maglimar I do, Detective Spinelli. In fact, expecting to hear from or about him this week, I’ve been. Though disappointing, it is, the police to hear from. Detective, startled easily are you?”
Tony was having a little difficulty following her words, and that last question caught him off-guard! “Not sure how you define easily startled, ma’am. I’ve seen a lot of startling things as a cop, and I know how to get past them if required. And, please call me Tony, it will make conversation smoother.”
“Smoother conversation I plan to make, Tony. For a second, attend.” She must have held the headset away from her mouth, because he could barely hear and couldn’t understand her next few words, but the last one sounded almost like a muffled sneeze - and the air over the telephone wavered, almost like a heat-induced illusion, and then, there was a woman’s head floating above the phone.
“Whoops!” Tony was startled, but he’d been warned. “More magic, huh? That’s a great trick - can you see me like that too?”
She nodded. “Yes, I see something similar, your head floating above the phone. And I hear you much more clearly now than over the wire. You can hang up the phone now that our magical connection is established. You should be able to understand me more easily as well. English is not my native tongue, but the communication spell should compensate for that.”
Indeed, as he watched her face closely, her spoken words didn’t quite match up with her mouth movements, almost as if watching a foreign movie dubbed in English. “Much better, thank you. So please, tell me what you know about Bilmoore Maglimar, the Magist.”
“The Magist, as you name him, attended my seminar The Magic In You. I give these seminars regularly as part of my research into Magical and Psychic Phenomena. Frequently, seminar attendees have unsuspected magical abilities. During the seminar, I try to help people understand these abilities, which may not even be wanted or welcomed, and offer them a free consultation on the best ways to make use of them. As he has demonstrated, Mr. Maglimar has such abilities. And apparently has made great strides in learning to use them.”
“Please tell me more about the seminar,” Tony requested.
The Magic in You Seminar“So, the Magist has somehow acquired a powerful magic wand that gives him control over stone,” Tony summarized. “And even without the wand, he has his own power to fall back on.”
“His own power is currently strictly limited, but he can apparently use spells to conceal his presence, at least,” she agreed.
“Well, then, I may need some help to bring him in.”
Heroic Interlude
Captain Tom Manley, USMC (formerly retired) and his wife Connie were discussing his upcoming ‘involuntary return to active duty’ over a casual lunch in the living room.
“So I’m scheduled to report to Pensacola Tuesday for a week of refresher, and then join the Aviation Officer Candidates School for the duration - they want even more fighter pilots, even faster than they’re turning them out now. The offer your brother submitted for us on that fully furnished house near the base has been accepted, so we can move in as soon as we get there.”
Connie nodded. “Thanks for taking care of that - I wasn’t looking forward to living in military housing, or moving all our stuff, either! I talked to Ma, and she and Arnica Johnson are all ready to move in here as soon as we’re out, too. My brother’s friends Ajax and Wilbur are going to help them move.” She wasn’t eager to leave Chicago, but she hadn’t been thrilled about living here alone indefinitely until the Korean War was over, either. And knowing that the house would stay in the family made her feel good.
She changed the subject to business. “Susan and Jack have made us a good offer on C Cubed.” Chicago Charters and Couriers, the family business. “We’ve agreed on the offices, hanger space and 2 of the planes, but we keep the Thunderspark. The bank’s approved the loan, so all that’s left is wearing out our hands signing about a bazillion pages. I’m glad we can leave the business in such good hands!”
“So that just leaves… ‘the man in red’,” Tom replied slowly. “We’ve been discussing his retirement anyway; this seems like the perfect opportunity. Being an instructor in the Corps is gonna be a 24 hour a day job, and who knows just how old I’ll be when the war’s finally over? I think it’s about time to leave the mystery hero business to the next generation. Too bad I can’t pass on the cape, but so far, it hasn’t worked for anyone but me. I guess Chicago is just going to have to adopt some new heroes!”
A light in the living room began to flicker rhythmically. “I guess retirement won’t be starting today, though,” he continued ruefully. “Should have known better than to tempt fate that way.” He quickly shed his outer clothes, revealing a bright red short-sleeved legless leotard with a black stripe around the waist where a belt would be and black lettering of “C. C.” on the chest. He opened a drawer on the end table pulled out some other red and blue clothing items. Red knee-high slipper socks and red gloves slid on quickly, then he donned the red cowl with attached blue cape.
“When villainy appears…” he tugged the cowl down to cover his eyes… “Catapult responds!” His voice changed as the cowl slipped into place, dropping an octave. As he was finishing, the phone buzzed. He answered before the second buzz. “Hello, Mr. Mayor.”
He was on the phone for less than a minute, asking some basic questions: “Who? Where? When?” and listening intently to the answers. Finally, he nodded and confirmed to the caller, “I’m on my way!”
He looked ruefully at his wife. “Some new sorcerer, calls himself the Magist. Waving a wand that seems to be able to animate stone, and thinks that makes him tough. Boy is HE in for a surprise!” They both smiled, amused at some unspoken joke. “I should be back for dinner.”
Saturday Morning Cartoons
Saturday morning cartoons on KCGO TV were just about over, soon to be followed by the live Noon O’Clock News program. The station’s normal lazy Saturday routine was rudely shattered when the front door exploded inward, followed by a moving statue of Captain Catapult, followed by the Magist, who strutted boldly into the reception area . He was wearing his traditional stage magician’s garb, but his tux, hat and (lift) shoes were all brand new, exquisitely hand-made and hand-tailored, and much more expensive than his prior attire.
“POTS EMIT!”
he commanded. He’d spent about half an hour concentrating on the spell earlier, and knew it would last maybe 5 minutes and encompass the ground floor of the building. He made his way past the now motionless station employees and followed wall signs to the second floor news studio. A few steps behind him walked the Catapult Golem, the floor cracking and splintering with each step it made. The stairs were pretty much ruined when it reached the second floor.
The mage waited impatiently next to the time-stopped crew operating the number 1 camera. As soon as he saw human movement, he began booming loud, forceful commands.
“Anyone who doesn’t follow orders is DEAD!”
To the camera crew: “As long as you keep this camera rolling and live, on air, you’re safe.” One of the three crew members on the main camera tried to run - the statue grabbed him and slammed him back into place, totally ignoring the man’s screams, punches and kicks. “The rest of you clear out!” The male anchor and the rest of the crew, no fools, rushed out the many studio entrances. Within seconds, everyone but the female anchor, the camera crew, the Magist and the Catapult Golem were out of the room.
“Let them go, you villain!” she yelled, and charged at him.
“Stony, grab her!” He pointed, and the statue grabbed her and lifted her off the ground. “Thanks, you have just volunteered to be our hostage.”
He turned to the camera and bowed. The crew was white with fear, but they didn’t dare run - or stop the camera. “I’m the Magist. The beautiful Nell Mayhew (the female anchor) is now my hostage. You guys stop working, and you lose her. Anybody tries to stop me, she gets squished. Stony, squeeze her just a little.”
They couldn’t see the statue squeeze, but Nell felt it, and even though she tried not to, she screamed in pain.
“Enough!” The pain stopped, but there was no way Nell was going to wriggle free. “If I get hurt in any way, Stony will squeeze her again, and without me to stop him, well, for Miss Newscaster of the Year here, that’s all she wrote. I’d hate for that to happen, she really is my favorite TV star. I was actually planning on grabbing your manly news anchor ‘Ace Duncan’ as my hostage, but he cleared out fast, didn’t he? Seems his name is just part of his phony he-man act. Lisa, here, is the only real he-man in the bunch of you.” He stopped, but nobody spoke up to contradict him.
“Remember, keep the cameras rolling and nobody else will get hurt.” Bilmoore strode boldly across the studio, again followed by the Catapult Golem, still carrying Nell. He sat casually on the news desk, facing the cameras, and began speaking.
“I am the Magist, and Chicago is now MY TOWN. And today, I’m going to prove it by destroying Chicago’s supposed protector, Captain Catapult. So, you Big Red Slingshot, meet me in Grant Park in 15 minutes, or me and your doppelganger Stony, here, are going to start knocking down buildings. Be there, or be square, Cappy boy!”
To the camera crew: “You guys will probably get some sort of national news award for this coverage. Pan to the wall…” the camera swung around. The studio wall faced onto the main street. “Watch the wall open!” He waved the wand, and a circular hole opened in the marble wall, starting small and expanding until it was easily big enough for the 12’ statue to pass through unhindered.
As the Magist and his Golem, still carrying Nell, moved toward the street, one member of the camera crew jumped in front of them. “Take me as your hostage and leave Nell!” he demanded. The Magist considered for almost no time. “Pick him up, then put her down,” he ordered his stony slave. He waved his wand again as he stepped through the hole in the wall. “Avalanche, arise!”
Beneath them, the street shuddered, and then a 60 foot long 2 masted schooner with fully rigged sails, composed entirely of reshaped and sculpted pavement and stone, rose slowly and majestically out of the street, accompanied by a cacophony of noise such as few had ever heard before. Since Indy, the Magist had practiced creating different components of his sculpture from different colored varieties of stone, so this time, the ship had white sails, each displaying a black emblem - a top hat, and a black and white pirate flag, shaped as if by a full wind. And the name Avalanche was emblazoned on the hull in glittering letters that looked like gemstones.
The Magist casually stepped through the hole in the studio wall onto the rising fore deck, and Stony followed, carrying the camera operator.
The ship began moving sedately but majestically down the street toward the park, as if propelled by a gentle breeze. As it easily cleaved the pavement, a magical ‘bow wave’ arose, and everything in the path of the ship was tumbled to one side of the street or the other, including cars that were unable to turn off onto a side street in time. The street did not magically self-repair after the stone ship passed by, leaving behind a deep ditch that quickly began to fill with water and sewage released from hundreds of broken pipes. The noise was tremendous, and everyone nearby later compared the experience to surviving a major earthquake. A cloud of dust billowed into the air behind the slowly moving and dispersed slowly down the side streets.
“They’ll remember me in Chicago for a LONG time,” the Magist crowed to himself in satisfaction as he calmly overlooked the trail of destruction he was casually leaving behind him. “Lucky for Chicago the TV station is only a couple of blocks from the park!”
The Earthquake by the Lake
It was a brilliantly sunny day, no clouds in the sky, and the park had been crowded. The approach of the Avalanche had been slow, stately, and majestic, and people had been able to get out of the way - but the landscape had no such options and now was devastated in a wide, straight line - a ditch 15 feet deep and twice as wide, with mounds of dirt heaped along the edges, shattered trees, light and telephone poles, some roaring flames where broken gas mains had ignited. Where the ship had wrecked water lines, there were geysers, and the trench was slowly filling with dirty water. A gray hump of dust spread out slowly from the trench, turning the landscape a dingy white as it settled.
At the end of this line of destruction, the Magist had walked across a stone gangplank to the undisturbed meadow of the park. Their prisoner was left on the deck of the ship, in a cage made of stone bars.
High in the sky, the Magist spotted the dot that was the incoming Captain Catapult, who was descending like a ballistic missile. A wave of the wand, along with a spoken command… “Throw rocks!”
The statue picked up some large rocks and hurled them. Captain Catapult was in no danger from rocks thrown from a quarter mile away, but the people and city he protected were. He reached out and casually caught the first incoming rock, aimed carefully, and returned it back at the statue, more than twice as fast as it had come at him, then he chased down the other two the statue had thrown, in turn launching them back towards the villainous pair. The two latter rocks were deliberately aimed at the side of the Avalanche - the objective was to force the Magist to avoid the deadly hail of shrapnel that would be produced when the rocks shattered against the side of the ship of stone. While the bad guy was occupied with ordering his wand to protect him from flying stone shards, Captain Catapult dropped to ground level - and then approached by flying inside the trench, shielded from view by the mounds of dirt and the cloud of dust.
The statue had been struck by the incoming rock, and virtually exploded from the impact. Barely in time, the Magist had realized the danger. “Cover me!” he yelled as he dived to the ground. A circular wall of stone had erupted from the earth around him, closing into a shallow dome. He was nearly deafened by the explosion of the statue, and the dome was shaking from the force of shrapnel, and then another rock-against-rock explosion, and more shrapnel, and they yet again. Finally there was silence for a couple of seconds, and he cautiously opened a window. Not seeing the hero, he dispersed the dome and waved the wand at the shattered statue and pile of stone cannonballs. "Magist Golem, arise!” All the loose stone in the area immediately flowed together, including stones from the mounds along the trench, and a golem, over 20 feet tall and a perfect likeness of the Magist, struggled to rise - just as Captain Catapult flashed out of the cloud of dust and came to a landing at its feet.
“You know what a catapult does - it launches large projectiles of stone at high speed, right?” The red-clad hero reached out and touched the giant golem - which was instantly launched into the air at high speed, out over the lake. “I don’t get to show off much these days, but I didn’t choose my name just because I can fly!”
“Stop him!” Bilmoore waved the wand, and arms of stone rose from the ground, trying to pummel or grab the hero. Each stopped moving instantly when it touched him - but they slowed him down, as he had to break through the fence of stone pillars in order to advance. The Magist was still a rookie at battling mystery heroes, but he wasn’t stupid. “Domes of stone, contain him!” Concentric rings of stone grew up around Captain Catapult, but before they could close over top, he launched himself straight up.
“Still, I CAN fly. No use punching my way through those things, when I can fly over them!”
“Protect me!” Another wave of the wand. Catapult pointed at the Magist, and the direction of his flight changed, and he rocketed towards the criminal mage, and all kinds of stony things erupted from the ground in his path. While it seemed that nothing of stone could hurt him, he couldn’t command stone as the Magist did, so he either had to go around or through all the obstacles.
“Hank Sauer!” Two arms of stone grew from the ground, and grabbed half a telephone pole, and slammed it into Captain Catapult like a home run swing by the Mayor of Wrigley - and the hero was blasted through the air, tumbling and out of control, until he slammed into one of the mounds, and tumbled over and rolled down the other side into the trench.
“Holy Cow, that HURT!” he mumbled to himself, or maybe he used some stronger words he’d learned in the Marine Corps. ‘Gettin’ caught by surprise, just like a boot in his first hand-to-hand drill… remember that when you’re teaching them to fly, Tommie boy!” He stood up and literally shook himself, after he’d determined that he was battered but not broken, he spoke again. “Semper Fi!” then pointed at the sky and launched himself into the air.
Meanwhile the Magist was realizing something similar: ‘Before you take the stage, you practice every trick, you practice your timing, you even practice your spontaneous funny retorts! You don’t just go on stage and throw a bunch of tricks at them!’ He figured Catapult would be back in a hurry and his wand didn’t seem to be helping much. ‘He who fights and runs away, stays free to fight another day!’ he misquoted in his head, while running over the possibilities his own power provided.
“TON EYE DRAWER!”
he shouted, as loudly as he could while concentrating on the effects he wanted. Without prior preparation, and with such a poor fit between the words and the effect he wanted to produce, his own spell would only be effective for only a short time and the range would be limited, but if it hid him from Captain Catapult for a minute, that might be enough. He ran toward the edge of the park, shedding his new outfit to reveal t-shirt and shorts. None of the hundreds of incautious people pressed up against the wrought-iron fence surrounding the park seemed to notice when he slipped out of the gate and into the crowd.
XUVALU
As he eased through the gate, Bilmoore was intercepted by two people, neither of whom he recognized - a Chicago cop and a tall woman, with blue skin, in a blue and white skin-tight outfit. She was bald on top, with long, brunette hair starting at her ears. The cop spoke first.
“Bilmoore Maglimar, you are under arrest.”
He didn’t have a spell prepared, but maybe the time stop spell, spoken with emphasis and the focus of the moment. But the blue woman was quicker:
HUVWY YPOHO NUVOZ GNQIJ XUVALU!
OK, then, the wand. He’d slipped it into his waistband - he reached for it, but she spoke again:
DIZKH ODPIQ QOKJV YNOKU ZDYYK XUVALU!
Instead of closing around a wand of polished stone, his hand closed on a rough piece of wood, which blocked his frantic mental and spoken commands. By now, Bilmoore had recognized Dr. Aeon, widely acclaimed as the most powerful mage on Eorth. Without Stonebender, he knew he had no chance of winning a magical duel with her. He began to raise his hands into a boxing stance but Tony was faster, and better trained. The detective grabbed one of BIlmoore’s arms and spun him around, then grabbed the other arm and pulled them both together behind his back. Dr. Aeon helped, and in an instant the cuffs were on.
“Bilmoore, this spell is designed to prevent you from using your powers until a court pronounces you innocent or you have completed your lawful sentence,” Dr. Aeon informed the two of them
QYDOP NYLGS UNWEN GYZOP OWIUZ
KYPWI ZGNQI AZGUV SUNUZ ZYJOZ
JOUNQ PYZYA ZKOKY PSONQ SINJY
WQVOG OKSUN VIDLA VNOZG OZJON XUVALU!
Bilmoore could feel something change in his head. It didn’t hurt, exactly, but it felt as if some part of his mind was suddenly a long way away.
“I’m sorry to do this, Mr. Maglimar. I know what it is like to have outside limits placed on your magical powers - it’s like having a part of yourself amputated. Which is why I'm not using the Ritual of Draining, which would permanently remove your powers.” She turned to Spinelli. “You shouldn’t have any unusual problems with him now, Tony. I’m sorry I couldn’t have arrived sooner. Now I need to help Captain Catapult with the damage and any rescues.”
She turned and flew toward the stony pirate ship and the trough of damage it had carved through Chicago.
Bilmoore Maglimar, a.k.a. the Magist, was found guilty on several counts and given a five-year sentence to the Special Powers Division Maximum Security Prison in Pennsylvania.
