"The Revelation of Apokalips, Book Ten, Chapter Eleven."
Bruno Mannheim held the Crime Bible open before him as he recited from the profane text. The looming exterior of the island's primary manufacturing facility provided a fitting backdrop for his sermon. Blinding flashes of electricity lit up the factory's barred windows. Glowing plasma gushed from towering black smokestacks. Lightning streaked the night sky. Thunder added booming exclamation points to Mannheim's stentorian reading:
"There were Four Ages of Apokalips in Its anguished, bloody morning."
Dr. Sivana and his fellow scientists were gathered on the beach in front of the factory, eagerly awaiting the unveiling of the Four Horsemen. Miscellaneous aides, igors, thugs, and fem-droids filled out the crowd. The threat of an imminent tropical downpour failed to dampen the audience's enthusiasm and impatience. "Thrilling, isn't it?" Sivana commented to T.O. Morrow. He held out a fresh bag of microwave popcorn that he had nuked just for the occasion. "Not that I believe any of this irrationalist nonsense." Apokalips, he knew, was a distant planet ruled by a malevolent alien overlord, but Sivana figured that, from a strictly scientific perspective, extraterrestrial myths were no more reliable than the Earthly variety. He flashed a buck-toothed grin at Morrow. "But Boss Mannheim has such a wonderful reading voice."
"The Age of Hunger," the ganglord proclaimed, "ruled by Yurrd the Unknown, in the formless time before time ..."
The wide front doors of the factory creaked open, spilling an incarnadine glow onto the scene outside. The expectant faces of the congregation were bathed in an unholy crimson radiance. A trio of gargantuan figures emerged from the depths of the factory, stepping'out into the night. Hunchbacks in HazMat suits prodded the towering creatures on. The open doors offered a peek at the gruesome scene behind the Horsemen. Mutilated cattle were strewn across the floor of the factory. Bovine blood splattered the walls. A rush of hot air carried the stench of the slaughterhouse. A pallid technician gagged at the odor. Looks like we missed feeding time, Sivana thought. He munched happily on his popcorn.
"The Age of War, when Roggra sat on a throne of skulls and rivers ran hot and red with blood ..."
As huge as a tank, the Horseman in question led the pack. He gripped the door frame as he hauled his mechanized bulk out into the open. Cannons and gun turrets bristled all over his riveted crimson armor. Targeting lasers protruded from metallic hatches on his body. A pair of glowing yellow lenses peered from his burnished red helmet, above his jointed metal jaws. His head was sunk low between his massive shoulders. Gears clanked and servomotors hummed as he scuttled forward, armed and armored to the max. The blazing lenses glared out at the world with unremitting hostility.
"Lord of the Age of Fevers was Zorrm...."
Plague tanks bulged upon the creature's back. Winding metal pipes connected the tanks to nozzles in Zorrm's hose-cannons, capable of spraying defoliant, contagion, and corrosion. More humanoid than Roggra, he wore a black leather uniform covered by a network of flexible pipes and valves. A single red eye bulged in the center of his grotesque visage. Throbbing veins pulsated atop a hairless cranium. Breathing tubes were fused directly to his jaws. Toxic waste sloshed loudly with every ponderous step; Sivana thought he recognized elements of Chemo in the monster's design. That would be Dr. Death's contribution, he guessed. Ivan does love his poisons. ’
Zorrm's very presence gave Sivana a queasy feeling. He sniffled and wiped his nose on the sleeve of his lab coat. Looking around, he saw that the rest of the audience was looking a bit green around the gills as well. A weakling of a lab assistant vomited onto his shoes. Apparently, the "Lord of Fevers" was already living up to his name. Atta boy! Sivana thought proudly. He took his sudden nausea and swollen glands as evidence of a successful experiment. Zorrm was functioning perfectly.
"Then came Azraeuz, silent king of the Age of Death, who rode a pale steed across a desert of ash and bone at the black dawn of the Fourth World."
More bestial than humanoid, the final creature carried a gigantic scythe that glowed with lethal energies. The horns and skull of some enormous steer masked his face. Black feathered wings jutted from his shoulder blades. A long, leathery tail dragged behind him. Shaggy legs, complete with cloven hooves, supported the giant monster's weight. A dying rose was engraved upon his bronze breastplate. Sivana wondered if the lovely Veronica Cale was responsible for that embellishment. It had a woman's touch....
Azraeuz limped haltingly, as though suffering from multiple sclerosis. Like his inhuman brothers, he was still adjusting to his newborn existence. He leaned upon the staff of his deadly scythe.
"Before Gods, before the New Gods, the Titans ruled the Void. No flesh can bear their presence, but certain mighty forms are to be constructed through which the Kings may express their shattering cosmic judgment."
The three Horsemen posed behind Mannheim, gazing out at a world that had yet to suffer their prefabricated wrath. Many of the thugs and technicians surrounding Sivana drew back involuntarily. Pansies, Sivana thought disdainfully. This is just what we've been working to accomplish all this time.
"Only bodies of stone and steel and storm can carry such Riders and herein is written how such vessels shall be made...."
Sivana admired the scientists' handiwork. It had been an intriguing challenge, using modern technology to bring to life artificial entities that matched the cryptic prophecies of the so-called Crime Bible. The Horsemen were proof positive of what wonders the world's greatest cybernetics experts, terato-biologists, genetic engineers, germ warfare specialists, and plain old mad doctors were capable of, given unlimited resources. They were nothing less than the unification of science and superstition... in the form of unstoppable death machines.
fust wait until humanity sees what we've brewed up here! Sivana gloated. A veritable Monster Society of Evil...
Mannheim also seemed pleased with the results. "Indeed," he declared, clapping the heavy tome shut. "No one in history has ever had the money, the genius, and the ambition to dare what Intergang has done. The Four Horsemen have risen. They have come again!"
"The eyes are based on my death lens designs," Dr. Cyclops boasted to everyone within earshot. He appeared oblivious to the blood trickling from his nose. "That was my idea."
Sivana rolled his eyes. "What do you want, Cyclops? A certificate?"
The Horsemen scanned the crowd with their baleful eyes. They seemed to be looking for someone. Roggra opened his mouth to pronounce a death sentence:
"BLAKKAH-ADUM."
Zorrm nodded in agreement.
"BLACK ADAM MUST DIE."
Sivana cackled fiendishly. I wouldn't want be in Black Adam's shiny yellow boots, he thought, when the Horsemen make their way to Kahndaq. He took another bite of popcorn. Serves Adam right for being such a goody two-shoes lately.
The crowd applauded with varying degrees of trepidation. People dabbed at bloody noses and ears. Others clutched their stomachs and groaned with nausea. Sneezes and coughs intruded on the presentation. Dr. Boris Crabb, a relative newcomer to the island, scratched his head in confusion. Wisps of gray hair came away from his skull. He counted on his fingers. "What happened to the Fourth Horseman?"
Veronica Cale brought him up to speed. "Yurrd the Unknown, the hunger-lord, rode out before the others." A silk handkerchief kept her nosebleed under control as she gazed uncertainly at the fearsome entities she had helped to create. Apprehension, and perhaps even a trace of guilt, showed upon her elegant features. "Oh God, what have we made?"
God had nothing to do with it, Sivana thought. This is all our doing.
The popcorn was delicious.
The blizzard blew against Renee as she trudged up the icy slope, toward the heart of the storm. A wool scarf covered her face. She squinted into the stinging snow and wind. The climb was murder. Every step was an ordeal. She couldn't even feel her toes any more.
I could really use a cigarette right now, she thought. Good thing I didn't pack any.
A pair of wooden poles rested-heavily atop her shoulders. The rucksack was slung across her back. Renee held on tightly to the poles as she dragged Vic behind her on a makeshift litter. Strapped down onto the travois, he writhed futilely against his restraints. "Wh-who-who d-d-do you think you are?" he raged deliriously. His teeth chattered as he spoke. Racking coughs punctuated the tirade. "D-don't know anything ... just ... ju-just shoot you in the h-h-head ..."
Renee heard the pain creeping back into his voice again. Just keep talking, Charlie, she thought. At least it let her know he was still alive, if only barely. Too bad you're not making any sense.
"D-d-dump your body ... butter ... b-butterflies ..."
Butterflies? Renee wondered where Vic's fevered memories had taken him. Somewhere better than here, she hoped. The glacial wilderness stretched endlessly before her, all the way up into the forbidding black clouds. Second thoughts beset her. Would Vic have been more comfortable back in his cozy hospital room? Was she being selfish subjecting him to this? Probably, she admitted. But I can't lose another partner. Another friend.
Gravity, cold, and exhaustion conspired to slow her down. She paused for a moment just to catch her breath, no easy task at this altitude. She gulped down the thin air; her head throbbing for lack of oxygen. She pulled down her scarf, exposing chapped lips and reddened, windbumed features. A metal canteen poured ice water down her throat. She carefully lowered the litter onto the snow and turned around to check on Vic. His withered, pain-wracked face tore at her heart.
"I can't lose vou too, Charlie," she whisDered 1------T u~;r. *■*
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right path, but there was no way to be sure. The blizzard had hidden any tracks or landmarks beneath a featureless white shroud. The cascading snowflakes made it almost impossible to tell where she was going. For all she knew, she was halfway to Tibet by now.
She couldn't help recalling how easily the Black Marvel Family had flown her to Nanda Parbat before. She had flirted with the idea of calling upon Isis and Black Adam for help, but she'd had no idea how to contact them now that relations between Kahndaq and the USA had completely broken down in the wake of that bloodbath in California. Besides, it sounded like Isis and her family had their own problems to deal with these days.
Just as well, Renee thought. This is my responsibility, not theirs. She owed Vic that much. Where would I be now if not for him? Probably drinking and whoring myself into an early grave. The thought of facing the future without him filled her with dread. Who will I become if you're not around?
"We're almost there, Charlie," she said, more out of wishful thinking than anything else. Bending down, she kissed his forehead with her shredded lips. His bloodshot eyes stared past her, tracking the phantoms of his past. Straining lungs whistled damply as he sucked in the frigid air. "You've got to stay with me." She choked back a sob, finding it harder and harder to keep lying to herself about their chances. "It's not far now. Please stay with me."
She lifted the top end of the travois back onto her shoulders and tried to soldier on. Her strength abandoned her, however, and she stumbled forward onto the snow, almost dropping the litter. Landing on her knees, she succumbed to fatigue, just for a second, and closed her eyes, a single moment of weakness that threatened to linger on forever. Hadn't she read somewhere that freezing to death was just like falling asleep? She started to drift off....
No! Her eyes snapped open. I can't give up. Not now. Not when there's still a chance to save him.
She looked back at Vic, whose labored breathing seemed to be getting worse by the second. He was gasping for air like a fish out of water. He shivered uncontrollably beneath the heavy blankets Renee had swaddled him in. She hated the awful sounds coming from his chest. His lips were blue.
"I'm sorry, Charlie. So sorry." She crawled over to the litter, until she was kneeling beside his trembling body. The sub-zero temperature seemed to be competing with the cancer to see which could kill him off first. Shrugging off the rucksack, she retrieved the Question's rumpled trench coat from the pack and laid it on top of him like a blanket. An idea occurred to her, and she fished out his old belt buckle. Her thumb found the hidden switch and his rolled-up mask dropped out of the secret compartment into her palm. "Nothing left to keep you warm ... only this thing."
She gently smoothed the mask over Vic's emaciated features. His ravaged face vanished beneath the blank pseudoderm. "Maybe provide some insulation." She fumbled with the buckle, her thick gloves making her clumsy. "Now, how do you ... ?"
A metallic click rewarded her efforts. A chemical odor accompanied the hiss of Tot's ingenious binary gases as they were released from the buckle. To Renee's dismay, the howling wind carried most of the vapors away, but she blew enough of the fumes onto the mask to glue it to Vic's face. The eerie blank visage stirred painful memories of their earliest encounters. Vic Sage was the Question once more, perhaps for the last time.
"I think maybe I made a mistake, Charlie." Ferocious gusts whipped up the snow around her as she rose unsteadily to her feet and loaded the rucksack back onto her stooped frame. Peering into the storm, it almost seemed as though the swirling white powder was forming icy question marks in the turbulent air. Renee could barely see five feet in front of her. Frostbite nibbled at her extremities. "I think maybe I've gotten us both killed."
Just like Kate warned me. Renee wond ered. Serves me right for not listening to her. She wondered if she would ever hold Kate again, or if Kate would ever find out what had happened to her. I never even got a chance to ask her how she became Batwoman.
She lurched erratically through the snow, dragging the travois and its fragile occupant behind her. Was she even moving in a straight line? Renee had no way of knowing. She tugged out the compass and stared at it in bewilderment.
"Don't know which way to go," she confessed. "I'm lost, Charlie."
In more ways than one.
She slipped on a patch of ice and toppled over onto the snow. Damn it! she thought frantically as the upset litter tipped over onto its side. Scrambling back onto her feet, she hurried to make sure Vic was okay. A trail of bright red blood stained the snow behind them. She heard him choking.
"Charlie!"
Righting the litter, she saw that the Question's mask had already begun to peel away from his face. Blood seeped through the false flesh covering his mouth.
Panic overcame her. "Don't leave me," she begged. "Oh God, oh God-Hold on, Charlie." She remembered Detective Crispus Allen's lifeless body lying in a puddle of blood on a moonlit Gotham street, and that time in Kahndaq when she'd thought she had lost Charlie forever. "Hold on, please hold on, I'm here. I've got you. ..." Her head and shoulders sagged as she bent over him in despair. Bitter tears froze against her cheeks. "I... I can't do this again...."
The storm was finally starting to ease up a bit, but it was too little, too late. A sense of utter failure sliced her soul to ribbons, cutting even deeper than the wind.
"You never answered my question," Vic pointed out.
His voice, faint and hoarse as it was, startled her. Her heart missed a beat and she stared at him in amazement. The flapping mask came away from the top half of his face, exposing his sunken eyes and sweaty brow. Alert blue orbs . met hers. For the first time in days, he was really seeing her.
He was Vic Sage again, at least for moment.
"Charlie?"
"Get this thing off my face," he wheezed. "Hard enough to breathe as is."
Renee clumsily peeled the rest of the mask away. She let the wind dispose of it; within seconds, the crumpled scrap of pseudo-flesh had disappeared into the snowy wastes. She had no idea what to make of Vic's sudden lucidity. Was this a miracle ... or a momentary blessing before the end?
Vic grinned up at her. Aside from the blood smeared around his mouth, he almost looked like his old self, at least if you didn't look too hard. "What the hell are you doing, Renee?"
"Trying to get us to Nanda Parbat." She undid the straps binding him to the litter. Tears blurred her vision as she cradled him against her chest. "Trying to save you, Charlie."
"But you can't. I told you, some things you just have to accept."
"I can't!" she blurted from her heart. "I need you. I don't know who I am without you!"
Vic's tremulous hand touched her cheek. "It's a trick question, Renee." He coughed up blood. "Not who you are, but who are you going to become."
Exhausted by the effort, his arm dropped to his side. He slumped back into her arms. Renee sobbed inconsolably Please, she prayed desperately. Not now. Not again.
"Time to change," he murmured with his last breath. "Like a butterfly. .."
His body shuddered and fell still. His lungs stopped whistling.
Vic Sage had asked his final Question.
The storm died away. The wind stopped blowing. The last of the snowfall settled onto Renee as she sat clutching Vic's limp body. Looking back the way they had come, she saw the trail of blood stretching across the snow behind her—almost in the shape of a question mark. One last trick, Charlie? she thought, mourning her friend. It was just like him to leave her with a final puzzle. How'd you pull that off?
A bright shaft of sunlight penetrated the overcast sky, lighting up the frozen terrain around her. Turning her gaze away from the bloody question mark, she saw before her a remote mountain valley dominated by an imposing pagoda-style temple. A clutch of familiar huts preceded the temple. The tinkle of wind chimes blew down the valley. Prayer flags waved hello.
"Oh my God," Renee whispered.
The irony was unbearable.
She had reached Nanda Parbat.
Lightning flashed outside, causing the lights in the laboratory to flicker. Thunder competed with the Muzak. Driving sheets of rain pelted the plate glass windows. Turbulent storm clouds concealed the sun and emptied the beaches. Not even Ira Quimby was working on his tan today.
Dr. Sivana looked up from his microscope in irritation. "Haven't those ridiculous Horsemen left already?"
It seemed to Sivana, and he had no doubt that a thorough meteorological analysis would bear him out, that the weather had been the pits ever since the final three Horsemen had come off the assembly line. The Monster Society, as he liked to think of them, had long since lost their novelty value, at least as far as Sivana was concerned. He glared impatiently out the window at the island's pier, where even now Roggra, Zorrm, and Azraeuz were being loaded into an unmarked cargo ship for transport to Intergang's staging area in Bialya. Their deployment boded ill for Black Adam and the rest of Kahndaq, not that Sivana cared. Unlike Adam, he had no sentimental attachment to any Third World pigsty. He was simply anxious to see the Horsemen on their way.
The sooner they're gone, the better.
He cast a baleful look at the overhead lights, as though daring the impudent LED array to brown out again, then turned back to his work. Notes and diagrams, written on everything from graph paper to cocktail napkins, littered the cluttered cubicle. The chemical formula for an unbreakable synthetic cobweb was scrawled on the back of a lunch menu, next to the schematics for an antifrequency "mute ray" capable of deadening all sounds, including, hopefully, the magic word of a certain Big Red Cheese. Hunching over an acid-stained counter, he sorted through the scattered documents, looking for a particular set of notes. Test tubes, beakers, and a half-finished neutron grenade served as paperweights.
"You know what's ridiculous?" An unwanted voice disturbed his concentration. Sivana looked up to see Doctor Tyme standing outside his cubicle. The man's clock-faced countenance looked as absurd as ever, as did his garish cape and costume. "They cancelled the Time Tunnel revival after only one season." He quivered in outrage. "The CIA knows that's my favorite show!"
Sivana glowered disdainfully at his paranoid colleague. He hoped, for Tyme's sake, that the man had more on his mind than the fate of some inane television program. "Well?" he demanded brusquely.
Bristling at Sivana's tone, Tyme put on a show of pompous indignation. "So, has the 'great' Thaddeus Sivana found any trace of my missing fifty-two seconds?"
That again?
“I wasn't even looking." Sivana nodded at his microscope. "But I did find a world of microscopic naked Amazons who worship you as a god."
"What, really?" Tyme elbowed past Sivana in his haste to get to the microscope. "Let me see!" He bent eagerly over the lenses and fumbled with the focus controls. "I knew there had to be a world somewhere that values the revolutionary work of Doctor Seymour Tyme...."
His voice trailed off as he quickly realized that there were no nude subatomic sylphs to be seen. Sivana felt embarrassed on behalf of mad scientists everywhere. He shook his head in scornful disbelief. "What are you? An idiot?"
Tyme sheepishly lifted his eyes from the lenses, just as T.O. Morrow wandered into the cubicle to see what all the excitement was about. As usual, the urbane futurist sported a Hawaiian shirt in lieu of a lab coat. His fruity drink had a tiny umbrella in it. "Something interesting?"
Sivana reclaimed his microscope. "I'm looking at Time itself," he explained to Morrow, whom he respected rather more than Tyme. Morrow was a credit to the profession, whose deadly androids had bedeviled even the Justice League on occasion. "Particles of Time. I call it Suspendium." Tyme tried to slink away unnoticed, but Sivana wasn't about to let him off so easily. "Maybe you'll think twice about interrupting me again," he called after the humiliated scientist. "You pathetic worm!"
"That reminds me, Thaddeus," Morrow commented. He leaned against the wall of the cubicle, stirring his drink. "You never did tell us what happened to Mister Mind. Shouldn't he be here with us?" .
Dubbed "the world's wickedest worm" by the tabloid press, Mister Mind was actually the larval form of an ancient Venusian life form. The alien caterpillar was an inveterate foe of Captain Marvel—and a former ally of Sivana's.
"I'd forgotten all about him," he admitted. In fact, Sivana had been experimenting on the tiny extraterrestrial when Intergang's subhuman henchmen had forcibly recruited his services. The details of that rather intriguing project came back to him swiftly. "Mind was trapped in larval form, denied his full potential. I wanted to see what would happen if I irradiated the slimy little creep with Suspendium rays to accelerate his natural processes...
"And?" Morrow prompted.
Sivana shrugged. "Then a couple of monsters turned up to drag me here." The last time he'd laid eyes on the small green caterpillar, Mind had been sealed inside a transparent containment cylinder back in Sivana's old labora--tory. "I have no idea what became of Mind, but the Suspendium's been acting tricky for months now...."
He reclaimed his microscope, just as an unexpected ray of sunlight brightened up his workspace. Looking up, he saw the sun shining outside for the first time in a week. He also noted that no surprise, the nameless cargo ship had left the pier, taking the three Horsemen with them. Stormy black clouds followed the ship out to sea.
"Finally," Sivana muttered.
Maybe now he could get some serious work done.
Sunlight shone down on the palace gardens. Fragrant lilies and narcissuses bloomed amidst the verdant shrubs and arbors. Refugee children, rescued from captivity, joyfully chased each other down the winding paths. The orphans' laughter elicited a faint smile from Isis as she strolled through the garden with Black Adam and Sobek, but only briefly. Despite the idyllic setting, her heart was heavy.
"Osiris has still not left his room," she lamented to Sobek. "He will not speak to Black Adam or myself about what happened in America." She shuddered at the memory of the Persuader's gruesome death—and of Osiris' horrified reaction afterward. Nearly six weeks had passed, yet the consequences of that terrible day still haunted them all.
Sobek sighed heavily as he trudged down the path. His reptilian appearance no longer frightened the children, who had grown accustomed to the talking crocodile's presence. Afresh jogging suit clothed his body. "Osiris talks to me about it, Lady Isis. He's my f-friend." ,
"And what does Osiris say?" Black Adam inquired. Isis knew he shared her concern for her brother. "Perhaps if I should attempt to speak with him again ... ?"
Sobek shook his saurian skull. "I think a visit from you would only h-hurt right now. He believes—" He snapped his jaws shut in midsentence, as though he had already said too much.
"What?" Adam demanded. "What does he believe?"
The crocodile stared glumly at his bare feet. His slitted pupils refused to meet Adam's gaze. "He believes the power inside him m-made him kill. That he's c-cursed. That all of us are cursed."
Isis gasped and lifted her hand to her mouth. The power inside him, she thought. Black Adam's power. For a fleeting instant, she briefly considered the possibility that Amon might have inherited Adam's murderous wrath as well as his godlike attributes, but she hastily rejected the idea. It can't be true. Osiris was born of Adam's compassion, not his anger. ...
"That's absurd," Adam said, scowling.
"He is a boy," she reminded him hastily, lest he take offense at the notion. "He is trying to rationalize something he did. Something he feels incredibly guilty for."
The image of her brother, liberally splattered with the Persuader's blood, rose unbidden from her memory. She had no doubt that the villain's sundered remains were seldom far from Osiris' thoughts as well.
Adam nodded. "I understand that, Isis, but my powers did not make him kill." He looked down at his own hands, perhaps remembering the first time he killed a man, millennia ago. "He has the wisdom of Zehuti to tell him that. How can he believe such nonsense?"
Sometimes even the greatest wisdom is not enough to ease a guilty conscience, she thought. But before she could open her mouth to say as much, a thunderous boom shook the heavens. Dark storm clouds came rushing up from the south, blotting out the sun. Lightning cracked open the sky. Rain poured down upon the gardens. Drenched children ran for cover.
"By the Goddess!" Isis looked up in alarm. Goose bumps broke out across her skin. She sensed at once that this was no natural storm. Within seconds, she was soaked to the skin.
"Rain?" Black Adam sounded confused. "There were no clouds in the sky a moment ago." He held up his cape to shield Isis from the storm. His dark eyes questioned her. "Did you—?"
"No," she assured him. Whatever this unnatural tempest was, it was not her doing. Some other power was at work here. She called upon the power of Isis to calm the air above them, but the turbulent weather resisted her efforts. The wind and rain defied Nature itself.
"The gardens!" Sobek cried out. "What's happening to our beautiful gardens?" ,
Peering out from beneath her husband's cape, Isis stared in horror at the formerly lush flowers and shrubs. The unexpected downpour should have been a blessing to the plants, but the driving rain had exactly the opposite effect. Before her eyes, the fresh blossoms withered and turned brown. Rotting petals fell to earth, to be washed away by the torrential rain. They disappeared down polished stone gutters.
She reached out to lay her healing touch upon a wilting narcissus. But though she felt the Goddess's power flowing through her, as strong as ever, it had no effect upon the fragile flower, which continued to suffer from some terrible unnamed malady. The freakish rain seemed to be poisoning the garden, beyond her power to save. She tried healing a second blossom, only to meet with an equal lack of success. Isis had not felt so helpless in months. She spoke in a hushed tone.
"They're dying."
Days later, Osiris soared through the storm, seeking proof of what he already feared. Everywhere he looked was more evidence that all of Kahndaq was cursed.
His sister knelt in the muddy ruins of what had once been her gardens. Heavy raindrops streamed down her face like tears as she struggled to grow a single flower from the blighted soil. A purple glow shimmered around her extended fingertips, yet not a single green sprout answered her call. Her shoulders sagged in exhaustion. Her elegant face was haggard and drawn. The deadly rain had not stopped for nearly a week and showed no sign of ceasing anytime soon.
Forgive me, sistef, Osiris begged silently. Although her sorry state tore at his heart, he could not bring himself to face her. I never meant to bring this evil upon us.
Leaving the palace behind, he flew over the city. He saw quickly that the curse was not confined to his family alone. Food was already running short, as both crops and livestock wasted away almost overnight. Only a meager supply of rotting fruits and vegetables were available in Shiruta's many markets and outdoor bazaars. Even these pitiful foodstuffs drew large, unruly crowds, which threatened to erupt into violence at the slightest provocation.
"My child is dying! She needs food!" A crazed man, his own face gaunt with hunger, forced his way through a mob of angry citizens to snatch an overripe melon from a fruit stand. Before he could escape with his prize, however, the street vendor drew a knife and stabbed the desperate father in the chest. A woman screamed as the bleeding man tumbled against her. Another customer grabbed onto the melon and tucked it beneath his robe. Greedy hands tried to pry the precious fruit from him. The vendor cursed and slashed at the crowd with his knife, defending the rest of his produce. Blood spilled onto the cobblestone streets. Deep puddles turned red.
For a moment or two, Osiris considered intervening. Then, to his relief, a regiment of Kahndaqi police rushed onto the scene. Shouting commands, and cracking skulls, the officers broke up the riot... at least for the moment. Osiris guessed that similar scenes were taking place all over Shiruta. The starving city was like a powder keg, primed to explode.
He flew on, grateful to have been spared from having to deal with the violence himself. He didn't trust himself to use his powers anymore, not after what he had done to the Persuader. I don't want any more blood on my hands, he thought. I can't risk killing someone else!
Alas, famine was not the only predator stalking Kahndaq. Not far from the maddened bazaar, he beheld a nightmarish scene outside the city's largest hospital. Sick and dying patients were lined up for blocks outside the overcrowded facility. Frantic doctors and nurses performed triage on the evergrowing throng of patients, who appeared to suffer from all manner of noxious diseases, including cancer, leprosy, bubonic plague, smallpox, polio, and many other contagions that had not afflicted these lands for generations. Open sores and pus-filled boils scarred suffering flesh. Tumors disfigured faces and bodies. Clotted lungs wheezed for breath. Osiris saw a moaning woman, pronounced beyond hope by an exhausted physician, left to die alone on a sidewalk in front of the hospital. Many more victims looked to share her fate.
The gods themselves have forsaken us, Osiris thought despairingly. He looked away in agony, knowing there was nothing he could do to save the plague-ridden multitude. There are so many.. . !
But the hospitals weren't the only places overflowing in Kahndaq.
So were the cemeteries.
On the outskirts of the city, he came upon an even more dismal sight. Black Adam, his dark hair soaked by the endless rain, plowed through the earth with his bare fists, digging a mass grave large enough to accommodate a veritable army of the newly dead. Hearses and ambulances carted corpses by the truckload to the desolate setting. Priests and mullahs presided over countless funerals. Grieving friends and relatives wailed for their dead. Lost in sorrow, none of the mourners noticed Osiris hovering above the graveyard, hidden amidst the churning clouds and rain. Black Adam was too intent on his Herculean labors to even glance at the sky.
I've seen enough, Osiris decided. Tears leaked from his eyes as he squeezed them shut, unable to take any more. With the speed of Heru, he zoomed back toward the palace, but he could not outrace the dreadful truth he had just witnessed. Famine, pestilence, violence, and death were abroad in Kahndaq and he alone was responsible. I brought these plagues upon us with my own bloodstained hands.
Sobek was waiting for him upon the roof of the place when he finally reached home. The cold rain sluiced down the crocodile's scaly hide. His blue polyester windbreaker was zipped up tightly against the downpour. He wrung his clawed hands anxiously as he watched Osiris descend from the stormy sky.
"This is all my fault," the teen said. He stood upon the edge of the rooftop, as though tempted to hurl himself over the brink. Screams, shouts, sirens, and the blare of gunfire rose from the city beyond the palace walls. "If I had not murdered that man, I would have been able to keep these corrupted powers under control."
Sobek looked puzzled. "Do you really th-think your magic powers did this, Osiris?" The concept seemed too difficult for his simple mind to grasp. "You k-k-killed but one."
"And those around me will forever suffer because of it." Osiris envied his friend's childlike naivete. He wished that he too could be unburdened by the awful truth. "I am cursed . Kahndaq is cursed." He cast a mournful look at the unsuspecting crocodile. "You may be as well, my friend."
Fear showed in the reptile's eyes. "That would be terrible!"
"Pondering the insoluble?"
Tot entered the hut to find Renee contemplating the rose Isis had given her nearly four months ago. Even after all this time, the bright red blossom remained as fresh and vibrant as ever. She lifted it from its vase upon Tot's desk. The Crime Bible, and the professor's copious notes on the text, shared the desktop with the vase. Sunlight penetrated the window curtains. Incense flavored the air.
"How your flower can continue to live without food, water, or soil?" He unzipped his heavy parka and tossed his floppy hat onto a bronze idol of Ga-nesh. Bitterness tinged his voice. A scowl deepened the creases in the old man's face. "Wondering what keeps it going, maybe? Or just asking why it, like you, is still alive ... and Charlie isn't?"
Renee gently returned the rose to its vase. "I remember when Isis gave it to me." The former Gothamite looked as though she had gone native, trading her old winter gear in for a heavy cotton gi. Her long hair hung loose over her shoulders. A turquoise pendant dangled from her neck. A bracelet of bodhi beads was wrapped around her left wrist. "I think she knew Charlie was sick. I think she knew there was nothing she could do for him."
"I can't speak to that," the scientist said gruffly. "Where have you been?"
She shrugged. "I was on the mountain. With the monks." Her voice was uncharacteristically calm. A serene expression suggested that she had finally come to terms with Vic's death. Her stay in Nanda Parbat seemed to have taught her acceptance.
But, as Vic had taught her, appearances could be deceptive.
"You just walked off," Tot accused her. "We cremated Charlie's body, and you left without a word." Renee realized belatedly that Vic's mentor was feeling abandoned. "Not to me. Not to Richard."
Despite her'placid demeanor, she flinched slightly at her teacher's name. "Where is Richard?"
"At that ice cave of his," Tot muttered. "He wants you to meet him there." The professor sat down at his desk and reached for the Crime Bible. Apparently, he was done scolding her for the time being. "Now, if you'll excuse me, the rest of these Cantos ofCrippen won't translate themselves....
She left the old man to his work.
"Richard?"
Spring had finally come to the Himalayas, so that a flood of golden sunlight followed Renee into the cavern. Glancing around, she spotted her own face reflected in the polished planes of the cave walls, but saw no sign of the enigmatic Richard Dragon. "Professor Rodor said you were expecting me?"
"Two weeks eating rice with the monks of Rama Kushna, a change of clothes, and you think that does it?" His voice echoed off the cavern walls, mocking her. "Or is this just a case of fake it 'til you make it?"
One minute, she couldn't see him at all. The next, he seemed to be all around her, his bearded face scrutinizing her from dozens of icy reflections. It took Renee a moment to locate the real Richard amidst the countless mirror images. Without warning, he threw a wu shu style punch at her head, which she barely managed to block in time.
Whoa! she thought. What's with the sneak attack—and the sarcasm?
Instinctively, she directed a counterpunch at his gut. "Charlie wanted me to carry on for him." Richard easily deflected the blow, even as she tried to justify her time at the temple. She snapped a side-kick at him. "That's what I'm trying to do."
"No," Richard said, seeing straight through her bullshit. "You're doing what you always do when faced with loss and guilt." His voice was as calm as Renee wished she could be. "You've just changed the props you use." He caught her kick, trapping her right leg. "Agi instead of a bottle. A kick instead of a kiss." 1
Renee bounced awkwardly upon one leg. "I'm not denying my grief," she said, more defensively than she had defended. Raw emotion shredded her voice as her Zen facade began to crack. Her flushed face scrunched up.
"Just because you're feeling it, doesn't mean you've accepted it." He executed a smooth takedown, sweeping her left leg out from beneath her. Her butt slammed against the ice-cold floor. "You want to honor Sage? Then stop running from yourself."
Before she could stop him, he took her head in both hands and forced her to turn her gaze on her own myriad reflections. Instead of acceptance, the distorted faces in the ice displayed a dozen different blends of confusion, anger, hurt, and humiliation.
Renee hated the sight of them.
"Deal with who you are," he challenged her. "So you can see who you can be."
But all Renee saw was a miserable, unhappy woman who had let herself down, along with everyone she had ever cared about. Vic, Cris, Daria, Kate. She had failed them all when it mattered, as a partner, a friend, or a lover. Vic had spent his last precious months on earth trying to save her from herself, and in the end she hadn't even been able to pay him back. She had let him die right on the doorstep of what might have been his deliverance. Why had he picked her anyway? What a waste ...
Staring bleakly at the reflections, she tried to look herself in the eye. But the prospect of seeing her own guilt and worthlessness gazing back at her was more than she could bear.
"I can't!"
She twisted her head free of Richard's grasp, and violently jerked her gaze away from the damning self-portraits. Reeling, she clambered to her feet and staggered out of the cavern, leaving Richard and his reflections behind her. The looming peaks of the Himalayas dwarfed her own petty problems, but not enough to ease her anguish. No longer hidden beneath a pose of philosophical detachment, her naked pain lay exposed beneath the vast blue sky.
"Deal with who you are," Richard had said.
Please, no, she thought plaintively. Anything but that!
The monks at the temple said that Rama Kushna was the living voice of all that is and was not, the perfect countenance smiling upon us all forever. Renee wasn't sure exactly what that meant, but she kind of liked the idea of God being a woman. Certainly, the temple's gardens were like a little slice of heaven. Tucked in amidst the glacial plains and snowcapped peaks just beyond Nanda Parbat, the open sanctuary overflowed with lush fruit-bearing trees, fragrant orchids, and birdsong. Monks in saffron robes tended to the gardens, treading along stone pathways worn smooth by the passage of countless pilgrims. Prayer wheels, mounted on wooden spindles along the paths, were spun by the monks as they went about their duties. With every rotation, the rolled-up sutras inside the embossed bronze cylinders were symbolically recited. Liba-fions of yak butter or oil were offered at various small shrines throughout the gardens. Renee gave one of the wheels a spin as she entered the garden.
Why the hell not ? she thoiight. When in Rome .. .
She had come to the temple to be alone with her thoughts, but found another woman sitting on a stone bench beneath a flowering bamboo tree. Blue jeans and a flannel shirt identified her as another Westerner, perhaps a mountain hiker between youth hostels. Lustrous black hair cascaded down the slender back of the woman, who seemed to have a knack for attracting the local wildlife. An orange-bellied squirrel nestled upon her lap, while a bevy of native birds serenaded her. An iridescent pheasant perched on her shoulder, while plump white snowcocks clustered on the bench beside her, or milled about at her feet. It was like a scene out of a Disney movie.
Who's this.? Renee thought, intrigued. Snow White?
The birds and squirrels fled at her approach, showing themselves to be excellent judges of character as far as Renee was concerned. She sat down at the opposite end of the bench and shrugged off her down jacket. Having abandoned her whole Zenner-than-thou act, she had traded in the gi and Tibetan jewelry for her usual winter attire. She reached automatically for her cigarettes, then remembered that she didn't smoke anymore. Bummer.
Lost in thought, the other woman did not immediately acknowledge Renee's arrival. They sat in silence for several moments before Renee finally tried to get a conversation going. "So," she asked lightly, "what's a nice girl like you doing in a spiritual retreat like this?"
The stranger turned toward Renee, who was caught off guard by the woman's breathtaking beauty. Sapphire eyes shined from a face that put the Venus de Milo to shame. A smile lifted the corners of her luscious lips, which didn't look the slightest bit chapped despite the arduous trek she must have taken to get here. Her porcelain skin was smooth and unblemished. Goddamn, Renee thought, trying not to stare. Her heart belonged to Kate these days, but you'd have to be dead not to notice the stranger's striking good looks. The exquisite face also looked somewhat familiar. Maybe some sort of international swpermodel?
"I'm waiting for a friend," the woman volunteered, speaking English with just a trace of a Greek accent. "We're supposed to be meeting here, but I'm afraid I'm early." Her melodious voice was captivating. "Bruce's going to help me ... start a new life, I suppose you might say."
Renee caught a note of regret in the woman's tone. "The old one not working out?"
"Not exactly as I hoped, no." She sighed ruefully. Sorrow filled her eyes as she gazed out into the distance, as if looking back the way she had come. "I killed a man."
The shocking admission caught Renee by surprise. Maybe not a model then. "You have a choice?"
"I tell myself I didn't."
I know how that goes, Renee thought. She remembered the would-be suicide bomber in Kahndaq, the brainwashed girl whose life she had been forced to end. There were still times when she felt certain that there had to have been another way to stop the girl, if she had just been faster, or smarter, or less of a failure. But what that way was she had no idea.
"And yourself?" the woman asked her. "Why are you here?"
"I was . .." Her throat tightened. "I was trying to save my friend's life." She dropped her head into her hands. "He had cancer."
The woman nodded solemnly. "You have my sympathies," she said with what sounded like genuine compassion.
"Yeah," Renee muttered. A few months ago, she realized, she probably would have hit on this gorgeous stranger, hoping to drown her sorrows in some tawdry fling or one-night stand. But not anymore. Vic would have wanted her to work through her grief, not numb herself with meaningless sex and booze. And she owed him too much to cheapen his sacrifice like that, even if that left her torn apart by emotions she didn't know what to do with.
She jumped to her feet, unable to sit still any longer. "I get so angry," she confessed. "I just want to scream, you know? I'm here in Nanda Parbat for heaven's sake, and still Charlie dies of cancer." She threw up her hands in frustration. "All these miracles in our world, all the monsters and magic, and he dies of cancer anyway." She looked to the other woman for answers. "I mean, can you explain that to me? Does that make any kind of sense to you?"
"No," the stranger replied. She rose to her feet to join Renee upon the pathway. "But it was not my experience, so I cannot interpret it for you."
Renee clenched her fists, wanting to hit something. "There's nothing to interpret," she said bitterly. There's no point to any of this.
"Certainly there is," the woman contradicted her. Several inches taller than Renee, with an athletic figure of Amazonian proportions, she gazed down at Renee with such profound wisdom and mercy that Renee was instantly reminded of Isis at her most goddess-like. "You are looking for reason, and you are looking for it without. But the only reason you will find will be the reason you bring to the experience ... and that can only come from looking within." .
Renee swallowed hard. The depth of the other woman's gaze was almost more than she could take; it was as though Rama Kushna herself was staring into her soul. "It's not that I don't want to look," she insisted. "I'm dying to look. But I'm afraid of what I'll see there."
"Then that is all the more reason to do it." The woman gently laid her hands upon Renee's shoulders. The sleeves of her flannel shirt rode up, revealing a pair of bulletproof silver bracelets upon the stranger's wrists. Renee gasped in, well, wonder as she suddenly realized who the other woman was, and where she knew her face from. "It's a simple question," Diana said. "Which will have the greater rule over you, your fear ... or your curiosity?"
Renee sat in the lotus position upon the floor of the ice cave. She had the frozen grotto to herself, just as she had for at least a week now. Far from the entrance, deep within the stygian darkness in the lower depths of the cavern, it was easy to lose track of the passage of time. Hunger gnawed at her; she hadn't eaten or slept since entering the cavern days ago. Her muscles were stiff from holding the same position for So long. Her uncombed hair felt matted and greasy. The unwashed gi made her skin itch. She felt woozy, light-headed.
And yet she kept on sitting.
An unlit candle rested on the floor in front of her, next to a pack of wooden matches. She reached for the matches, then hesitated. Am I ready for this?
Even after a week of fasting and meditating, she still hadn't worked up the nerve to face her reflections once more. Sitting alone in total darkness, slowly wasting away, seemed preferable to looking deeply into her own eyes in search of ... what? Proof that she really was the weak, worthless human being she had always suspected she was? .
" Which will have the greater rule over you ? " Wonder Woman had asked. “Your fear ... or your curiosity?"
Renee knew which one Vic would choose.
Taking a deep breath, she struck a match against the side of the box. The sudden flare of ignition sounded like a rocket going off in the subterranean hush. Renee leaned forward to light the candle, then hastily closed her eyes as the glow of the candle lit up the grotto. The smell of burning yak oil filled her nostrils.
She kept her eyes squeezed tightly shut. Her heart was pounding wildly. No more stalling, she scolded herself. Here goes nothing. She took a moment to steady her heart and breathing. This is for you, Charlie.
Her eyes opened.
As before, it was like being in the middle of a funhouse hall of mirrors. The flickering light'of the candle cast dozens of reflections onto the polished walls of ice. Multiple facets captured her from every conceivable angle. Swallowing hard, Renee stared at the reflections, expecting to see her own anxious face looking back at her.
But there were no faces to be seen. The myriad reflections showed her oily black hair and soiled garments, but where her eyes, nose, and mouth should have been, there was only a blank expanse of flesh, just like the mask Vic used to wear.
What the hell? Renee thought. Her eyes bugged out. Her jaw dropped. Am I hallucinating? What's this supposed to mean?
She had come looking for herself, but had found only ... the Question.
Black Adam's long-dead family was carved in stone upon the wall of the imposing shrine. Few visited this lonely wing of the royal palace. No courtiers or servants observed Osiris and Sobek as they approached the large sculpted figures. Towering stone pillars flanked the intricate bas-relief. Subdued lighting revealed a deep crack running down the middle of the monument.
"How long do you think this journey is going to be?" Sobek asked. A halfeaten loaf of bread and a dusty jar of olives were cradled in the crocodile's arms. "I don't th-think I brought enough snacks."
"You and your bottomless stomach!" Osiris snapped. "Stop thinking about food all the time." Didn't Sobek understand how serious this was? "All of the meat in Kahndaq has spoiled. The water has made the people sick. Our land is dying, and you're worrying about snacks!"
Sobek flinched at his friend's harsh words. He looked guiltily at the food in his arms. "I'm s-sorry," he stammered.
Osiris instantly regretted lashing out at the poor reptile. "I'm sorry too. I didn't mean to yell at you, Sobek." He stared glumly at his own hands, which still felt like they were coated in the Persuader's blood. "This is all my fault. I've cursed Kahndaq because of what I've done."
He had spent weeks trying to figure out a way to make things right again. Now his guilt had brought him to the shrine before him. I need to purify myself on a pilgrimage. He ran his finger along the crack splitting the monument in two. "My sister said Adam opened a doorway to the Rock of Eternity through these statues. Look, you can see the crack."
But how was he to open it now?
"Maybe you just need to say the magic w-word?" Sobek suggested.
Osiris considered the notion. "Like what?"
"Sh-sh—" The crocodile seemed hesitant to say the word aloud, but Osiris guessed what he meant.
"Shazam?"
No lightning flashed, but a sudden rumbling greeted the name of the ancient wizard, who had first bestowed Black Adam's powers upon him. Just as Osiris had hoped, the looming statues split down the middle, revealing the hidden stairway beyond. Worn stone steps seemed to lead down into the very bowels of the earth.
"Great thinking, Sobek!" Osiris praised his friend. "The powers Adam gave me must allow us access."
The crocodile eyed the murky staircase with obvious trepidation. "It's dark down there."
"I can see torches on the wall ahead," Osiris said. "Come on!"
Overcoming his fear, Sobek followed Osiris down the long staircase until they reached the bottom of the steps. Blazing torches, mounted in sconces along the tunnel ahead, lighted the way before them. Shadows danced upon the rough-hewn stone walls. Their footsteps echoed loudly as they neared the end of the tunnel. Hideous stone demons squatted along the wall to their left, their leering faces illuminated by the braziers burning at their feet. Osiris recognized the Seven Deadly Sins from his sister's description.
"Hello?" he called out. "Captain Marvel?"
He entered a vast cavernous chamber, where he found Earth's Mightiest Mortal seated upon ci bulky granite throne. To his surprise, and discomfort, Mary Marvel and Captain Marvel Jr. stood alongside the throne. He hadn't expected to find them here too.
"The wisdom of Solomon told me that you would seek me out eventually," Captain Marvel said solemnly. "We've been waiting for you."
Captain Marvel Jr. stared at him anxiously. "Where have you been, Osiris? The TV news shows ... they show you flying right through a super-villain." He shook his head in disbelief. "I told the Titans it was staged. That it couldn't have been you."
Osiris stepped forward, prepared to take the heat like a man. "It was me, Freddy," he confessed. It broke his heart to disappoint Captain Marvel Jr. like this, especially after his former teammate had vouched for him to the Titans. "I did not mean to hurt anyone like that, but... they were about to kill Isis."
That didn't seem to matter to Captain Marvel Jr. "The Department of MetaHuman Affairs is investigating the Teen Titans for ties to terrorism because of you," he said angrily. Osiris wondered if Freddy blamed himself for trusting Osiris too quickly.
"The Suicide Squad provoked the Black Marvels to sway public opinion, and you know it," Mary Marvel pointed out, coming to the newcomer's defense. "Osiris isn't to blame for all of this, Freddy."
"No one forced him to kill anyone," Captain Marvel Jr. insisted.
Sobek tugged on Osiris' shoulder, obviously anxious to leave. He looked nervously at the petrified Sins. "I don't like it h-here."
"This is my only hope," Osiris reminded the timid crocodile. The Marvel Family, he recalled, were empowered by a different pantheon of gods than those who had imbued Black Adam with their divine attributes. Maybe Solomon, Hercules, Atlas, Zeus, and the others could lift the curse that had infected all of Kahndaq?
Captain Marvel rose from the throne. "I allowed you entry into the Rock because the Sins didn't want me to," he explained. "They know you have a good soul, despite what you've done."
"It's his powers," Osiris tried to make them understand. "It is Black Adam's powers that are doing this to me and Kahndaq." He lowered his head in shame. "Ever since I... murdered that man, our entire nation has suffered. The graveyards are overflowing."
Captain Marvel contemplated the heartsick youth. He appeared uncertain what Osiris wanted from him. "What can I do?"
"The powers you share have made you a family. Mine has only poisoned ours." Osiris held out his hands in supplication. "I beg you to rid me of this curse. Take away my powers."
"Your powers were a gift," a deep voice rebuked him from behind. Osiris spun around to see Black Adam and Isis come striding into the throne room. Adam's face and voice were stern. "They were not a curse!"
"Black Adam!" Sobek exclaimed. "Isis!"
Osiris felt caught in the act. "How did you know—?"
"You left the cavern open behind you," Isis explained. She looked more worried than angry to find him here. She gave the Marvel Family an apologetic look, as though embarrassed at barging in like this.
Black Adam laid a heavy hand upon Osiris' shoulder. "Come back to the palace," he said firmly. "This is a matter for our family, not theirs." His tone was severe. "Why would you come here when our country is in desperate need of your strength?"
"Kahndaq is suffering because of you\" Osiris blurted, pulling away from Adam's grasp. "I am suffering because of you!"
Without thinking, he slammed his fist into Black Adam's chin. Sparks flew as the blow sent Adam flying into the stone wall above the Seven Sins. Shattered chunks of rock and calcite rained down on the demons' heads. Wrath smiled broadly. ■
"Osiris!" Isis was shocked by her brother's behavior. "Stop this!"
"Can't you see it, sister?" he pleaded. "His dark powers may have made me walk again, but at the price of my very soul." Isis was clearly blinded by her love for her husband. "They have corrupted me and all of Kahndaq. In time, they may even corrupt you!"
Black Adam rose up from where he had fallen, behind the row of granite Sins. His dark eyes smoldering with anger, he started to shove Pride and Wrath out of his way. "Move aside, Sins." Centuries-old stone ground ominously.
"Keep your temper in check, Adam," Captain Marvel admonished him. He and Mary Marvel flew over the Sins and grabbed onto Black Adam from behind. "The Rock of Eternity is my home now, and T'm not going to let you crack it apart. Or carelessly free the Seven Deadly Sins of Man." They struggled to restrain Adam. "You fight us and I'll banish you to the Rock of Finality." .
Mary Marvel raised an eyebrow. "The Rock of Finality? What's that, Billy?"
Osiris had never heard the term before either.
"I'll show you when you're older," Captain Marvel promised. Now was apparently not the time to explore the subject further.
While his family wrestled with Black Adam, Captain Marvel Jr. took it upon himself to restrain Osiris as well. He twisted the other teen's arms behind his back, but that did little to quell the anguish surging inside Osiris. "You did this to me, Adam!" he accused his infamous brother-in-law. "You infected me with your power and anger!"
"Calm down, Osiris," Captain Marvel Jr. ordered. It was hard to believe that they had fought together as allies only two months ago. Everything had gone wrong since then!
"You don't understand," Osiris sobbed. "I am cursed." He fought to break free from Freddy's hold. "Let me go." His expression darkened in frustration, so that he looked more like Black Adam than ever. Isis came running up behind him. "Let. Me. Go!"
He savagely threw his elbow back, hoping to connect with Captain Marvel, but the blow collided with his sister's face instead. She was hurled backward, almost striking Sobek as well. The sound of her hitting the hard stone floor echoed across the throne room.
A hush fell over the torch-lit chamber. Concerned for his wife, Black Adam stopped grappling with Captain Marvel and Mary. "Isis!"
Osiris froze, struck with horror at what he had just done. Again! he realized. Despair washed over him. I lost control again!
"Adrianna?"
To his relief, Isis got up off the floor. But his heart sank at the sight of the blood streaming from her torn lip. How hard did I hit her?
"You're ... bleeding," he moaned. "I made you bleed." Sensing that the violence was over for the time being, Captain Marvel Jr. cautiously let go of Osiris, who barely noticed. His sister was all that concerned him now. "Are you all right?"
Isis wiped the blood from her chin. "No," she said sadly. Her gaze took in the whole sorry scene. "Thousands are dying by starvation and disease within Kahndaq. Every time I try and grow crops within our borders, they dry up and die." She shook her head in dismay. "When our people need us most, we're fighting."
She walked over to her brother. "These powers, Osiris, have enabled us to do things that have made so many others safe and happy. They are not a curse. Something that brings my brother back to me when I believed he was lost forever could never be a curse." She looked deeply into his eyes, without any trace of anger. "Something has invaded Kahndaq. Something unseen and evil. Help Black Adam and me find it. Help us stop it." Her brown eyes brimmed with tears. "Don't turn your back on your family."
Osiris did not know how to respond. His throat tightened, but the words would not come. I never meant to make you cry, he thought as he accepted his sister's loving embrace. I don't want to disappoint you now.
Leaving the Sins and the Marvels behind, Black Adam flew over the heads of the statues to join Isis and Osiris in the center of the throne room. Sobek looked on anxiously, wringing his scaly hands.
"I know it is hard to accept what happened," Adam said gently. His voice softened as he tried to get through to Osiris. "It is hard to live with what you have done. But you have more than taken responsibility for it." He spoke as one who knew much of life ... and death. "And it was you and your sister who showed me how to do that. You urged me to reveal my humanity to the world ... and make myself a better man. Now we are asking you to do the same, my brother."
Osiris could tell that Adam's words were sincere. No matter what tainted power might flow through his veins, the older man truly regarded him as a brother.
If only that was enough...!
"I'll try," he said.
Isis smiled and wiped away her tears. Encouraged by her response, Sobek crept forward to reunite with his adopted family. "I could really go for some hummus and lamb right now."
"Oh, Sobek!" Isis laughed out loud.
Black Adam nodded approvingly. "Let us return to our home." He turned to leave the cavern.
"Wait," Captain Marvel said. "The situation in Kahndaq sounds pretty serious. Perhaps my family and I can help?"
Black Adam shook his head. "Thank you, Billy, but no." Pride loomed behind him. "Kahndaq is our responsibility. We can tend to our homeland on our own ... now that we are a family once more."
They departed the Rock of Eternity.
The next day, Sobek found Osiris standing forlornly atop the palace. The toxic rain had stopped falling, only to be supplanted by a blistering drought and heat wave. The sun blazed fiercely in the sky above Osiris. The air rippled above the streets and rooftops of the suffering city. Tormented by guilt, the youth stood on the brink of a high terrace, as though on the verge of throwing himself over the edge. Not that such a leap could truly hurt me, he thought bitterly. With my powers, 1 can only hurt others.
"What are you doing up here?" the crocodile asked. "I th-thought you were meeting Black Adam and Isis." He observed Osiris uneasily. "Your sister was going to try to dispel the heat again...."
Osiris looked out over the horizon. "I'm not going. I'm leaving Kahndaq."
"W-w-what?" Sobek scratched his head in confusion. "But what about what you said? At the Rock of Eternity?"
"I said what they wanted to hear," Osiris admitted. "That's all. Adam may be able to live with what he did, but I can't." The awful sound of his elbow slamming into his sister's face played over and over in his memory. He saw again the blood dripping from her injured lip. "As long as I have these cursed powers, I need to be far away from anyone else."
"B-but that's it, Osiris!" He sounded desperate to change his friend's mind, to keep Osiris from leaving. "You can rid yourself of your powers. Just speak Black Adam's name and free yourself of the curse."
Osiris hesitated. Could it truly be as simple as that? Once I change back, I could vow never to say the magic ivords again. I could stay Amon forever.
"But then ..." Sobek winced at the full implications of what he had just suggested. He placed his claw over his snout, perhaps wishing he had kept his jaws shut. "Oh, Osiris, you will not be able to walk...."
Osiris glanced down at his legs. Although they were strong and sturdy now, he still remembered the pain he had felt when Intergang's beast-men had crushed his bones to powder in that hellish temple beneath Bialya. He recalled how weak and crippled he had felt, only ten weeks ago, when he had briefly shed his powers before a gaping crowd in Metropolis. Did he really want to stay that way for the rest of his life?
"Of course, Sobek! That must be my penance." It all made sense now. This was the only way to make things right again. "Maybe then Kahndaq will be free from death and disease and hunger!"
The loyal crocodile did not try to dissuade him, now that his mind was made up. "S-say it, my friend."
"Step back," Osiris warned. Moving away from the ledge, he strode to the center of the terrace and looked up at the sky. He took a deep breath and braced himself for what was to come. Despite his newfound conviction that this was his only hope, he trembled at the enormity of the sacrifice he was about to make. But there was no turning back, not if he truly wanted to atone for his crimes.
"Black Adam!"
A mystic thunderbolt struck the youth, momentarily hiding him within its blinding glare. But then the brightness faded, and Amon Tomaz collapsed onto the rooftop. A simple cotton robe had replaced Osiris' heroic uniform. Twisted limbs sprawled limply across the ceramic shingles. Amon felt a dull ache coming from his mangled legs, but he didn't care. He smiled through the pain, free at last of the unnatural abilities that had made his life a misery.
"The gods," he murmured. "Adam's vengeful gods... they're gone. I don't hear their voices anymore." For the first time in months, he felt like himself again. He gazed up at the nearby crocodile. "You were right, Sobek! Perhaps my life will return to normal now. Maybe I will be happy again, and all of Kahndaq will be as well."
He reached out to his friend, figuring that Sobek would lift him up from the soggy rooftop and help him inside, but instead the crocodile just stared at him with a strangely inscrutable expression. For the first time, he felt uncomfortable in the creature's presence. "Sobek?"
. Without warning, the reptile lunged forward and sank his teeth into Amon's throat. Blood sprayed across Sobek's snout as his jaws clamped down on the crippled boy's neck. No longer invulnerable, Amon's flesh was tom apart easily by the crocodile's jagged teeth.
He's killing me! Osiris realized in shock. He didn't understand, but he knew that his only hope was to regain his powers right away. "Bla-Black ..."
Sobek didn't give Amon a chance to complete the invocation. His powerful jaws bit down hard, crushing his victim's larynx. Yellow eyes glinted with cold reptilian glee as he released his grip on Amon's throat. Licking his chops, he gazed down at the helpless boy. Amon gasped for breath. Blood gushed from his wounded throat.
"I'm not so hungry anymore," the crocodile said.
WEEK 44
The heat wave continued, despite Isis' strenuous efforts to cool the land. She and Black Adam hovered in the air high above their palace. He clenched his fists in frustration; his strength was useless against the torrid temperature.
"I keep trying to summon rain," she lamented, "but the clouds dissipate almost as soon as they form." A drawn face testified to her fatigue. Perspiration glistened upon her bare arms and legs. "Something has been affecting my powers for weeks now."
Adam nodded grimly. "Something has been affecting all of Kahndaq."
"Thousands are dying of thirst, hunger, and disease. Violent riots erupt in the streets." Her weary eyes beseeched him. "You have refused to ask the outside world for help, but we have no choice. We must do something."
He was forced to agree. Although it galled his soul that he could not protect Kahndaq on his own, he could no longer deny that their own powers were insufficient. "Let us return to the Rock of Eternity," he declared. Perhaps Captain Marvel and his family could succeed where he had failed. For the sake of my people, I will even appeal to the Justice League if I must.
He wondered crossly what had become of Osiris. He had expected the boy to join them, but apparently Osiris was still brooding over his imagined "curse." Adam thought it unwise to let the boy wallow in his guilt this way, but Isis had urged him to be patient with her brother, and he had deferred to her judgment in this matter. Besides, it was doubtful that Osiris' presence would have made any difference today. The malign forces besieging Kahndaq were greater than any single youth could overcome.
But from whence did this evil truly spring?
Abruptly, a mystical thunderbolt exploded up from the rooftop of the palace, jolting Black Adam to his marrow. He froze in midair, transfixed by the surging electricity.
"Adam!"
Isis swooped to his side, but he was not in need of rescue. Instead he felt a rush of power course through his veins and sinews. Magical energy crackled around his levitating form. Lightning arced between his gleaming metal wristbands. Sparks flashed along the thunderbolt emblem on his chest. His eyes burned with eldritch fire. • .
"Adam?" Isis eyed him with concern. "Are you—?"
"I feel... stronger," he informed her. He flexed his muscles experimentally. At first, the sudden influx of power puzzled him. Then the truth hit home like a second bolt from the blue. Apprehension showed upon his brooding features. "They have returned to me."
Isis had not yet made the connection. "What have?"
"The powers of Osiris," he said somberly. The golden glow faded from his eyes as he grasped the full implications of what had just transpired. The wisdom of Zehuti warned him to take care. He cast a worried gaze at his wife. "Something is wrong."
Isis gasped out loud. From the sudden look of fear upon her face, he realized that she too understood that this ominous event boded ill for her brother. "Amon!"
The thunderbolt had come from the roof of the palace below them. He and Isis dived from the cloudless sky down to the source of the magical blast: a level terrace surrounded by four domed towers. A quick glance confirmed their worst fears. A sob tore itself from Isis' throat as they spied the mutilated body of Amon Tomaz lying upon the bloody shingles. The corpse's shattered limbs, and shredded garments, made it clear that Amon had been in mortal form when he died. Bite marks suggested that some carnivorous beast had been feeding on the youth for hours before he finally expired. His mouth was frozen in a silent scream. Adam saw to his disgust that the boy's tongue was missing. There was no way he could have summoned his powers to save himself. By the gods, Black Adam vowed, someone will pay for this atrocity.
Isis dropped to her knees beside her brother's body. "No!" Tear-filled eyes looked up at Adam. "Please, do something!"
His heart ached for her loss, remembering the deaths of his sons millennia ago. He yanked his cape from his shoulders and laid it over Amon's ravaged corpse like a shroud. There was little he could do to ease his beloved's pain, but at least he could spare her the sight of her brother's grisly remains.
Helping her to her feet, he took Isis in his arms. She sobbed against his shoulder: "Why did he change?" she asked despairingly. Amon had been all but indestructible when in the guise of Osiris. "Why did he change back?"
A gravelly voice answered her. "Osiris believed his powers were the cause of Kahndaq's misery." Sobek came crawling across the rooftops on all fours.
Fresh blood was smeared across his saurian jaws and teeth. Fhs tail swished across the polished ceramic shingles behind him. "What a fool."
"Sobek!" Isis cried out, surprised by the crocodile's presence. Adam realized that Sobek must have been hiding behind one of the nearby turrets.
The crocodile licked her brother's blood from his chops. "For all he tried to do to sweeten his soul, his flesh tasted like rotting chicken." His callous tone mocked her grief. "He was too stringy." A reptilian tongue flicked over his incisors. "He's still stuck between my teeth."
"It was you?" she asked, aghast at the monster's treachery. "How could you?"
Rising to his feet, Sobek warily circled Black Adam and Isis. An elaborate suit of armor clothed his scaly body, replacing the polyester jogging suits he had always worn before. He greedily eyed the body beneath the cape. "I was hungry," he explained. "I'm always so awfully hungry, and only the flesh of a Marvel can satisfy me." He shrugged his shoulders. "That's the way they made me."
They ? Black Adam realized that some unknown enemy had planted the perfidious reptile among them. Although eager to avenge Amon's death, he held back in hopes of learning more from the loquacious lizard. Who are "they?"
"I told Osiris that I had no name," Sobek declared, "but I lied. I am Yurrd the Unknown. I am Famine."
Yurrd? The name meant nothing to Adam. But, like all of Kahndaq, he had grown far too familiar with famine over the last few weeks. Could this demon truly be responsible for the empty stomachs of his countrymen? All the more reason then, that this accursed creature not live another day!
"Osiris was your friend!" Isis accused the reptile. At her command, rustling vines snaked up the sides of the palace. A blast of angry wind nearly knocked Sobek off his feet. "He saved you from Dr. Sivana's lab!"
The crocodile laughed harshly. "I said I'd been left there after Sivana disappeared, but that was another lie." A wicked grin stretched beneath his snout. "I was delivered to Sivana's mansion only hours before you arrived."
Black Adam recalled Sobek's unexpected appearance during their dinner with Lady Sivana. He wondered whether the mad scientist's wife had been in on the deception. Perhaps her plea for their assistance in locating Sivana had only been a ruse?
"You were all so desperate to help the poor and unfortunate," Sobek jeered, "so a plan was hatched to infiltrate your inner circle by posing as a confused and frightened animal. We knew that your Black Marvel Family wouldn't be able to resist having their own version of that insipid talking tiger."
•Nature's fury flashed in Isis' dark eyes as her sorrow gave way to rage. Bristling with jagged thorns, the animated vines rose above the edge of the rooftop. "We treated you like family!" she thundered at Sobek. "We loved you!"
"Love?" The crocodile spat out the word. "What does a reptile care of love? My blood is cold!" He glared malignantly at Black Adam. "Intergang offered you riches for safe passage through Kahndaq. They urged you to ally yourself with our puppet government in Bialya. But you refused, and now you and your family are a threat to Intergang's ever-growing religion of crime!" He stalked toward them, his clawed hands raised before him. "That's why we were brought here."
"We?" Black Adam raised his own fists in anticipation. 1 shoidd have known that Intergang was behind this, he thought fiercely. They will pay dearly for the heartache they have caused, beginning with this loathsome creature.
But Sobek was no longer alone. A sonic boom heralded the opening of a sudden rift in time and space. A trio of monstrous giants emerged from the rift, which instantly closed behind them. Over twenty feet tall, they dwarfed both the humans and the crocodile. Black Adam quickly took stock of these new adversaries.
One was a mechanized monstrosity, boasting an impressive array of high-tech weaponry. Cannons served as the creature's arms. Crimson armor covered every inch of his body. The roof trembled beneath its elephantine tread.
The second was a hideous cyclops, with but a single bloodred eye gazing out from its scarred visage. Instead of cannons, metallic valves and hoses were mounted to the monster's arms. Pipes connected the hoses to enormous steel tanks affixed to the giant's back.
The third was like a demon out of ancient myth, with the wings of an enormous hawk, the legs of a goat, the arms and torso of a man, the tail of a jackal, and the yellowed skull and horns of a dead steer clamped over his face. He clutched an imposing steel scythe, like the Grim Reaper of Western folklore.
'Behold my siblings," Sobek boasted. "Roggra, Zorrm, and Azraeuz. Some call us 'The Monster Society/ but we truly embody the Four Horsemen of dread Apokalips. Our influence is the true source of Kahndaq's misery over the last month." His burnished armor proclaimed his war-like intentions. "But we are through hiding!"
Together, the fiendish quartet pounced on Black Adam and Isis. The impact drove the couple and their attackers through the roof of the palace into the royal bedchamber below. They crashed down onto their own marital bed, smashing it completely. Broken pieces of stone and plaster fell from the jagged gap in the ceiling. Feathers and wooden splinters went flying.
Sobek sprang at Black Adam, his jaws snapping at Adam's throat. "Let me tell you how I ate Amon!" the crocodile taunted. "How his organs popped in my mouth like fresh grapes!"
The monster's cruel words only fueled Adam's wrath. With superhuman swiftness, he grabbed hold of Sobek's jaws with his bare hands. Powerful muscles strained as he began to pull the jaws apart.
"You are done talking, lizard."
Sobek croaked in pain. His front claws pawed frantically at Adam's chest, but failed to penetrate the champion's impervious chest. The crocodile was not attacking a helpless cripple now, nor would he ever be eating anything again. Greasy tears leaked from his eyes.
"Adam?" Isis said uncertainly. She seemed conflicted between her divine mercy and a very human desire for revenge.
"These are not men," Adam stated bluntly. Unlike his wife, he had no doubts about what was to be done. "Sobek said it himself. They are monsters ... and they will be treated as such."
Calling upon the strength he had reclaimed from Osiris, Black Adam tore Sobek's jaws apart. Cold reptilian blood sprayed against Adam as the deceitful crocodile spasmed through his death throes. Adam hurled the scaly carcass away from him in disgust.
Yurrd the Unknown was no more.
His fellow Horsemen howled in protest. Rising from the wreckage of the bed, their inhuman craniums scraped against the vaulted ceiling of the violated bedchamber. The armored giant, who looked more machine than flesh and blood, charged Adam.
"I am Roggra!" he declared. "I am War!"
Tackling Adam, his merest touch ignited an explosion that brought down the wall behind Adam. They tumbled through the breached wall into another chamber of the palace. A cloud of dust and smoke momentarily blinded Adam. He broke free from Roggra's mechanized grasp and staggered backward away from his foe. Shattered masonry crunched beneath his boots. He wiped the dust from his eyes.
A massive cannon slammed into his face. "I have the power of all the world's soldiers and bombs," Roggra proclaimed. The muzzle of the cannon flared and a tremendous blast propelled Adam through a solid marble column into the wall beyond. "Those are my gods, and they are infinitely more deadly than the senile deities who empower you!"
Dazed, Adam shook his head to clear his thoughts. His hand went to his aching brow and came away stained with red. He tasted salt upon his tongue.
'War had drawn first blood.
Isis and the remaining Horsemen faced each other within the ruined bedchamber. The one-eyed giant stomped toward her, while his skull-faced companion looked on in silence. Toxic chemicals sloshed inside the tanks and hoses that were arrayed upon Zorrm's immense frame. He smelled of rot and gangrene. Isis sensed the Horseman's unclean nature at once.
"Your body is made of nothing but viruses and bacteria. You are Pestilence itself." Ropy vines descended through the hole in the ceiling. More tendrils entered through the windows to defend her. "All these diseases, all these plagues afflicting Kahndaq, stem from you!"
The fetid cyclops opened its jaws, as though to answer her charges. Isis braced herself for Zorrm's heartless retort. Her loyal vines reared up around the advancing Horseman, like serpents preparing to strike. They whipped the dusty air.
But no words escaped the monster's lips. Instead he vomited a stream of viscous green slime onto Isis, dousing her with his foul effluvia. Isis recoiled in horror, her gorge rising at the sour-smelling mucous clinging to her face and limbs. Gagging, she frantically wiped it away from her eyes and mouth, but feared that she had already been contaminated by the infectious spew, which was literally swimming with every germ known to man. Goddess preserve me, she prayed fervently. The plague is upon me!
In retaliation, the vines lashed out at Zorrm. Thick green tendrils coiled around his limbs and torso, squeezing as tightly as a boa constrictor. Thorns jabbed at his lividiace and flesh. The aggressive vines distracted the Horseman from his attack on Isis, forcing him to defend himself against the topiary assault. He spewed more vomit at the vines scratching his face, which were eaten away as though by acid. Dying branches hissed and sizzled as they dissolved against his leather armor.
Isis felt the plants' pain, even as a thousand diseases invaded her own immortal form. Nausea, even worse than that which had been inflicted upon her by Count Vertigo, gripped her stomach. A sudden fever left her shaking and sweating. Painful cramps racked her entrails. Her throbbing head felt as though it was being stabbed repeatedly by a red-hot poker. Breathing became difficult as her lungs filled with fluid. Every muscle ached. Her throat was sore. She sneezed and coughed violently.
Save me from this Pestilence, she begged the powers of Nature. Don't let him near me again!
The surviving vines grabbed onto Zorrm and threw him far away.
Roggra's cannon boomed again.
The blast hurled Black Adam out of the palace into an enclosed courtyard outside. Decorative fountains and pools had dried out beneath the oppressive sun. Somehow managing to stay on his feet, he staggered unsteadily across debris-strewn tiles. Blood dripped from numerous small cuts and scrapes. His black hair was disheveled and powdered with dust. His distinctive garb was tom and scorched. His bare knuckles were raw and red.
Whirring and clanking, War pursued Adam into the courtyard. His cannon automatically reloaded, and Black Adam threw up his arms to protect himself. A bomb-burst exploded against his upraised wristbands. The golden metal shattered into a million pieces. The earth-shaking impact jarred Adam to his bones. He teetered upon his heels, on the verge of losing his balance. He lacked even the strength to flee.
Roggra prepared to fire again....
Salvation arrived in the unlikely form of Zorrm, who came flying between them as though flung by a catapult. A titanic blast, meant for Black Adam, struck Pestilence instead. Dying vines were blown away from the monster's smoking frame. - .
Isis? Adam guessed, grateful for the respite.
His wife appeared upon the ruined terrace. To his dismay, he saw that her graceful form was liberally coated with some vile green ichor. She threw out her arms to command the elements.
"Winds!"
A mighty zephyr plucked the fallen debris from the ground and threw it at War and Pestilence with tremendous force. They went tumbling across the spacious courtyard.
She stumbled over to Adam's side. He couldn't help noticing how ill she looked. Her face was ashen. Burst blood vessels reddened her eyes. "Adam," she said hoarsely. Her quaking body clung weakly to his. Her flesh was hot to the touch. "My blood rims cold. Can you feel it?" She looked back over her shoulder. "Death is here."
He followed her gaze to where the fourth Horseman—Azraeuz—stood watching them from the ragged gap in the wall. A bovine death's-head masked his features. His ebony wings were folded against his back as he held his gleaming scythe aloft. His eerie stillness was more unnerving than his brothers' vicious attacks.
Black Adam found it hard to gaze at Azraeuz for long. His eyes watered and stung, blurring his vision, until he was forced to look away. Isis also averted her eyes. She rubbed at them with her fists, trying to clear her sight.
"You have been marked by the stare of Azraeuz, the Silent King," Roggra stated as the malevolent war-machine righted himself and came clanking toward Adam. Paving stones cracked and splintered beneath his ponderous tread. Mechanical arms extended from open compartments in his armor. "He has chosen you for Death and you will suffer through it."
Steel pincers yanked Black Adam away from Isis and launched him back toward the palace. Smashing headfirst through the wall, Adam skidded across the floor of a vast, sepulchral chamber. Stunned, it took him a moment to realize that he was now within the shrine he had erected to his long-lost wife and sons. He lay sprawled at the feet of a marble replica of Shiruta and their two boys. His battered face flushed with anger. How dare Sobek's evil brethren profane this sacred place!
Roggra stomped into the shrine. The metal pincers seized hold of Adam again and lifted him from the floor. The Horseman held Adam's face up to the sculpted images of his dead family.
"War has always been your undoing," Roggra gloated. "Your wife and children died in a battle you were not here to fight." That much was true; Mighty Adam had been fighting evil in Egypt, on behalf of the wizard Shazam, when his homeland had been overrun by a merciless invader. "Your oldest son begged for his life. Fie was a coward."
Lies! Adam thought vehemently. This unholy being was obviously a creation of modem science, not ancient sorcery. Roggra had no knowledge of what had truly occurred in that bygone era. He knew only the historical tidbits his creators had fed into his artificial brain. My son was no coward!
In the vandalized courtyard, Isis rubbed at her eyes, which still smarted from looking at the Angel of Death. Half-blinded by her own tears, she heard ponderous steps behind her, along with the sloshing of toxic fluids. Pestilence! she realized, spinning around a moment too late. Poison gas sprayed from Zorrm's inexhaustible supply of biohazardous waste.
Already feeling weak and feverish, she choked on the fumes. She fell to the ground, clutching her throat. Her wheezing lungs sucked at the air. She retched onto the cold stone tiles. Hungry insects burrowed up from the arid soil. Cockroaches and beetles scuttled over her supine body, eager to begin consuming her flesh even before she died. A swarm of buzzing flies nipped painfully at her skin.
Azraeuz approached at a measured pace. The shaft of his scythe tapped against the broken tiles. Zorrm backed away, bowing his head to his more funereal brother. "I have spread my diseases across her and inside her," he told Death. "She is ready for you."
The Horseman smashed Adam into the statues, shattering them. Adam grabbed onto the carved faces of his sons before they could crash to the floor with the rest of the fragments. Still holding onto Adam with his pincers, Roggra aimed all his guns and cannons at the back of his captive's skull.
"Will you beg for your life as well?"
Never! Adam vowed. Wrenching his body around, he plunged both his fists into the Horseman's armored chest. Torn metal shrieked, and sparks flared, as, still gripping the marble shards, his hands sank wrist-deep into the monster's torso. He found something warm and fleshy deep inside Roggra's mechanized chassis. He pushed harder, forcing his fists through the pulpy mass. Roggra squealed in pain.
"Will you?" Adam challenged him.
An oily yellow fluid leaked from the corners of Roggra's hinged jaw. "S-stop...."
"War is nothing new to me." Black Adam sneered at his foe. "A being who embodies it does not impress me."
Clenching his jaws, he swung his arms open, ripping Roggra right down the middle.
Azraeuz loomed over Isis' fallen form. His cloven hooves scraped against the ground. His huge black wings spread out behind him. No mercy showed in the cavernous depths of his empty eye sockets. He reeked of death and decay. His segmented tail swished across the pavement. Supporting himself upon his scythe, he bent low and reached out for Isis. She felt the icy touch of his fingers against her face.
Throbbing black veins spread across her flesh, emanating outward from where he touched her. Agony pulsed through her body with every beat of her heart. Bleeding sores tore open her once smooth skin. Insects infested the wounds, feeding on the exposed tissue. Flies laid their eggs in the open sores. She groaned pitifully.
Pestilence crept closer, the better to savor her demise. Isis heard a gun being cocked nearby Part of her prayed that Roggra's powerful firearms would swiftly put her out of her misery. Forgive me, Adam, for leaving you alone as you were before. She turned her head to look into the face of her executioner.
But instead of War, she saw Black Adam standing boldly behind Zorrm. He aimed one of Roggra's severed arms at Pestilence like the cannon it was. The muzzle flared and the gun went off with a deafening boom. Zorrm's head exploded from his shoulders. His headless body toppled onto the ground.
Bless you, my husband, Isis thought gratefully. For once, she did not question the severity of Adam's actions. The Earth is well rid of such an abomination.
Azraeuz's wings flapped loudly as he instantly flew to avenge his brothers. The sharpened tip of his scythe sunk into Black Adam's side. Adam grimaced in pain, gritting his teeth to keep from crying out. His bloody fist slammed into the Horseman's face, cracking the Skeletal visage.
Take care, beloved, Isis thought, fearing for her husband's life. Beware his fatal touch. ■
Death's fingertips grazed Black Adam's cheek. Almost instantly, the telltale black veins began to spread across his face....
No! Isis thought. Not Adam too!
With one last burst of divine power, she reached down to the very core of the world and summoned fiery vengeance from underground. "Earth, remove him...."
A geyser of red-hot lava erupted directly beneath Azraeuz. The volcanic explosion hurled him high into the air, away from Black Adam. Above them, the burning Horseman arced across the sky like a blazing comet. Scarlet flames rushed over his great black wings. Isis prayed that the purifying fire would consume the lethal entity until no trace of it remained. There had been too much Death already ... or perhaps there had not been enough.
Exhausted, she collapsed against the ground.
"Isis!"
Adam rushed to her side. He furiously swept the voracious insects away from her body. Sores and swellings disfigured her unforgettable face and form, but beneath the diseases ravaging her body he could still see the woman he loved ... the woman who had brought him peace and happiness for the first time in countless centuries. This cannot be! he thought in anguish. The gods could never be so cruel!
Despair tormented her. "All we tried to accomplish ... all my brother tried...."
"I will take you to the Rock of Eternity," he promised, clutching her hand tightly. Her feverish skin was hot and dry. Her pulse throbbed feebly beneath his fingers. "Perhaps Billy will be able to ..." -
She shook her head. "I see it now. Why your way ... kept Kahndaq and its people safe."
"Do not give up hope," he commanded her. "You taught me never to abandon hope."
Hot tears streaked her face. A bitterness entered her voice that he had never heard before. "I was wrong."
Adam didn't want to hear it. "I believe in you."
"I was wrong, Adam," she insisted. "It was never you that needed redemption. It was the rest of the world." A palsied hand reached up to stroke his face. "You tried so hard ... for a world that did not deserve our mercy... that put our family through so much pain...." Her expression hardened. A light went out of her eyes. When she spoke again, her voice was cold and unforgiving:
"Avenge us."
Her heart stopped. Her trembling body went limp. A bolt of golden lightning shot from her eyes. The power of Isis fled her dying body, returning to the heavens ... perhaps for all time. All that was left behind was the lifeless body of a woman named Adrianna Tomaz.
Her final words echoed in Black Adam's brain.
He clenched his fists.