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I settled into the plush seat next to Eric.
“You will never believe what just happened,” I said.
Eric raised an eyebrow.
“I said the chant for the Amulet of Life and the Dimensional Diamond took me to the other universe. For real.”
He frowned. “Were you holding the diamond when you chanted?”
I shook my head. “That’s the spooky part.”
I sighed. “You were right that I don’t know what I’m doing with this jewel. It has extreme powers. Maybe all this hand burning was completely unnecessary.”
I pulled back one of my gloves to show the silicone inserts. “Thanks for the pot holders. They helped.”
“Yet you went to the mirror universe and weren’t touching the Dimensional Diamond?”
“That’s right. Come to think of it, when I was back in time, I wasn’t constantly touching it either.”
I told Eric all about my trip to 1977. After I finished that part of my story, he shook his head. “Your superpowers put you in a very special class. Why are you wasting your time being a mere artist in this universe when you can be a superheroine in the other?”
“You’re forgetting what an egotistical puppet master my father is.”
“I could help you with that.”
Eric had navigated the halls of power and won out against others vying for the same executive position. He’d made the leap from being a mere artist to someone powerful enough to topple the reigning boss. He had transformed himself into the head honcho type ordinary men merely dreamed of becoming.
“Maybe,” I said. I tried to imagine what our personal relationship could be like if I commuted from a day job kicking ass in another universe.
He continued. “I know how to get people to do what I want. Or to back off and stay out of my way.”
“I believe you.” I didn’t want to consider all the ramifications now. “I’ll think about it.”
He looked disappointed. Eric was a lot more interested in power plays than I was.
He saw me eyeing the can of soda open on a tray. “Want something?”
“Water?”
He got me a bottle from a small fridge that also was built in.
“That’s convenient.” I gazed around the deliberately posh interior. Eric fit right in. “You enjoy all this, don’t you?”
“Damn right. Although riding in a limo wasn’t on my specific list when I was younger, it’s a part I enjoy. Look at the traffic we don’t have to care about.” He gestured at Lake Shore Drive, and the line of cars attempting to leave for the ballpark.
“You’re not working,” I said. “That’s a first.”
“I’m planning. You ought to know me by now, girl.”
I thought I did. Then again, Eric always kept me off balance. The silicone gloves this morning, for instance.
“Look, there’s the park,” he said. “I haven’t been back since I was a kid and my parents took me to the real Comiskey Park. Now it's the parking lot next door.”
Eric had a reminiscent expression on his otherwise hard-featured face.
“Where did you grow up?” I asked.
“Ohio. Farm country.”
“Did you like it?”
He glanced at me briefly. “Ohio, or farming? There’s no there there, as the saying goes.”
“So you got out rather than, what? Till corn? Milk cows?”
“Both. My mother was an accountant in the big city nearby—Cincinnati. Dad did the farming.”
“How practical is farming anymore?”
He shrugged. “Once you get enough to eat on a regular basis, you realize farming is a lousy business to be in.”
Eric had said a lot more than he’d ever said before. He was opening up to me when our relationship was closing. Safer for him, I guess.
“So you got out as soon as you could. Did your parents support your dreams?” I asked.
“Oddly enough, it was my dad who encouraged me. Of course, now that I’ve given up art to be a CEO, my mom is over the moon proud of her successful businessman son. Dad would have been okay with either.”
I wondered where he saw his future. Eric had the sharklike ability to fight off all comers for his current executive position, but the large corporation above him might spew him out regardless some day. If his executive career tanked, would he go back to art?
*
The limo was waved through by the police who stopped other cars. We pulled up at a private entrance at Comiskey Park—which this week was called U.S. Cellular Field, but next year could be named something else.
Of course Eric had a special pass that let us into a luxury suite via a private elevator. “The convention center leases one of the best boxes. Very useful.”
“Why are you bothering with this event?” I asked, as we settled into the plushly appointed suite.
Eric didn’t answer. Back to not wanting to share what was important to him right now.
“Come on, give.” I said. “You don’t go to this trouble to see Fred F. Binder on a Jumbotron.”
With reluctance, Eric said, “We’re talking about doing his graphic novels.”
“That didn’t hurt, did it?” I asked. “I’m surprised he doesn’t already have a graphic novel deal.”
“He does.”
“Don’t tell me. Let me guess.” I walked around the luxury suite, not seeing anything. “You’re going to talk him out of that one, in favor of signing with you.”
Eric smiled. “You got it.”
I couldn’t resist. I walked over to him and kissed him on the lips.
“What was that for?” he said, and then he grabbed me and pulled me onto his lap. “Wait, let’s do it some more.”
We kissed for a while. It was . . . sweet. We’d never done sweet, not that I recalled. We’d seldom been equals. He’d always had some secret angle he hadn’t confided in to me. I’d always wondered what he was hiding, if I could trust him. Not a good way to live with someone for a year.
I’d thought I was over my relationship mistakes, but my understanding about what I had done still needed some serious attention. I didn’t understand what still drew me to Eric. How could I end up in his lap, with his hands on my breasts, and contemplate moving out? Or was I being terminally naïve about what importance sex has in a relationship?
Eric said, his hands still caressing my flesh, “I want you to do something for me.”
On a strangled breath, because I liked his touch, I replied, “What?”
“When Binder gets here, I want you to distract Kane. Talk to him so seriously that he can’t pay attention to me and Fred.”
I sat up, removing his hands. Way to kill a mood. I narrowed my eyes. “Why?”
“I have some urgent business to conduct with Fred. It can’t wait.”
I stood, looking down at him. “You mean you’re cooking up a deal and you think Jeff Kane might get to Binder first? Is that it?”
“He’s trying. I don’t want him to have a chance.”
At that moment, other people entered the suite. Eric rearranged himself. I shouldn’t have been surprised when not only Jeff Kane arrived, but also Dickie Crandall and the presidents or owners of several other comic book, toy, and collector card companies followed. I’d met some of them once before, but doubted they remembered me.
Now that the glow of sex had been doused, I examined every amenity of the suite. Comfortable padded chairs in front of the large and meticulously clean viewing window. Tables and chairs spread around the room. A bar. A door leading to our private restroom, of course. Then there was the call button for waiter service.
Sarah texted to say Ardis and Damien were giving her a lift to the park. He knew a secret way to beat the crowds.
Our luxury suite began to fill up with every suspect I’d considered. Jean Westover. Norman Krigstein. Howard Hogarth. Jeff Kane, with a bandage on his forehead from where his face had hit the flagstones last night when he’d pitched over. Leslie Evans. Even Ray Herriman. Damien Nast and Ardis arrived after I got Eric’s okay and texted them. Sarah appeared on her own, as mysteriously as always. Only Roland was missing, but he was probably somewhere in the ballpark.
Did I have enough suspects? Did it matter? If we were all corralled here, wasn’t Fred F. Binder safe down in far center, where his stage had been set up?
The gig was a medieval reenactment, a battle royal staged by his television production company in a repeat of a scene that fans had gone ape over. Live action for the fans. With thirty or more actors, horses, fake medieval armor, costumes, and more, it was quite the spectacle. Additionally, they’d set up colorful tents along the perimeter, to mimic a renaissance jousting field. Fred F. Binder sat, dressed as a king and on a throne, on a dais surrounded by the highest ranking noncombatant members of the court.
First, he gave a speech welcoming the fans and talking about how much fun he’d had seeing his characters come to life. He made no promises about the future. “My health is good. I’ll live long enough to finish this story. Now, on with the battle!” he cried.
The crowd roared as one. It was amazing to see that many people together not for a sporting event, not for a rock or pop concert, but for a series of books that had been made into a television series.
Television, that was the answer. You couldn’t find forty thousand comic book fans to seat in a stadium. The frat boys, sure. The geek boys, not so much. Some of them were busy at science camp. Or space camp. Or volunteering. The frat boys got their volunteer credits free from the team coaches. When I was on the girls’ baseball team, we got volunteer credits for attending practice. Once a week, they brought in a few underprivileged kids to watch, we let them bat a little before the game, and we called it volunteer work. What a crock.
A massive battle got underway. Knights on horseback and fighters on foot carrying shields and large swords went at each other. Once the men started to fight, I couldn’t see how they could keep it up for more than a minute, not without producing actual mayhem, but they did. It was quite a performance.
The action halted after one side “won.” Binder signaled, and the leader was brought forward so the “queen” could give him a reward. I was surprised that Binder himself remained throughout.
After a suitable number of battles, not too many to bore people, and not too few to make them feel they hadn’t been given a show, Binder declared the tourney over, and got down to business. He announced the next season’s main thread, and then introduced the movie. “Only for you, my most loyal fans, we’ve got the first episode of next year’s season. This will not be released until September.”
Imagine forty thousand people at the movies with you, screaming with ecstasy at seeing their favorites on the screen. It was noisy and crazy. The crowd roared as if they were baseball fans watching a grand slam.
As the movie credits were shown, Fred and his court left the field, making it a royal parade. The crowd cheered.
About ten minutes later, Fred F. Binder appeared in our luxury suite, led in by one of the hundreds of PR people working the comicon. They were anonymous and all looked the same, eager, energetic, and generic.
“Wow, that was work,” he said. “Can I get a beer?”
“Where’s the queen?” I asked, as someone handed him a longneck from the bar.
“She’s an actress, so she’s going to parade around with the rest of my ‘court’ after the episode is over,” he replied. “Me, I’m done.”
“You’re a natural ham,” someone said.
“Thank you,” Binder bowed.
Damien went up to him and hit him on the back, “Good show.”
That’s right. Ardis had told me they were cousins. Seemed like everybody in comics was related to everybody else. Me included.
After the general congratulations were over, Eric gave me a significant look and made his move toward Fred. I moved toward Jeff Kane. Why I was about to help Eric was something I would examine later.
“I don’t think we’ve met. I’m Chloe Cole. I draw Swoonie.” I smiled. “Or at least, I’ll be drawing her until Leslie takes over.”
Jeff Kane grunted. He craned his neck to see what Eric and Fred were doing. I didn’t bother to look. Eric no doubt had Fred cornered.
Nothing daunted, I continued, “I saw you collapse last night at the CP party. Are you okay now? We all were afraid you'd had a heart attack.”
“Huh?” said Kane. Finally, I had his attention. “It was a false alarm. Some nutcase shot me with a poison dart, but I'm fine.”
I made soothing noises and told him how concerned Leslie had been. “Speaking of Leslie, since she's coming to FC to take over Swoonie, the book I draw, I'll be available to draw a title for CP Comics. Would you consider an equal switch? When she leaves the Ms. Tangaberry book, I draw it from then on?” I smiled my best commercial smile.
He frowned. I could almost hear him thinking that they now would have room for a new token woman on their roster.
“It’s a possibility. I’d have to talk to the editor.”
Kane’s attention drifted past my left ear, and I turned to see what he stared at. I already knew, of course. Eric and Fred were shaking hands. The deal had been struck.
Eric wanted to make the most of his moment. “May I have your attention?” he said in his deep voice. “Fred and I have just agreed that FC Comics will publish all of his King’s Strategy saga as graphic novels.”
People applauded. Fred beamed. Jeff Kane actually growled. He walked away from me without a backward glance.
Jeff stalked up to Eric and said something heated. Fred had moved away by then and probably didn’t hear it. Eric’s response to Jeff was to smile. It was not a smile that was meant to make anyone who saw it happy. It was a winner’s smile. Jeff clenched his fists.
Would there be a brawl right here, even though Jeff had barely recovered from last night's attack?
Suddenly our attention was drawn to the people in the stadium. We had the window slightly open to get the crowd reaction to the television premiere. An odd sound interfered with the spoken dialogue of King’s Strategy.
A woman’s voice superimposed over the mostly male voices of the King’s Strategy episode. The same woman’s voice I’d heard three times now over loudspeakers.
I slewed around to see what Jean Westover was up to at this precise moment. Her mouth was wide open in shock. One hand was at her throat.
I didn’t look out at the stadium through our fancy viewing window. I studied the expressions on every person in the suite. Damien Nast looked amused. He must have recognized the female voice, a voice that got louder and louder until it overpowered the actors completely.
“I warned you. I urged you to leave before it was too late. Now you will pay,” the voice shrieked over and over.
Howard Hogarth was smiling, too. What did he think was so amusing?
Leslie looked confused and worried. She was over her head in more ways than one.
Ray Herriman looked eager, as if he wanted to see what happened next.
Norman Krigstein also had an expectant expression on his face. How odd.
I finally turned to check out the field, exactly when the green grass exploded into the air. Strips of sod lifted from the underlying dirt in strange long pieces, like green ribbon. Then they fell back down, landing helter-skelter. The crowd shrieked in terror.
The female voice said, “Go home. Leave this place. Go home.”
Another explosion sent sand at home plate into the air—and into people’s faces. The Home Plate Club seats directly below us bore the brunt of it, as Eric slammed our window shut against the sand. The shrieks of forty thousand people penetrated.
People tried to leave. Some people jumped onto the field, obviously the least safe place to be, but I’d already discovered how irrational a panicked crowd could be.
Then the dais where Fred and his court had reigned blew up. Chunks of wood and other debris flew into the air. Smoke billowed.
“Good god!” someone said behind me.
Eric said, “Time to head for the stairs.”
“Won’t we be safer in here than outside with thousands of people trying to escape?” someone asked.
“That lunatic could have planted a bomb here. Let’s make tracks.”
I finally swung into action. Of course we should leave. Instead, I opened the window, put my hand on the Dimensional Diamond, and slowed everything down. I could hold onto the slowing process for only a few minutes before the diamond burned me, but whatever I did might help, especially if police and fire and rescue units had been automatically notified as the mayhem began.
Eric grabbed my arm. “What are you doing? Are you crazy? Let’s get the hell out.”
I shook him off. “I’ve got to stop her.”
I concentrated on slowing down the rest of the stadium. Behind me, I heard Eric again ordering the others to leave.
I aimed my slowing down time effect at the crowd, trying to reduce the deadly effects of their terror. Stadiums have massive ramps so crowds can all leave at once, but a panicked crowd would overwhelm the system of concrete paths that crossed and circled a stadium. Elevators would be the scenes of brutal fights. People would trample each other. I had to slow them all down, turn them orderly.
The woman’s voice over the loudspeakers kept hectoring, but now her words were spread and sounded slower, too. She sounded like a record at the wrong speed. I heard sprinkled laughter from the crowd. People continued to leave, but their mood lightened a little.
Then the scoreboard blew up, raining glass and metal on the crowd below. I tried to hold the pieces in midair, slow them down, too. Speeding up wouldn’t work here. From the screams and cries, I wasn’t successful. I hoped no one had been killed, but that was a fleeting thought in my effort to concentrate all the jewel’s power on slowing everything down.
Perspiration dripped down my face. My body felt alternately hot and cold. My hand burned despite the doubled silicone insert I’d shoved under my glove. My stomach began to heave with a sick feeling. I was nauseated from the effort to ignore my physical pain and avert disaster for thousands of innocent people.
How much longer could I hold the chaos on simmer? The Dimensional Diamond didn’t give me the power to stop the perpetrator from blowing up the rest of the stadium.
Or did it? Had I been dealing with the symptoms instead of the cause? Only a couple of hours ago, the jewel had taken me to the exact place and time in 1977 when the pivotal fistfight had happened. Why couldn’t it take me to the spot in this ballpark where the secret enemy controlled the deadly effects she unleashed on the crowd?
Of course it could, but the jewel couldn’t hold the crowd down from terror-inspired panic. Which was more important, finding Mistress Miraculous’s hideout within this huge building—assuming she was here—or trying to keep thousands of people from trampling each other? What if her next move was to blow up the entire building?
That was crazy thinking. Ordinary people didn’t have access to the kind of explosive power that would take out a building. Wait, yes they did. Fertilizer bombs. Other items from the Anarchist Cookbook. I’d forgotten, because I wasn’t a terrorist looking for ways to hurt people or destroy buildings.
Oh, crap. What was I supposed to do? My instinct was to save the largest number of people, but then she’d do more bad stuff. She might have planted bombs all over the park and the convention center, too, ready to go when the people who made it out of the ballpark alive finally straggled back there.
The Dimensional Diamond chose for me. I lost consciousness.