James Barr soared above the clouds. The expression on his face was one of pure joy as he felt the wind buffeting his skin. He swooped and he looped and he spun dizzily as he felt the freedom only three dimensions of movement can offer. White clouds skated past him as he dropped back down to see the city spires spread out below and then swooped back up through the icy wet cloud cover. He felt the energies flowing around him, over him and past him as he continued his joyous soaring. The conical metal helmet on his head caused a tingling in his scalp from the concentration of power, but he didn’t mind. It energized him in ways he’d never imagined. He felt strong for the first time in his life, and felt freer than he ever had before. More than that, equations and theorems raced through his mind at incredible rates, as the energy connected paths in his brain that had never existed before. He felt like he could reach out and touch the very spirit of God as he thought about existence and the equations that made it up. This was more than he ever dreamed of, and he soared upwards, higher and higher. It was only when his breathing grew difficult, and he shivered that he noticed that he was near the edge of space.
He stopped propelling himself upwards, and let himself gently free-fall back to the planet, catching waves of energy to slow and control his descent from time to time. In due course, he spotted the city below him again and pulled his hands out in front of him, then darted for his home. The speed was incredible, and he felt like his grin would never leave his face. He’d found the orichalcum that built his helmet, and then found that he had access to power unknown in this modern age. Now it was time for step two. He needed to develop an identity, a costume and a name and a persona, because no way he could just act as plain old James Barr. His wife was too public and too involved in the law to not disguise his activities, and protect her. And more than that, his wife would wring his neck. He swooped through his second floor window at tremendous speed and struggled to stop himself before hitting the far wall. His hands smacked up against the heavy plaster surface and he stumbled back. He looked back up from where he had fallen onto his backside and breathed a sigh of relief when he found no damage, to the wall or himself. He undid the strap to his helmet and went to pull it off, only to hesitated. He didn't want to lose contact with this feeling of power and ability. It was only when a cold chill ran down his spine brought on by one particular wave of energy that he did, and quickly. He tossed the helmet to the bed and stepped back. His eyes nervously scanned the room, but it was normal. Nothing out of the ordinary in the room. Not yet.
But he felt it. He knew it. His helmet brought him into contact with old, potent energies that laced the planet, and it fed more than just him. It fed other powers, great and small, ancient and modern. He slowly picked up the helmet and headed back into the basement lab. He needed to be prepared, he knew that, now more than ever.
{-B-}
The miserable looking transient stopped in front of the main window for the Big Circuit electronics store. He stared at the pictures flickering across the wide-screen plasma televisions, dozens of reflections of anchorman Darryl Bricker. In a serious and deep voice he intoned the stories of the day, and the current story was the upcoming execution of the notorious Anna Obermyer, the woman who had murdered her two children and then had attempted to blame it on an unknown home invader. The ragged looking man leaned his dirty hand against the glass, and strained to hear Bricker’s recitation of the facts of the case. How she had stabbed the two children a dozen times total in their chests and stomachs. How she had positioned them in their living room and then tried to make it look as if the place had been ransacked. How her husband had been walking the dog to return to her blood-stained and hysterical form.
But nothing could keep the jury from sending Anna to prison, to the gas chamber. Her lawyer had struggled mightily to win on an insanity plea. They were a good Christian family, the homeless man thought as he stared at the screens. He shook his head violently when Bricker mentioned that lawyer Wilson Cassel was unable to prove insanity, and the man thumped a shaky fist on the glass when it was told how no evidence could be uncovered of the alleged home invader.
Bricker wrapped the report up by discussing the protests and rallies of anti-death penalty advocates as Anna Obermyer faced her last days on Earth. Her appeals were gone, and there appeared to be no clemency coming from the governor.
“We can only hope that her execution will bring a close to this ugly chapter, and help the family to heal and move on, Brianne,” Darryl said as he turned to his co-anchor, who nodded in agreement. The hand tightened, turning white despite the grime on his skin, and the glass shattered as he landed the punch towards the anchor’s smug face. A howl, and the crash of glass, drew the floor manager running out of the front door.
“Hey you!” he cried. “What did you do that for? You homeless bastard!” The manager reached out to grab the man’s collar. “I’m calling the cops on your ass!”
The bum slowly lifted his dull gray eyes up to meet the manager’s fury, and a vicious swipe of his bloodied hand pushed off the grip on his clothing. He shoved the manager hard, and screamed, “My wife didn’t do it! And God will come to our aid and prove it!” And then he turned and ran into down the streets, and lost himself in the alleys that were his only home.
{-B-}
Detective Vincent Farley sat at his desk and sipped from his coffee. He was rugged looking, with a weathered face and mop of curly brown hair. Stubble thickly adorned a cleft chin, and he rubbed it as he stared into the folder on his desk. He reached over and jabbed off the radio on his desk.
“Something wrong, Vin?” asked Carl Doherty, his partner. Lean and tall like a pole, he was also quite bald, and had striking blue eyes. He was well-dressed and well-kept and it was easy to see why the ladies would fall for him quickly. He was currently tapping away at his keyboard, but glanced up at Vincent.
“Yeah, something’s wrong,” Vincent shot back with irritation. He rubbed his eyes and then swallowed more of his black coffee. “Bad enough I couldn’t crack this case, bad enough I’m getting daily reminders that this poor dame’s going to die because of it, but the last thing I need is some school kid coming over the radio reminding me!” He slumped back into his chair and flipped a page in the well-worn pile of papers and photos that was the Obermyer folder. “Billy Batson…doesn’t he have to go to school? Aren’t there laws?”
Carl chuckled and shook his head, then reached for the ringing phone. “Detective Doherty, homicide,” came the smooth, soft voice. “Yeah. Yeah.” His voice shifted, grew more professional, his eyes darting to Vincent with concern. “Just a minute.”
He hit a button on the phone and looked at his partner. “Some guy on the phone says he needs to talk to Detective Farley, with information on the Obermyer case.”
Vincent sighed and leaned forward, picking up his phone and switching the connection. “Farley here, and this better not be some crank call.”
“Be silent, Guardian of the Law of Cities,” came a soft, sibilant voice full of menace. “I come to tell you now that there will come death tonight. Ten on two shall be the time of Our Lord, and this shall herald the Serum of True Life and the awakening of my god. So speaks the Murder Prophet.” Then the line went dead, and Vincent stared at the receiver like it was something grotesque and alien.
“Geez, Vin,” Carl said frowning. “What was that about?”
“This guy’s gonna whack someone at ten to two,” Vincent replied as he gently replaced the receiver and then looked to his friend and partner. “Had nothing to do with the Obermyer case. What a nut job too.” He looked at the notebook which jotted the information he had been given. “Ten on two, our lord, serum of true life? This is just crazy.”
Carl stood up and walked around to glance at the notes over Vincent’s shoulder. “Heh. Guess you’re rattled. Ten
on two? Don't you mean ten
of two?” He slapped Vincent’s back.
“Yeah, no…wait,” Vincent leaned back and thought a moment. “Nah, that’s what he said. Ten on two.” He flipped open the folder once more and pulled out the crime scene photos. “Ten on two. He wasn’t talking shit, Carl. He knew about how the kids were killed. Media was never given the number of stabbings for each kid. Geez!” He leaned back into his chair again, then looked up at Carl with a paler face than before. “He’s gonna kill two more. Like this probably. Today.”
“Damn.”
{-B-}
“That’s my final recommendation, yes,” Susan Kent Barr said as she sat across the dinner table from her husband. She was on her cell phone, and her brown eyes flashed over to Jim apologetically. “Okay. Yes, sir. Have a good night then.” She folded up the phone and slipped it away from sight.
“Everything okay at work?” Jim asked his wife as he ate his dinner and smiled at her.
“Just this Obermyer mess,” Susan replied. “Protest groups running around all over the state, and then people continuing to call or traipse through the office wanting to talk about clemency. It’s tiring.”
“I heard you’re against the idea,” Jim said as he sipped from some wine.
“Yeah,” she answered with a heavy sigh. Her normally lustrous features were dampened by a mantle of exhaustion. “I mean, if she were crazy all along, maybe. I’m not bloodthirsty, Jim. You know that. I want to see people get to where they should go. But she might have let her cheese slip from the cracker in the last couple of years on death row, but let’s face it…she was fine before and all the experts say during, the murder. So I see no reason to keep her from the chamber.”
Jim said nothing more about that. He was against the death penalty, and his wife knew it, and they had agreed it was a point of contention that didn’t need to be brought up anymore. He merely nodded and said, “I can see where you’re coming from. Well, tonight, we’ll leave the house shut off, I’ll pour you a nice hot bubble bath and we’ll see about those awful knots in your back. How’s that, dear?” He gave her a long lingering smile, the warmest look in his blue eyes and lifted up his wine glass to her.
“Sounds decadently wonderful, dear. Thanks.” She sipped her own wine and felt glad to be safely home. Until the phone rang again. She looked at Jim and shrugged. “Have to take it,” She said as she glanced in the small screen. “It’s work.”
Jim shrugged in return and took their plates to the sink. He scraped away the remaining food as he listened to the conversation.
“What do you mean? What? You’re kidding? Murder Prophet?” came Susan’s irritated voice. “Sounds like a crank to me. Did he trace the call? No. Okay. So what? Changes nothing. Fine. Keep me up to date.” She closed up her phone once again.
“What was that about?” he asked as he came back to the dining room, and helped Susan to her feet.
“Some crank said that he’s going to kill two more like he had done before, I guess,” Susan said with an even more tired voice. “Seemed to imply it tied to Anna Obermyer. Now we have cranks coming out of the woodwork. Damn media hype.”
“What if this guy’s for real?” Jim asked as he walked her to the living room and laid her back on the couch. “I’ll go start your water.” He winked.
She smiled and nodded, and said, “Detectives are on it. If it’s for real, we’ll find out. But it’s not connected.”
“Telling yourself that, or do you really believe it?” Jim said teasingly, as he looked back out of the bathroom.
“Jerk,” Susan answered as she stuck her tongue out. “Farley’s a good guy. He’ll get to the bottom of this guy. I don’t want to talk about it anymore now though.” She stretched out on the couch and her eyes drooped.
“Sure thing, kitten,” he told her, and then closed the bathroom door behind him. He stared at his reflection in the mirror. He was excited, it was clear; he looked like a kid on Christmas morning. “Farley. I can put her to bed, she’ll be out for the night. Then I can go talk to this Farley. Offer him my help. Solve this case and become a hero.” He straightened and felt his heart racing. “Oh yeah, watch out Captain Marvel! Here comes…hmmm.” He turned around and stopped the water, staring into the steamy liquid. “Gotta work on that one.”
