Part 14
Back at Lois’ apartment, Monica was fidgeting as she came out of Lois’ bedroom, her hair now tied back in a haphazard French braid. Her eyes highlighted with black mascara thus making her already pale cheeks look a ghostly white. On one of her cheekbones, Lois had applied a black smudge saying that the makeup was necessary.
Monica’s attire was about as odd as her makeup job. She wore a black mini dress, spiked boots and a silver belt was wrapped around her thin waist, the lopsided belt against her waist on the left side, but on the right, it was down over her hips.
A cropped leather jacket that only went down to the small of her back completed the look and as she stood before the mirror and tried without success at pulling down the jacket so that it would cover her more proved unsuccessful. Eventually, Lois slapped her hand away. “Stop fidgeting, Monica, you’ll blow our cover,” she said and when Monica did eventually stop, the reporter looked at her and nodded with approval. “Looking good, Red,” Lois said as she took a beret style hat and put it on her head. “I never thought I’d see the day that you would dress in this way, but I’ve got to say, you do look good.”
Monica swallowed as she beheld the strange looking reflection staring back from the mirror at her. “I didn’t think I’d be able to do this either,” she offered as she released a pent up breath and looked at Lois. “Do you think it will work?”
“As long as you stop fidgeting and acting like you’re a good little school girl, then it will work,” Lois said matter-of-factly.
Monica sighed, but eventually nodded as Lois grabbed a tiny matching leather purse. A tiny backpack, she tossed to Monica and once she had put it on the two women were ready to go.
“Now, remember, Red, no drugs,” Lois said. “You have to keep a clear head about all of this, and after what Dr. Klein told me today when he called, chances are, any drugs that we could get into our systems could kill us.”
Monica nodded. “You’re right Lois, and I won’t be taking anything, I had already decided that,” she smiled weakly.
Lois smiled. “Well, let’s get going. I figure the safest bet is to take the bus, that way fewer witnesses, and there is a line that runs directly adjacent to the warehouse.”
Monica nodded as she cast one last glance in the mirror. This was very strange, to say the least.
“Don’t worry, Rookie,” Lois said as she noticed Monica’s discomfort. “You look like one of Hell’s Angels, it’s workable for where we’re going.”
Hell’s angels? Monica’s mind began to literally race, but instead of arguing the point, she followed Lois to the front door and out into the hallway.
When they came down the stairs and stepped out onto the street, Lois looked at Monica. “Oh man,” she muttered. “I nearly forgot they wanted to start a citywide curfew, the busses will probably not be running.”
Monica nodded, she remembered hearing that, but as she looked around the area, she could see a number of people roaming the streets and she nudged Lois. “I don’t think anyone paid much attention to this,” she whispered as they noticed that down the street the sounds of glass breaking and a blaring siren could be heard in the distance.
“Come on,” Lois said as the sounds of the siren grew louder and she pulled Monica into a crop of bushes as the sounds of the siren grew louder, until a police car passed where they were hiding, and eventually rounded a corner at the end of the street. “Seems the boys in blue have more to contend with at the moment then two broads out for a good time,” Lois said sighing as they made their way towards the next main street and rounded a corner.
“Maybe we will have to take cab after all,” Monica said after some moments had passed.
The reporter nodded as they crossed the street and found three cabs parked along the side of the street. “Come on Red, and let me do the talking.”
Monica nodded as they reached a cab and the man behind the wheel got out of the cab and looked at them, his eyes narrowing. “Yes ladies?” He slurred.
“We need to get to the corner market down by the docks,” Lois improvised.
The cab driver nodded and with a grunt, he muttered ‘get in’, and slid back behind the wheel. Monica and Lois crawled into the backseat and with the tires squealing the cab drove off in the direction of the rave.
No words were exchanged as they reached the corner market and Lois paid the faire and they got out and watched as the cab sped away. Lois and Monica stood for some moments in front of the store until the cab was no longer visible and the two of them started to walk towards the large warehouse.
As they got closer, they could see a virtual mob of youth, all of who were scrambling towards the building, their voices loud. At that moment, Monica nudged Lois. “I have an idea if someone tries to give us anything in there.” From her backpack the angel produced two small identical tablets.
“Are you insane?” Lois hissed.
“No, it’s concentrated sugar, there are no drugs in it, but they won’t know that, they will think that we had the drugs and that we were going along with them. Just trust me,” Monica said softly.
Lois looked at her and nodded. “OK, let’s wait and take them when we’re inside.”
Monica nodded as they got closer to the door and Lois immediately noticed that two burly men were standing at the door.
“They must be bouncers,” Lois said as Monica nodded.
As they reached the entrance to the warehouse, Lois noticed that the two men were not just standing and guarding the entrance; they were also distributing drugs. Lois reached the door first and the man handed her a small white pill. “Here you go, doll, brain candy,” he chortled as he gave one to Monica, and chortled. “On the house…”
From behind someone pushed her and Monica found herself plowing into Lois and the pill that she carried flew from her hand.
“Hey watch it,” someone slurred from in front of them and Monica glanced around to see that the person who had pushed her was Andrew. The Angel of Death shook his head and when she understood his silent communication, she moved towards the stairs that led down into the basement where the rave was to take place.
As she reached a doorway, a man stood with cups of water. It was Carlos and he was literally forcing the kids to take the ecstasy. “Now you babies, go and take your medicine and then have a good time,” he chortled and looked at her. “What are you waiting for, Christmas?” The man laughed and Monica opened her palm and the man could see to small round pill that rested in her hand.
She watched as Lois took the sugar pill and washed it down with a cup of water that was offered to her.
“Come on, Red, get the lead out,” Lois said once she had swallowed the sugar.
Monica nodded and followed suit.
Once they had supposedly taken the pills, Monica and Lois were allowed to go down the stairs and into the main room where pulsating music could be heard all around them. Monica inched closer to Lois and nudged her. “What are we looking for?” She asked.
“We’ll know when we find it,” Lois said. “For now, all we can do is blend in.”
“Blend in?” A question emerged and Lois looked up to see the pale eyes of the man from the future. “My dear Lois Lane, do you think a little makeup and black clothing is going to make me not recognize you?”
Monica swallowed as the man from the future turned to face her. “And what have we here, Ms. Lane’s protégé?” His words emerged with confidence and he regarded her through condescending eyes.
Monica remained silent, but Lois looked at him. “What do you want here, Tempus?”
“Oh I don’t know, the usual, pandemonium with a side order of chaos,” the man from the future said. “And you will find out the longer you and your little friend are here, just how much disorder I can create.” He smiled at her as he merged his way between the dancing teenagers and disappeared in the crowd.
Once he was gone, Lois took a deep breath. “I cannot stand him…” she grumbled.
Monica looked at her. “I don’t think we’re going to find out anything here. Even if Tempus is behind Smyth’s murder, we’ll never be able to prove it.”
“Maybe you’re not here to prove anything, Monica,” a voice emerged and she whirled around to see Andrew standing behind them.
“Oh, Andrew, looking good,” Lois said snidely as she regarded the disheveled appearance of the angel.
“Listen, you two, there’s a reason why we’re all here, and it’s not about getting the story,” Andrew said. The moment he said these words, a blur of blue and red whirled though the room.
Lois sighed with relief when she saw Clark landing in the middle of the room.
“Let the games begin,” Tempus shouted as he reached for a rope, pulled it and the sound of a loud crash could be heard and the people that had been on the dance floor scattered as the black tarp covering the cage gave way and began to lower itself from the ceiling.
Clark’s eyes grew wide as he felt a wave of dizziness overwhelming him and he sank to the ground.
Lois watched this and began to scream all the while the pulsating music growing louder as the affects of the ecstasy began took effect on the kids in the large room. The music seemed to get louder and louder with each second, even to Monica and Lois, who both had their wits about them, but the DJ, like everyone else in this room seemed to be under some sort of mind control and Lois could tell by the way things were escalating. The kids were starting to push and pull on each other, all the while ignoring her and Monica.
Tempus’ laugher filled the room as he stood at the top of the stairs and watched the scene below. “Crush them,” the man from the future shouted over the thundering music and Monica and Lois could both feel themselves abruptly pushed up against the wall.
Lois’ eyes went wild, she could see that Clark was still trapped, but when she suddenly saw Andrew appearing next to a suffering Clark. She tried to push her way through the crowd of drugged out kids, some of whom slurred obscenities at her, but most of them were indifferent towards her and barely able to stay on their own two feet, much less react aggressively towards her.
The rest of the crowd seemed not to care, the cage to them looked like a normal part of the rave, and Lois and Monica could hear them arguing about who would be next to dance inside of it. These kids had completely lost control of themselves, all of them zoning out from the effects of the drugs, but Lois could have cared less, she continued to try and get close enough to Clark to speak to him, to say she was sorry, to offer him some sort of words of comfort to the man she loved who lay suffering from the exposure to the kryptonite. “Superman,” she screamed out. “Please don’t die, Metropolis needs you…” her words were loud, and she watched as he raised his head only slightly as if to acknowledge her presence. As the words drifted to the heavens, three more words emerged, but no one could have possibly heard them, except perhaps Clark. “…I need you.”
Lois continued to try to break through the group of kids, some of them giving way, leaving her enough room to get to the cage, Monica following close behind, she managed to reach Lois as the pulsating music reached its climax and the kids at level of mass hysteria; some of them collapsing onto the floor while others fled from the room in the hopes of getting outside.
At that point, Monica managed to reach the reporter’s side as the kids trampled through the building, but the angel glanced around the room and saw that Adam and a number of Angels of Death were standing, each one over a teenager that lay unmoving on the floor. A sob caught in her throat, she wiped the tears from her eyes and watched as about half of the angels took the children Home. A split second they were gone, while others remained, their hands holding those of the kids, Adam looked up at her. “Don’t worry, Monica, there’s still time, but for Clark not much.”
She nodded and ran over to where Lois was now sitting on the ground next to the cage. She had taken Clark’s hand in hers, and she watched the man she loved look up only slightly, his heavy lidded eyes meeting hers. “I love you,” she whispered, and she felt the soft squeeze of his hand against her.
“Superman, please don’t die…” she pleaded and looked up to see Andrew was still standing over Clark. “You…You’re really an angel?” She said to the angel as the music stopped and she glanced over to see that Tess had appeared next to the DJ’s stand and had managed to finally shut off the pulsating music.
“Yes, I am,” Andrew said softy, his green eyes filled with sadness as he regarded Clark in this defeated state. The angel was no longer dressed in black, instead he was dressed in his beige suit, the same suit that he had worn the night before when he had told Lois the truth. He looked deeply into her eyes for a moment, as realization washed over him that she had not believed anything he had said. Now, he knew that she no longer had a choice in the matter. Andrew Halo really was an angel, he was glowing, and the light that surrounded him filled with warmth and gentility, but when she looked at Clark and then back at Andrew, her face went a ghostly white.
“Y-You’re an Angel of Death,” she stammered, the shock evident in her eyes.
“Yes, Andrew is an Angel of Death,” Monica said softly and when the reporter turned, she could see that Monica too had changed, she was now dressed in a white dress, her hair now hanging loosely down over her shoulders. “I’m an angel too, Lois, and God sent us here, not to watch Superman die, but the choices and decisions that people have made will bring about his passing, but what you can change is whether or not Superman dies in peace and happiness, or if this event will make his passing one of sadness and spiritual turmoil.”
“I-I don’t understand,” Lois whispered as Clark raised his head only slightly and looked at her.
“L-Lois…” he whispered as he licked his dry lips. “I never meant to hurt you.”
“I know,” she responded in kind. “Deep inside I knew.” She looked at the angels, first at Andrew and then at Monica. “You’ve got to help me…” She stood up and tried without success at lifting the cage that trapped Clark.
“I cannot,” Andrew whispered with agony in his voice. “There is nothing on earth I would wish to do more than to help you, Lois, but I cannot interfere with the results of choices that people make. It is your free will that brought you into this situation, I’m sorry.”
“You mean this is our own fault,” Lois whispered. “This was why it was you told me that I shouldn’t come here.”
Andrew nodded as Clark looked at Lois and then at the Angel of Death. “A team of wild horses couldn’t have stopped her, Andrew.”
“You know her well,” Andrew smiled weakly, but he reached down and brushed the dark hair out from in front of Clark’s face.
“I should have seen through your identity,” Clark said softly. “Only someone from God could emanate light the way you do…”
Andrew nodded. “Clark, I tried to tell you so many times, we both just somehow got sidetracked. I was present when Leonard Smyth died, and when Helen was attacked, but I’m here now, for you, Clark Kent. God sends angels at many times in people’s lives, when they are born, throughout, and at the end of one’s life. I am usually sent to help in that transition. This is what you saw me do.”
“Then what you said earlier was true, you really are an Angel of Death?” Lois asked. “And I’m going to lose Clark, because…” Her voice trailed off but she watched as Andrew sat down on the ground next to Clark, reached over and took Lois’ hand.
“Yes, I am an Angel of Death…” Andrew responded softly, but before he could speak further, the door literally was burst off its hinges, and at least 30 armed policemen and the same number of medical personnel charged into the room.
When they saw Clark crumpled in a heap on the floor and suffering, they quickly went to work and managed to pull the offending object up and away from Clark, thus giving him enough energy to crawl slowly away from the deadly substance. As soon as he was away from it, Lois ran over to him and threw her arms around him. “I was so scared,” she whispered as she buried her tearstained face against the large letter ‘S’ that was on the chest of Clark’s spandex suit.
Clark brushed his hands gently through her hair and she looked up and into his eyes. “I don’t know what happened, but I think that we need to talk,” he whispered, his gaze sweeping some two feet from where they were now standing and Lois could tell that he meant Monica and Andrew in that observation as well.
The two angels, for their part, nodded and Clark looked at them as a cry for help seemed to split into his world and he looked down at Lois apologetically. “I have to go…”
“…Someone needs you?” She asked meekly and he nodded, this time his expression pained, but she reached up and touched his cheek. “Go be a hero, you’re already mine.”
With that and with his strength once more intact, he sped out of the large room leaving Lois standing in the room with Monica, Andrew and about three policemen. Right now, all she wanted to do was to get out of there, go home, take a shower and await Clark’s impending visit. Sighing, she glanced around the room and realized that she still had to find out what had happened. Specifically, why and how it was that the police had known to bust in when they did. This was nothing short of perfect timing, but part of her job was to find out what had happened that had brought the police to the warehouse.
She looked at Monica. “There’s a story to be gotten and then I will ask that you both take me home.”
Both angels nodded. “We’ll do that, Lois,” Andrew nodded.
At that moment, one of the officers had come over to her and rested his hand on her shoulder. “Are you alright, Ms. Lane?”
“Yes, yes, I’m fine, but what on earth happened? How did you guys know that we were even here and how did you find out about the rave being in this particular location?” She asked. “When I talked to the chief of police yesterday, he never mentioned anything about it me and we talked for over an hour.”
“Well, at around nine, a friend of yours named Jimmy Olsen came down to the precinct house in quite a tizzy. He spoke of what you and Ms. Wings were doing, and said that you didn’t have all the information necessary to go in. We, of course asked him why and he asked if he could show us the website with the clues to the whereabouts of the rave. We’d been getting leaks that something was going down tonight, but we didn’t know to what extent until he came in,” he said clearing his throat. “We have already gotten Tempus in custody, he didn’t put up much of a fight, the paramedics have taken the kids who survived to area hospitals, but sadly a number of them died before we could get here.” He shook his head sadly. “County Central Hospital has set up a detox program and that should help the kids come down from their prospective highs. Now, that Smyth’s drug ring and Tempus are gone, things should return to normal. But, the one who really deserves the credit for helping us is your friend, Mr. Olsen.”
“Wait a minute, do you mean to tell me that Jimmy is responsible for getting you guys out here?” Lois asked her eyes constantly on the police officer, the disbelief shadowing her pretty features.
“He felt it was best to inform us of what was going down tonight,” the policeman explained. “The boy’s investigative skills are nothing short of impressive, Ms. Lane, he should be hailed a hero. He may have foregone a possible scoop for your newspaper, but in doing so, he saved a number of lives here, including Superman’s, that’s no small potatoes either. At any rate, while he was at the precinct house, he showed some schematics that he had downloaded from the Internet as well as having done some research about this building and its history.”
Lois nodded. “He did all that? Well, what was it, what specifically did he find out?”
The policeman shrugged his shoulders. “The very last clue for the rave was something that was in code, it was something that made the whole thing look rather fishy to him, perhaps because he’s young and is in tuned with the youth culture. At any rate, after your friend, Mr. Olsen studied the last word in the code, he discovered that every person who attended this rave would ultimately be forced to take some sort of drug when they arrived tonight.” He held up a small piece of paper. “What he found out was based on some of your notations were similar in scope to the last word in the clue. Something on this piece of paper caught Mr. Olsen’s attention and he basically went with his intuition.”
“What could it have been? Those were merely some scribbled up notes from when I talked to Dr. Klein over at Star Labs earlier today.” Lois looked at the policeman. “So what was it that caught his attention?”
“All the words that were listed came through in a specific order, the first three you knew from what he had found and once he had figured the clue out, you figured that there was no need for the rest of the words in the code. Dog, cellar, and summer were the words you had, and there is really no significance to them. The other words however did not spark his curiosity. Pier, abandoned, building, and June were like the first three, not very important but the last one had nothing to do with a location, instead, it was an object. The word was brain-candy. Taking this reference, Mr. Olsen went through the archives of the dog food manufacturers and discovered that they used to call the food they produced for the dogs ‘canine brain-candy’. As silly as it sounds, this was a part of their old advertisement gimmicks that stood out in his mind. He said something about a friend of his reminding him that sometimes knowing the history of a place would help to sort things out. This was not about brain-candy for dogs so it didn’t apply as a clue about location, Ms. Lane, this is about something much more specific. Some younger patients have used the term during rehab, and that term was what they used when they described ‘drugs’.”
“So he remembered all that?” Lois asked.
The officer nodded. “This city owes your friend Mr. Olsen a debt of gratitude.” With that, the officer walked away and Lois remained standing, all the while shaking her head.
She started towards the stairs, but stopped when someone called her name and she turned around to see that Monica was now standing behind her, the angel’s face no longer pale from the biker style makeup. She was once again dressed in a long white flowing dress and she regarded the reporter with a warm and gentle smile. The light colored clothing that Monica wore seemed to blend into the light that emanated the angel and made her all the more breathtaking.
“You’re really an angel?” Lois asked softly. “Like Andrew? I didn’t believe him last night when he told me, but…”
“Yes, I am,” Monica smiled and nodded. “You see Lois, God sends angels in many shapes and sizes. He knows what is in your heart, and He knows the pain that one must endure when it comes to making things work in human relationships. He brought you and Clark together for a divine purpose. It may seem as though it happened in a strange way, but you have to admit that He did good in bringing two wonderful people together. That is God’s way, He did this because He loves you both very much and in the purest and most unconditional form that exists. Andrew and I have been sent to be with you for these last weeks, but this time, we did not work alone, in fact, the one who helped the most was not an angel at all, he was a young man who has his own insecurities of being the youngster in an adult world. Jimmy cared enough for both of you that he risked you possibly being angry with him when he decided to take matters into his own hands, all the while not knowing that his actions saved both of your lives. Jimmy called the police and got them here, but he did because he listened to the voice in his heart that said that you and Clark were in grave danger.”
Lois nodded. “He knew that Clark had come back to the Planet?”
“He had seem him come out of Perry’s office earlier today, and he was happy, for the first time in weeks, he had a reason to smile,” Monica said softly.
“I never really talked to him about the stuff like when Clark left,” Lois said. “I knew that he saw Clark as an older brother of sorts.”
“He saw that in me as well,” Andrew said breaking his silence. “Tonight after we meet Clark at your home, we will be leaving and it will be up to you and Clark to tell Jimmy what he needs to know.”
“If we tell him you’re angels, he’s going to think we’re crazy,” Lois said.
“Not necessarily,” Monica said smiling.
Lois shrugged her shoulders. “So can we get out of here already? I’ve had enough for one night.”
The two angels smiled and nodded. “We know the feeling,” Andrew muttered under his breath and the three of them went up the stairs and left for the last time.
Behind them, Tess stood and watched them go.
TBC
