Perry stood helplessly by the body of the Man of Steel. He knelt, checked the carotid pulse once again, futilely. Superman's eyes held an unseeing glaze. What are we going to do now? thought Perry. He was just coming to grips with the shocking loss.
A tiny glow at the corner of his eye caught his attention. Lois' body had started to shine. Richard noticed it too, and stopped his keening. Perry stood up slowly, keeping an eye on Lois, slumped in Richard's arms.
The glow would not have been seen in ordinary light. But now, with the darkness falling, its subtle light became apparent, at the edge of perception. Richard looked on, his grief-stricken features rearranging themselves into an air of incomprehension.
The glow began at Lois's head, and slowly traveled down her body, growing in intensity as it did so. It blossomed, growing stronger, bathing Richard's face in light. He swallowed nervously, but kept hold of Lois. It coruscated and sparkled, gradually strengthening until it reached some sort of climax. Perry stood, breathless, knowing that something was happening. The glow exploded into a bright light that left Perry blinking, his eyes dazzled. Richard's eyes, too, from what Perry could see of his nephew.
And then Perry's world turned upside down. Again.
"Richard?" Lois asked weakly.
Richard looked at Lois. Astonishment was too weak a word for the expression on Richard's face, thought Perry. And his own jaw sagged in disbelief.
"Richard?" Lois asked again. She knew she was in her fiance's arms, obviously.
But you were dead! Perry gibbered to himself. I saw you! You weren't moving…
Lois grew impatient at the lack of response from Richard and Perry and wriggled in Richard's arms. "Richard, let me go…." She caught sight of Superman lying sprawled on the floor, motionless as only the dead could be. She stiffened. "Oh, God, Clark!" she hissed.
She forced her way out of Richard's arms and ran to Superman. Perry stood and watched, too numb to move. Lois ran her hands over Superman's body, ignoring the blood that stained her palms. She leaned over Superman, reaching for him much as Richard had reached for her earlier, and sat next to him. She reached under Superman's shoulders, grunting at the effort, and set his head against her own shoulders, cradling him, closing her eyes, and taking a deep breath.
The room was darker now, the night falling. Perry saw a recurrence of the glow on Lois. But this glow seemed weaker, not as triumphant as the light that had surrounded Lois earlier. And then Perry noticed Lex Luthor's ring. The virulent green glow of the kryptonite had died away earlier, leaving the rock a dull green. Now, as Lois did…whatever…the ring took on a small light as well. The green light of the ring clashed with Lois' glow, the two lights not meeting, but obviously antithetical. One seeing them understood instinctively that the two could never mix.
Lois opened her eyes. She caught a glimpse of Lex Luthor's ring with its eerie green nimbus, and she hissed in exasperation. She looked around the room, seeing Richard sitting on the floor, his face a mixture of incredulity, awe, and fear. She looked away from Richard and caught Perry's eye.
"Perry!" she said commandingly.
He could not reply.
"Perry!" she said again.
"What?" Perry managed to croak out.
"Perry, I need you here," Lois said coaxingly. She seemed to realize that Perry – and Richard – were in shock. "That ring is kryptonite, Perry," she said. "You've got to get it away from Clark."
"Uh-huh." Perry didn't move.
"Perry!"
"What?" Perry asked again. It was if he heard Lois through cotton wool. And that wasn't just due to the gunfire.
"Perry," Lois said again, patiently, as if to one who was a little slow, "take the ring off Lex's finger. Take it far away."
Perry shook himself. He pulled his lower jaw up. "OK, I can do that," he said slowly. He bent down by Lex, noticing the man was still breathing shallowly, and that blood still oozed from his scalp lacerations. Perry took a deep breath, not wanting to touch the ring. He screwed up his courage and lifted Lex's hand. He unscrewed the ring from Lex's finger.
"That's good, Perry," Lois said encouragingly. "Now take it away."
"Where?" Perry asked, not quite dully, but finding it hard to think.
Lois cast her gaze around the room quickly. "At that end table way down there," she said. "C'mon, Perry, you can do this."
I can do this. The phrase, repeated to himself so many times while he'd fought off the craving, touched the streak of iron down deep in Perry White. He'd faced shocks before. He could do this. He shook his head, and came back to himself.
Nodding briskly, he took the ring down to the other end of the large den. He thought about taking it outside and throwing it in the river….then Lois spoke up.
"Don't leave me, Perry," she almost begged.
"OK, Lois," he said gently. He set the ring down and noticed its glow had died again. He wiped his hand on his trousers as he came back to Lois, not caring that the ring and his trousers had bloodstains now.
"Perry, stay by me," Lois pleaded.
He set one hand on her shoulder. Perry looked at Superman in Lois' arms. The motionlessness struck Perry. He'd seen dead people before, and what always startled him, every time, was the stillness. Live people breathed, quivered, trembled. Their hearts beat. Dead people stayed still. And Superman had that deathly stillness. Perry had seen death enough to know that stillness.
Lois took another deep breath and closed her eyes. Perry saw the glow forming again and forced himself not to take away his hand. Nervous, he looked away and met Richard's eyes. If the other man had been pale before, he was ashen now. Perry could see the dark pools of Richard's eyes in the pallor of his face that floated in the twilight.
The glow flickered and died again.
"Damn!" Lois cursed. She didn't let go of Superman. "Perry," she said.
"Yes?" Perry replied, proud that his voice didn't shake.
"Perry, there's got to be more kryptonite on Lex," Lois said. "It's the only reason I can't – it's keeping me from – "
"You want me to search him?" Perry asked, understanding.
"Yes," Lois said, nodding her head gratefully.
"OK," Perry said, and went back to Lex. This time Perry wasted no time
on checking the villain's vital signs. He flipped open the three-piece suit – and isn't Luthor supposed to be in prison grays right now – how'd he get his suit back, anyway? – and checked the interior pockets. He pulled a chunk of kryptonite from the vest pocket, alerted to it by the nauseatingly wrong green glow that flickered through the suit material. Perry went methodically through Lex's clothing, pulling out a shard of kryptonite from almost every pocket. Lex was even wearing a chunk of kryptonite as a pendant. Several of the pieces were shaped to a wickedly keen point and Perry was reminded that Superman had been stabbed with a kryptonite shiv before. Apparently Luthor was prepared to repeat the deed.
Perry gathered up the pieces in Luthor's jacket. All the pieces except one, a large, irregularly-shaped, blunt green crystal – had that otherworldly evil glow to them. A subdued glow. So far Perry hadn't seen any of the pieces fluoresce as much as the ring had when Superman had faced Lex Luthor directly. He stared at the pile of crystals for a moment, thinking.
Lois gave a small cry, and Perry, abashed, recalled himself. It seemed to be a pretty big pile, and Perry wasn't sure if the end table at the end of the room, where the ring was, would be far enough away. Didn't radiation go by the inverse square law or something? He couldn't remember, but it made sense that a larger amount would have farther-reaching effects.
Then it came to him. The gun safe was full of ammunition. Lead ammunition. Perry jumped up and swung the safe door open wide. He moved the boxes of ammo around, creating a pocket. He picked up the green crystals, and dumped them onto the shelf, palisading boxes of ammunition to the right of the kryptonite, to the left, on top of the pile, and on the shelf below. He hoped he'd walled off the toxin.
Perry closed the gun safe carefully, and then, after a moment, pulled out the key and put it in his own pocket. Better safe than sorry, he thought, and then giggled stupidly at his own pun. He turned back to Lois. I can do this. She wants me to help her.
Lois had gone ahead on her own. She cradled Superman in her arms, reminding Perry of Michelangelo's sculpture of the Pieta. By the time Perry reached her, the glow had arisen, and had spread to cover both her and Superman.
Perry reached down to touch her shoulder, then pulled his hand away. He didn't know what would happen if he touched Lois at this delicate juncture. Instead, he stood and watched, fascinated this time.
Lois' glow wasn't kryptonite green. It wasn't white either. It was some sort of indescribable, beautiful rainbow-like emanation that deep down, was Lois Lane. Perry instinctively recognized that. The light he saw could have come from no one else. It was Lois' soul made manifest.
This time he kept from staggering as he saw Superman's wounds close up, the blood disappear from the Man of Steel's skin. Lois sagged, but the light remained. Perry saw the light grow, and put a hand over his eyes right before it exploded into the coruscating brilliance that had happened before.
Lois' glow died out. Perry's eyes, dazzled, could see nothing, not even Richard's face across the room. A minute passed. Two minutes. Perry's eyes recovered, and he began to be able to see in the room again, the fading twilight giving enough light.
And then he heard Superman speak.
"Lois?" Superman said tentatively.
A shiver ran through Perry. Superman had been dead. He'd seen it himself. Then he shrugged. He'd seen the glow twice before, and impossible things had happened each time. He was becoming the Red Queen – believing six impossible things before breakfast.
"Lois?" Superman asked again, a note of urgency in his voice.
Perry walked carefully over to a floor lamp and turned it on. The sudden bright light had everyone blinking - not Richard though, Perry noticed. Richard had passed out, looking very pale, on the floor, eyes closed.
Perry turned to the Man of Steel. Superman had rose to his feet, and in a reversal of what Perry had seen earlier, now Superman held Lois in his arms. She was limp and motionless.
"Superman?" Perry asked, unconsciously deferring to the Suit, calling Clark by his alternate identity's name automatically. Perry began tracing a path to Superman and Lois.
"Freeze!" a harsh voice called. The doors at either end of the room banged open. Perry stopped in his tracks. Two helmeted, goggled figures in body armor pointed very lethal-looking weapons at him. From both sides. Slowly, Perry raised his hands. Tense silence filled the room.
