TOC Part 14“Eduardo, what’s going on with that body the police pulled out of the West River this morning?” Perry called out over the hubbub of the newsroom. Eduardo had been on the phone to homicide and had missed the morning’s conference.
Eduardo looked up from his monitor and shrugged. “Male Caucasian, early to mid twenties, no ID except for some tattoos. Autopsy’s this afternoon, but nobody thinks it’s natural causes.”
“Could it be gang related?” Perry asked.
“Doesn’t match the M.O. of any of the usual suspects,” Eduardo said. “But the MPD isn’t saying it’s not gang related. If it is… it’s too early to claim there’s a new player in town.”
“Perry,” Polly yelled. “Two more homeless men have been reported missing from the Hob’s Bay shelter. This makes six since Christmas. Still no bodies, nothing to link them together that we know of.”
“Sounds like a serial killer to me. Get on it… And a sidebar on serial killers in Metropolis,” Perry ordered before moving on. “Lois, Clark, what have we got on those two latest abductions?"
"Nada," Lois told him. "The police aren’t even admitting, officially at least, that Rose and Nick's disappearance has anything to do with Nick's earlier kidnapping."
"According to Henderson,” Clark Added. “Constance Blackthorn's been singing like a bird about how she was the one behind Romick, how she programmed him to act as her accomplice in the kidnappings."
"And Novak's murder?" Perry asked.
Lois shook her head. "The physical evidence points to Romick so far, but since she confessed to brainwashing Romick, who knows? All we really know is that the D.A.'s going to have a tough time with it. If Romick did pull the trigger on Novak, was he legally culpable?"
"And where do Rose and Nick fit into the puzzle?" Clark added.
Lois heard the click of heels behind her and turned in her chair to see who it was. Cat was back in her 'normal' dress – bright and almost painted on. Her expression was dark and sulky. Lois almost expected to see her ears folded back and her tail twitching as she contemplated feline mayhem on some unsuspecting male soul.
"What happened?" Lois asked. "Salvation Army turn you away?"
Perry stifled a chuckle, then obviously seeing the expression on Cat’s face, started to look around his newsroom. He spotted Jimmy coming out of the elevators.
"He married an exotic dancer," Cat groused as Perry headed for safety.
"Arthur Chow?" Clark asked.
"All that itchy, high-necked wool and he marries a woman who can wave hello with her navel," Cat spat.
"That's too bad," Lois responded. She was trying hard to sound sympathetic. It came out saccharine instead. "I had your wedding present all picked out."
"You did?"
Cat's hopeful expression almost made Lois feel bad about what she was going to say next.
Almost. "Yeah. A set of personalized stationery. 'From the desk of Cat Chow.'"
Cat glared at her and stalked away, looking for new prey no doubt.
Perry and Jimmy were walking together toward Jimmy's desk.
"…So that's it," Jimmy was saying. "All this strange behavior exhibited by famous people all over the world was linked to Constance Blackthorn. My angle: 'Great Minds Sink Alike.'"
Perry clapped the younger man on the back. "That's brilliant, Jimmy."
Jimmy's hopefully expression dissolved into frustration. "All right, that's it. I can't take it any more. I get it now. I've learned my lesson. False praise means nothing. If you don't think it's a good idea just say so."
Perry gave him a blank look then turned to Lois and Clark. "What the Sam Hill is he talking about?" he demanded.
Clark beckoned Jimmy aside. "He means it."
"You're just saying that," Jimmy protested but Lois suspected he was hoping Clark was right.
"You didn't even say 'chief,'" Clark pointed out. He was right. Jimmy hadn't used the programming word."
Jimmy turned back to Perry. "You mean it?"
Perry glowered at him. "Perry White
never says anything he doesn't mean. I want it on my desk tomorrow. Get Jeff to do a sidebar on hypnosis and brainwashing techniques."
With that, Perry disappeared into his office.
"When Dr. Novak was here talking to Brittany Sparrows, I had him 'de-program' Perry," Clark said just loudly enough for Jimmy and Lois to hear.
"Way to go, C.K.," Jimmy said gratefully. Then he straightened up, eyes wide in wonder. "Wait… I have a story to write!"
Lois suppressed a chuckle as the younger man ran to his desk. “Where you ever that green?” she asked Clark.
“Were you?”
“I’ll never admit to it,” Lois told him. She turned more solemn. “Constance has confessed to the kidnappings and of brainwashing, or at least trying to brainwash, influential people. But there are still questions… like where she got that drug cocktail she was using…”
“One laced with kryptonite,” Clark added. “Which Jason Trask believed could be potentially fatal to Superman and is extremely rare.”
“And like who was really behind the plot,” Lois continued.
“You don’t think Constance was the mastermind?”
“You read her background,” Lois reminded him. “She’s the daughter of Anthony Blackthorn, the famous magician. She’s an illusionist with some training in hypnosis and mentalism. She paired up with Romick because she couldn’t make it solo, even with the Blackthorn name. There’s nothing to indicate she was an expert in psychological manipulation, aside from the mentalism thing. According to my sources, she barely made it out of high school.”
“So, obviously someone else was calling the shots,” Clark said.
“And we have no idea who,” Lois said. “Unless Constance told Henderson who she was working for."
“Do you think he’d tell us if she did?”
Lois picked up her phone. “We can ask.”
-o-o-o-
“I still don’t believe Henderson agreed to talk to us about Constance’s confession,” Clark said as he and Lois walked up the stone walkway to the large house in Racine that Henderson told them to meet him at. “Even if it is only for background.”
“What can I say?” Lois asked. “I’m remarkably persuasive.”
“Or Henderson has an ulterior motive?” Clark suggested.
“Bill Henderson is as uncomplicated as you are, Clark,” Lois retorted. She stabbed at the doorbell button beside a heavy wooden front door and distant chimes sounded. “You’re just being paranoid.”
Overhead, the sky was darkening even though the weatherman had predicted clear and cold for the next week.
“What makes you think I’m not complicated?”
“You were raised on a farm in Kansas,” Lois pointed out. “You can’t get any less complicated than that.”
“Oh and being from Metropolis…”
He was interrupted by the opening of the door. Henderson grinned at them and Lois wondered if he’d been listening to them. She had spotted the security cameras that had tracked their walk up the path to the house, even if she hadn’t pointed them out to Clark.
“Glad you decided to come,” Henderson said, moving aside so they could enter the house. Lois took a moment to look around the high entrance hall. Slate and what looked to be an antique carpet graced the floor. The walls were white linen which made for an effective background for several small pieces of brightly colored art. French doors on either side of the entrance hall opened onto to the rest of the house. A thickly carpeted stairway led to the upper floor.
“Nice place,” Lois commented. “Must have put you back some.” She eyed him speculatively, waiting for his answers. She was baiting him and she was certain he knew she had done her homework. The property’s owner was listed on the tax rolls as ‘The Maddox Foundation’. She and Clark hadn’t been able find out anything concerning them. And that was suspicious in itself.
Henderson shrugged, still smiling. “Not me. I live in Queensland Park. It’s the people who do own it you’re here to talk to.”
“The Maddox Foundation?” Clark asked.
“No. Me, Mister Kent,” Kathryn Komack said, opening the French doors to Lois’s right. Lois could see Doctor Jackson standing behind Komack. “Thank you for coming. Bill assures me that despite your choice of profession, you are both discrete and more or less trustworthy.”
“More or less?” Lois challenged.
“Don’t push it, Lane,” Henderson warned. “You’re here because the two of you are probably the best ones I know for this job.”
“And what job is that?” Clark asked.
“Running down Constance Blackthorn’s associates,” Komack said. She led them into the next room, a parlor with comfortable, and expensive, leather chairs and sofas, and indicated they should sit. Jackson poured coffee and handed Lois a cup. She took a sip – it was fixed exactly the way she liked it. She saw Clark’s look of worried surprise as he took a sip of his own cup. Jackson knew how they liked their coffee. What else did he know about them? And what did it mean?
“Isn’t this a matter for the police or the FBI?” Lois suggested.
“Or the NIA?” Clark added.
“If I thought they could handle this matter, I would have asked Bill to ask them for their assistance,” Komack said. “I’m told you have skills and traits uniquely suited to this ‘mission’. Plus, you are not a known member of the police or of the Azure Brotherhood. We don’t know exactly what resources they have, but it’s better to assume they have more than less.”
“The Azure Brotherhood?” Clark asked. “Doctor Novak mentioned it in regards to Andrew Thompkins. He wouldn’t say anything more about it that except he was positive they weren’t involved in the kidnappings.”
“We weren’t,” Henderson stated. “But we have reason to believe an esoteric group that calls itself ‘The Order’ was, and is, involved in what Blackthorn was doing, including the kidnappings.”
‘We?’ Lois wondered. What was Henderson involved in? And what was he getting them into?
“I’ve never heard of any group called the ‘The Order’,” Lois commented. “But then, I never heard of the Azure Brotherhood until Novak mentioned it.”
“Neither group feels comfortable in the limelight,” Jackson said. “Although for differing reasons,” he added.
“And your reasons are?” Clark asked. He sounded as suspicious as Lois felt.
“There are forces for light and dark in this world. The forces of darkness tend to scurry like rats when the light of truth and justice, even human justice, is shined on them,” Komack said. “The forces of light are simply trying to do what needs to be done for the good of the many, if not all. It is frequently a thankless job, but it is a job we are called to do. And our gifts make it possible for us to do it.”
“Like Superman,” Clark said. “Never asking for compensation or even recognition.”
“Yes,” Komack said.
“So, how do we know you’re really on the side of light?” Lois demanded.
“You know him,” she said, nodding toward Henderson. “Which side is he on?”
Lois considered the woman’s statement for a long moment. Bill Henderson had been one of the first MPD officers she’d had contact with, even before she’d started at the Daily Planet. She had always considered him honest and upright, a good cop with an appreciation of what a good reporter, and a good newspaper, could do for the city. Bill, what are you involved in?
“What do we need to do?” Lois asked.
“If Constance was involved in the matters we think she was, the group she was working with will be both dangerous and talented in matters few people understand,” Komack said, not answering Lois’s question.
“Like you’re not?” Lois pointed out.
Henderson chuckled. “I told you she was feisty.”
“They’ll both need every bit of it before this is over,” Jackson said solemnly.
Lois felt a black chill wash over her. What the hell’s going on here?
Komack led them deeper into the house, to a small room with two large windows on the wall opposite the door. There was a simple square wooden table in the center of the room, several wooden chairs set against the walls and a tall cabinet with shallow drawers. There was a phone hanging on the wall beside the door. Wall sconces held large candles which were lit.
A young woman, little more than a girl really, was waiting in the room. She was tall, with pale blonde hair and blue eyes that seemed to change color with the light.
“My daughter, Esther,” Komack introduced the girl. She was quietly watching Lois and Lois found herself feeling nervous under her unwavering blue gaze.
After a long moment the girl said “They are both old souls. They’ve trod this path many, many times. Almost always together.” She nodded to Lois. “She’s a very pretty green. I bet she’s a Gemini, too. Early June?”
Lois opened her mouth to comment then snapped it shut. She wasn’t about to confirm her birth date for them. Not that would make any difference – Henderson could give them that anytime he wanted.
Esther eyed her another moment then turned to study Clark. She frowned. “Pisces. A very powerful crystal with serious damage.”
“I’ve gotten hurt a couple times in the last few months,” Clark admitted. He showed her his hand still wrapped in gauze, the one he’d grabbed the sword with. “I seem to be a little accident prone.”
She shook her head. “This isn’t physical. You’ve lost part of yourself and you don’t know if you’ll ever find that part again…”
“What sort of games are you people playing at?” Lois demanded. She glared at Henderson. “You know perfectly well what’s been going on with Clark ever since…”
“I didn’t tell her anything,” Henderson interrupted. “I didn’t need to. But she did just confirm my own observations.”
“And those are?” Clark asked. There was the slightest tremor in his voice. Lois didn’t take the time to wonder about it.
“There’s more to everyone than meets the eye,” Henderson said. “But there’s more to the two of you than even that. Now, do you want to help us find Roslyn and Nick Thompkins or not?”
“What makes you think we won’t help?” Lois demanded.
“Your natural pig-headedness,” Henderson told her with a sly grin. “Believe me I know what you’re going through,” he added more seriously. “I had a hard time of it when I first got involved too. But we don’t have the luxury of time to hand hold you through this.”
“Do you know what The Order is planning?” Clark asked.
“Constance Blackthorn told us about a communications satellite program she’d been working on with someone from LexTel,” Henderson said. “But we don’t think that’s what they were really about. The technology is too fragile, too dependant on a reliable drug delivery system. And if you have that, then you don’t need the complication of a satellite or subliminal programming.”
“So all that stuff with programming the queen and the pope was just a smoke screen, a ruse?” Clark asked.
“Possibly,” Jackson said. “We can’t be sure. It could have been a test, or another means of extortion.”
“You two figured out the link between Andrew Thompkins and the ransom demands,” Henderson said. “What you don’t know, what was never put into any police reports was that the pieces that were demanded were ceremonial items Thompkins had made for the Brotherhood. Nothing exceptionally valuable, except for their sentimental value.”
“But, if they’d been used in ceremonies, wouldn’t they have some accumulated power attached to them?” Clark asked. Lois gave him a surprised look. That wasn’t a question that would have occurred to her. She wasn’t even sure exactly what he was asking.
“Each piece was cleansed and rendered inert before being handed over,” Komack explained. The answer seemed to satisfy Clark but Lois felt she had missed something in the exchange.
“Do you know who killed Thompkins?” Clark asked.
“We’re reasonably certain it was Constance,” Henderson said. “We know she… Her father was a long-standing member of the Brotherhood, although stage magicians, illusionists, are rarely interested in the more ‘esoteric’ aspects of the art. We know he taught her his stage magic and introduced her to ‘other’ things.”
“When he died, Constance tried to coerce the Brotherhood into allowing her to take his place,” Komack continued the story. “We don’t take well to threats. Her petition was refused. She disappeared for a time. When she resurfaced, she was the Magnificent Romick’s assistant and they had a very successful Vegas act. We all thought that was the end of it. Then four years ago she and Romick were doing a charity performance in Metropolis. Andrew told me Constance had tried to coerce him into doing things he wouldn’t do. Two days later he was dead and his wife and child went into hiding on his orders. Constance and Romick were back in Vegas. The police weren’t able to link either one of them to Andrew’s murder.”
“But how does the Order fit into this?” Clark asked.
“We’re getting to that,” Henderson said. “Despite Blackthorn’s efforts to obscure her finances, we can account for all the cash used to pay the ransoms. But we couldn’t trace the tools until yesterday, when one of the pieces was found in a pawnshop in Midtown.”
“And?” Lois prompted.
“The pawnshop owner positively identified the man who sold him the piece as Hans Kimmel. He worked for LexTel and was found floating in the West River this morning,” Henderson told them.
That was the murder Eduardo was covering, Lois realized.
“It sound’s like we’re back to square one,” Clark observed.
“Not quite,” Henderson said. “There were indications that Kimmel was killed in a ritualistic manner. We’re guessing it was punishment for his failure. We’re currently tracking down his known associates. We’re hoping one of them will lead us to where Rose and Nick are being held. By our best estimates, if we don’t find them by midnight tonight, we won’t find Rose alive and we may never find Nick at all.”
“That’s assuming Rose and Nick were abducted by this ‘Order’,” Lois pointed out.
“They were,” Jackson assured her. “Constance Blackthorn believes that Nicolas Thompkins is the current incarnation of her father, one of the finest illusionists and ceremonial magicians of his generation. From what Constance has said, she realized who Nicolas was after Mister Kent rescued him. We believe the Order may be following her plan to bring back her father’s knowledge, only your interference as forced them to adjust their timetable.”
“So, what makes you think midnight tonight’s their deadline?” Lois asked.
Clark answered. “Midnight is the witching hour and tonight the Moon will be dark.”
“A time for endings and beginnings,” Henderson added.
-o-o-o-
“Why don’t we just get a willow rod and dowse for them?” Lois asked, voice dripping with sarcasm. Henderson had left to go back to his office so he could keep tabs on the search for Rose and Nick’s abductors, leaving Lois and Clark alone with Komack and Jackson.
Jackson had spread out a map of Greater Metropolis on the table and had started to explain the procedure he intended they use to pinpoint Rose and Nick’s location. Lois hadn’t been able to contain her disbelief – the Hungarian psychiatrist planned to use a pendulum of all things, to locate Rose and Nick. And Clark seemed fine with the idea.
“Lois, dowsing really does work,” Clark told her. She glared at him. “My parent’s neighbor, Mister Hubbard, dowses for water for everyone in the county,” Clark continued. “He’s good at it, too. He found the spot for my parent’s new well, even knew how deep they’d have to go.”
“You’re not serious,” Lois stated.
“Lois, you have no magic in your soul,” Clark said. “That’s very sad.” Clark turned to Jackson. “She believes a man could fly without wings or an airplane, but she doesn’t believe in magic.”
“Most modern people don’t,” Komack said. “But this may be the only way to get the information we need to find them.”
“You don’t think the police will be able to find them in time?” Lois asked.
“Bill knows we’ll be doing what we can here, in addition to the methods he has officially at his disposal,” Komack said.
“What are the risks?” Clark asked.
“Larger than I care to think about,” Jackson said. “I suspect that the Order has devolved into conducting Satanistic rituals. If so, they may have unleashed dangerous energies probably without realizing what they were doing. Energies waiting for a focus, for an opportunity,” the psychiatrist explained. “We’ve seen such things. It’s not pretty.”
Jackson threw the deadbolt on the door. “We must not be disturbed for at least half an hour,” he explained. He nodded to Komack.
Lois turned to watch the woman and was surprised to see a small silver handled dagger with a blue-black blade in the woman’s hand. She pointed the dagger at the door, motioning in the air, up and down, side to side. For a moment, Lois thought she saw, just at the edge of her vision, a faintly glowing blue pentagram floating over the door.
Komack repeated the signing over the two floor-to-ceiling windows on the far side of the room, then placed the knife back in its black leather scabbard and put it in her pocket.
“What did you just do?” Lois asked.
“I sealed the room against unwanted visitors. Now we go hunting,” Komack said. She pulled piece of silk from her pocket and unfolded it to expose a silver ring with a blue stone “This is one of Roslyn’s rings,” she said, unwinding a length of silk thread from a small spool and tying one end to the ring. “Andrew made if for her before they were married,” she added. She closed her eyes a moment and took a deep breath holding the free end of the thread between the thumb and forefinger of her right hand. She stood next to the table, dangling the ring over the map. Slowly, Komack began to move her hand above the map, crisscrossing it, as Jackson kept his eyes fixed on the ring.
When the ring’s path across the map was complete, Jackson turned the map sideways and Komack repeated the procedure. This time, Lois caught the faint displacement as the ring passed over a section of the map area in north Metropolis.
As before, when the ring had passed over the entire map, Jackson turned the paper to repeat the procedure. Although the physical placement of the map had altered, the ring shifted ever so slightly as it passed over the map section by the Hob’s River on the north east part of New Troy Island, south of Suicide Slum. Jackson nodded solemnly, went over to the cabinet and after a moment, pulled out a smaller scale map, replacing the one on the table.
Again, the entire process was repeated, ending with a survey map of the selected area. This time, Jackson jotted down in his notebook the precise area the ring indicated before folding up the map and clearing off the table. Komack took a deep breath, almost as though she’d been holding it. Lois abruptly realized she had been holding her breath as well.
Komack sagged against the table. “It takes a lot out of you,” she explained as Clark helped her to one of the chairs.
Jackson picked up the phone and gave the map location to whoever was on the other end, probably Henderson. Somewhere near Pier fifty-five. Lois was familiar with the area. It was a maze of warehouses, rundown office buildings. It would take a miracle to find Rose and Nick in that warren.
“Are you okay?” Clark asked Komack. She looked pale and exhausted.
Komack nodded. She looked over at Jackson. “There’s a lot of interference around them. Our search may have been detected.”
“Hopefully not,” Jackson said. “But if they move them, Bill’s people should be able to detect them.”
“Hopefully,” Komack said. Her color was better and she seemed less exhausted.
Outside the room, wind began to howl and hail began to pelt the windows, only it didn’t quite sound like hail. The windows rattled beneath the onslaught and Lois thought she saw the warding pentagrams over them begin to shimmer blue. Then the lights went out.
“Just a storm,” Lois said aloud, although she wasn’t sure if she was trying to reassure herself or her companions. The candles in the wall sconces flickered fitfully, casting bizarre and monstrous shadows.
There was a knock on the door. Komack handed Jackson her knife and he made a sign at the door before opening it. Esther hurried into the room. She didn’t pay any attention to Jackson signing the door after he’d closed it. Again, Lois though she saw a shimmer of blue at the corner of her eye.
“All you-know-what’s broken loose outside,” Esther explained. “I’ve never seen a storm come up so fast.”
“I have,” Jackson said. “Ireland, Midsummer’s Eve eleven years ago.”
Esther shrugged with the practiced nonchalance of a teen. “Well, power’s out on the estate and so are the phones. Murph’s trying to figure out why the back-up generator hasn’t come on-line yet. He also figures power’s out for a good portion of the city, too. They just haven’t announced it yet.”
“That is not good,” Jackson commented. The psychiatrist went to one of the windows and peered out at the storm. “It reminds me of Ireland. The wind keeps shifting direction, almost as if it were looking for something.”
“Just like it did then,” Komack said.
“What happened eleven years ago?” Clark asked. He had joined Jackson at the window, watching the storm.
“Some fools claiming to be druids opened a gate to the netherworld,” Komack said. “They’d kidnapped a pregnant woman and planned to use her as a human sacrifice in their perverted scheme to capture the power of the gods.” She smiled humorlessly. “It didn’t go well for them. The gods are perfectly willing to share, but only on their terms. And there were other complications.”
As she spoke, the sky flashed an eerie sickly green. The light echoed back and forth through the low clouds.
“This is Metropolis. We don’t have lightning storms in the middle of winter,” Lois said.
“I’ve never seen lightning that color either,” Clark commented. “It’s not natural.”
“It makes my skin crawl,” Lois added.
“Someone is playing with unimaginable power. And I don’t think they have a clue as to what they’re doing,” Komack remarked.
-o-o-o-
The rain and sleet let up for just long enough for Lois and Clark to dash to her jeep with Komack and Jackson on their heels. Then the rain began slashing sideways again.
“The last time I saw weather like this, it was hurricane Dean,” Lois complained.
“The last time I checked, hurricanes don’t show up out of nowhere,” Clark reminded her. “A storm this bad could generate tornadoes, maybe. But this weather is just plain weird.”
“You know, the weather report for this week was clear and cold,” Lois said. “Shows you how much they know.”
“I don’t think the weatherman took into account the possibility of black magicians effecting weather fronts,” Komack said from the rear seat. The trees that lined the boulevard to the North Bridge thrashed back and forth, lashing at the jeep as it passed. Cars were slowed to a near standstill on the bridge, but Lois whipped past them, barely reducing speed despite the near gale force winds. She ignored the fact that Clark seemed to be holding onto the door handle for dear life.
The wind skrilled with an eerie whistling note, like the keening of inhuman voices. Lois fought the steering wheel as the road conditions worsened. The rain and sleet had made the road as slick as oil. Visibility was down to two car lengths as they left the bridge and entered the city streets.
“Bill’s people are up ahead, maybe half a mile,” Komack said. Lois didn’t dare take her eyes from the road, but the other woman’s voice sounded strained and distracted. Lois wanted to ask how Komack knew the police were up ahead but she had to concentrate on her driving.
Lois spotted the MPD panda cars and Henderson’s unmarked sedan in front of one of the warehouses. One of the officers recognized her car and waved her to park next to the building. The wild wasn’t as strong in the shadow of the building. After a few minutes, Henderson appeared out of an open doorway. He ran to the jeep, his black rain slicker hood pulled over his head. “Rose is on her way to the hospital,” he announced as soon as Lois rolled down the window. “She’s in real bad shape.”
“What about Nick?” Lois demanded.
Henderson shook his head. Lois could see the worry in his face, his posture. He looked into the back, to Komack. “It’s worse than we thought. A lot worse.” He looked up to the sky as the wind worsened, shrilling so loudly that conversation became impossible without shouting. “We found the bodies of the six missing homeless men, at least what was left of them.”
In the rearview mirror, Lois saw Komack and Jackson exchange a horrified look.
“It’s Ireland all over again,” Jackson said.
“Not Ireland,” Komack corrected. “There we knew where the O’Grady’s had taken her, and we knew what they were after.”
“And what was that?” Lois demanded. She was tired of their cryptic references to something horrific that she knew never made it into the papers, either in the U.S. or in Ireland.
“I’ll tell you about it when, and if, we get Nick back safely,” Komack promised.
“She’ll hold you to that, you know,” Henderson remarked. The wind had started to die down just a bit.
“Inspector, were all the ransom payments made at the Hob’s River Carnival grounds?” Clark asked. Lois looked over to see an odd, undecipherable expression on Clark’s face. Almost as if he was trying to figure out how he had figured it out.
Henderson nodded in answer. “That’s one of the pieces of information we decided not to share with the press.”
“Bill, how fast can you get me and Jackson over there?” Komack asked opening the rear door of the jeep.
“Fast.”
“Wait a minute,” Lois protested. “You’re not leaving us out just when it’s getting interesting.”
Lois caught the concerned look that passed between Komack and Henderson. Then Komack nodded. “You can come. But once we’re there, you will do exactly what I tell you.”
“Agreed,” Clark said firmly. Lois turned to glare at him for answering for her and saw the implacable expression on his face. It was an expression she’d never seen on Clark and although all her inclinations were to bring him to heel, something told her that now wasn’t the time to argue. She threw the jeep into gear and sped out, heading for the Hob’s River Carnival. She found herself praying they would be in time to rescue Nick from whatever it was that had Henderson and Komack so worried.
TBCIllusions of Grandeur was written by Thania St. John
