Justice League of America - Batman: The Stone King (14 page)

Human blood ran through the gutters in surging rivulets.

"Ma'am?"

Suddenly, Cassandra was back in the cathedral. She was still on her knees, but the sliver of wood had fallen from her hand. Her heart was beating at an incredible rate, trapped in her frozen body. She couldn't see for the tears that filled her eyes.

"Are you all right, ma'am?" The young policeman stood behind her, his face concerned. Although they'd taught him how to handle situations like this at the police academy, somehow, it hadn't prepared him for the real thing. "You really shouldn't have come in. I . . . I'm sorry about your loss," he added, feeling totally inadequate.

In silence, Cassandra allowed him to take her arm and lead her back outside.

She had foretold Raymond Marcus's death. As if on cue, the man had died. Now she needed to find out what
this
vision meant . . . and how to prevent it from coming true.

There was only one man she knew who could help her. But first, she would have to find him.

The sun was a distant yellow disk, planet Earth invisible against its glare.

J'onn J'onzz stood on his native world of Mars once more, his feet planted on the very rim of Olympus Mons, the highest mountain on the Red Planet. Once, it had been a popular attraction for his people, offering the best views of any location on Mars.

Six miles below lay the great plains. Beyond Mangala Valles, Daedalia Planum stretched away to the south. To the west, the rugged Tharsis Montes blocked off all further view, but he knew that behind them lay Noctis Labyrinthus, the Maze of the Night, and the massive impact basins of Argyre and Hellas.

Strange,
he thought,
these new names, when once I knew them only by their Martian designations.

Perhaps he should have told NASA, when they first started sending the Voyagers and Explorers to document his world. But Martian vowels and syllables are unpronounceable for any human being. So he said nothing, and on Earth Latin and ancient Greek became the new language of Mars.

At least the old names will live
on . . .
while I live on.

Every year he came here, for an hour, a day, or a week–for however long it took him to purge the lure of the Red Planet from his system. A lifetime of memories was locked up in the ubiquitous red dust and black basaltic boulders that littered the plateau.

He turned to look northeast, toward the massive Boreale Chasma. Far beyond it, frozen in two hundred degrees of cold, was the northern icecap; under it lay the vast subterranean reservoirs where the precious water had seeped away. One day NASA was in for a major surprise.

Somewhere down on the plain, wan sunlight twinkled off gleaming metal. Something left behind by one of the NASA expeditions, a surface rover. Billion-dollar junk, glittering like a jewel amid the debris of his world.

The land had been living once, and it had teemed with green. The inhabitants–J'onn's people, the very roots of his existence–had been like sentient beings everywhere: good, bad, indifferent, and every moral shade in between. He had a wife then, and the most beautiful daughter. He also had friends. He had a life.

And then a devastating plague had claimed everything, not just from him, but from Mars itself. Apart from J'onn, not a single soul had survived the contagion that spread faster than they could burn the bodies of the dead.

As powerful emotion swept through him, he sank to his knees. One hand touched the ground, and he scooped up a handful of dust, letting its dreams and memories trickle slowly away through his fingers. It swirled gently in the thin, almost nonexistent atmosphere, and settled slowly to the ground.

Dust to dust . . . like the bones of my people.

He raised his eyes beneath his craglike brows, squinting against the setting sun to make out Earth. His adopted world.

J'onn thought of the friends who'd taken him in, treated him as one of their own, given purpose back to his life when he saw only misery ahead of him. He would always owe a debt to Superman and the members of the Justice League.

But in his heart he would always be a Martian, a Red Planet warrior, the last of his race.

He leaped outward, almost overcompensating for the weaker gravity, and soared down for several long, glorious minutes. The past was long gone, but while he held it sealed in his memory, in some way it would live on.

Then he landed on the plain and strode off into the red, dusty distance over the bones of his people.

Marlbuck Point, October 29

"And how can I help ye, laddie?"

Hamish Stewart's lilting Scottish accent cut through the quiet of the late-October noon. He stood beside the scuffed Dodge Charger that had pulled up beside him, its top down. Hamish's expression was polite as he ran his eyes over the car's driver–a broad-shouldered man with silver flecks in his hair, wearing heavy-rimmed glasses.

"Mr. Stewart?" the man asked. "I'm Dag Rawlings. I'm a–"

"Journalist, aye?" Hamish finished for him, gesturing toward the notepad and tape recorder that lay on the passenger seat.

"You're very astute, sir." Dag smiled as he unlatched the door and swung his legs out of the car and onto the gravel road. He reached back in for a sturdy walking cane and leaned on it as he stood. "But actually, I was about to say writer. There's a difference."

"Oh, I know that fine," the sturdy, middle-aged Scot replied. "I'm a writer of sorts myself. Historical research. Two books published, working on the third."

"Well, sir, I won't take up much of your valuable time." Dag squinted his eyes against the golden autumn sun as it reflected off the car's side mirror. "I'm here to see Jenny Ayles."

"Maybe," the older man mused, "but the question is, does she want to see you?"

"It's all right, Hamish," Jenny Ayles called, her footsteps crunching on the gravel as she hurried up to join them. "Mr. Rawlings called me last night. I said I'd see him. I should have told you–it just went completely out of my head."

Hamish Stewart grunted and looked at his watch. "Aye, well, just be sure ye don't take too long. I'm on a tight budget, as I'm sure ye know."

"I
should know," Jenny muttered under her breath as Stewart strode off. "You remind me often enough!"

Dag smiled, his perfect white teeth marred by a broken crown at one side. "Bit of a slavedriver, is he?"

"Let's walk over to where I'm working," Jenny said, before answering his question. "No, Hamish is a joy to work for. But he has to fund his own research, because his book advances are so small."

She led him off the track and through a thick clump of bushes to an open grassy area beyond, Dag's limp slight but noticeable as he walked. They were on a small plateau about fifty feet above the ocean, and Dag could smell the salt in the cool breeze. He'd driven up to Marlbuck Point from Gotham City in the noon sunshine, leaving behind the docks and industrial zones as the Dodge climbed the narrow, twisting road that hugged the rocky coast. Only forty miles from town, yet it was like another world.

The grass in front of them was scarred with several neat trenches, about eighteen inches wide and several feet deep. A thin young man in a "Save the Planet" T-shirt was on his hands and knees, sifting through a spoil heap with painstaking slowness. He glanced up briefly to acknowledge their presence, men bent back to his task.

Jenny stopped at the end of a trench and looked around to survey the whole site. "You'd never believe there was a village here once," she said almost wistfully.

"You're kidding."

"No. See–evidence of a hearth." She pointed to a patch of upturned soil a few shades darker man the rest. "Charcoal. Stake holes in the ground there–" Her finger swiveled, indicating a few small indentations. "Rotted wood in them. They supported houses, maybe six hundred years ago. At least, if Hamish's theories are correct."

"Yes. I've read his books."

Jenny looked at him in surprise. "You have? That's a first–I've never met anyone who's read them. Apart from myself, and Jamie." She nodded toward the young man. "And he's Hamish's son."

"Mr. Stewart believes that members of a Scottish clan settled parts of the east coast of America centuries before Columbus 'discovered' it, right?"

"With good reason," Jenny said defensively, though there had been nothing in Dag's tone to say that he was skeptical. "We've unearthed quite a lot of circumstantial evidence. We just need something concrete now, like an inscription, or maybe a tool."

She broke off, playing nervously with a strand of the blond hair that framed her face. "But you're not here to ask me about Hamish, Mr. Rawlings," she said at last.

"That's true." Dag nodded toward a tussock of sea grass. "Mind if we sit down, Miss Ayles? My leg . . ." he added, by way of explanation.

Dag carefully lowered himself onto the grass, and Jenny seated herself cross-legged on a rock a few feet away. "As I mentioned on the phone," he went on, unstrapping the tape recorder from his shoulder, "I'm investigating the Gotham Pyramid."

Jenny pulled her cardigan closer around her, though the sun was warm in spite of the sea breeze. "And that's all I'm willing to talk about," she said, almost sternly. "The pyramid."

Dag nodded. "I'm a writer, not a tabloid reporter. It would be helpful if you could tell me everything you remember about the pyramid, no matter how irrelevant it seems."

Dag glanced meaningfully at the tape recorder, and Jenny nodded. He switched it to "record" mode, and held the microphone loosely in front of her.

Jenny hesitated for a moment, collecting her thoughts. "Well, come to think of it," she began, "when our team first stood on top, a shiver ran up my spine. I didn't know if it was excitement, or fear." She shook her head. "But it certainly affected Peter. My boyfriend," she added. "From the moment we arrived, he was bad-tempered and impatient, picking fights for no reason. I thought it was because he was so excited. He had this theory, you see–that the pyramid was constructed for a shaman, a witch doctor, if you like. A sorcerer. Someone who wanted to control the pyramid's energy system."

"Energy system?" Dag's eyebrows furled. "How do you mean?"

Jenny gazed at the sunlight reflecting off the restless ocean, and sighed. She hadn't bothered explaining Peter's theories to the reporters who'd quizzed her, the ones who were interested only in scandal. But now she found herself telling Dag everything Peter had confided in her over the years. His belief in telluric energy, the natural flow from high- to low-resistance points of the earth's magnetic field. His theories about human exploitation of piezoelectric forces, and how the mind could interact with their electromagnetic fields. His wild ideas about undiscovered energy forms produced by currents in the deep magma layers under the earth's crust.

Dag listened attentively, interjecting the odd question, careful to keep his voice level so as not to betray the mounting excitement he felt at Jenny's answers. Perhaps this wasn't going to be a wild-goose chase after all. He was beginning to see hidden connections between events, and was particularly interested in Jenny's description of a worldwide energy grid that connected hundreds, if not thousands, of ancient sites.

Hamish Stewart ambled past them a couple of times, pointedly looking at his watch and muttering to himself, but he made no effort to interrupt the interview.

When Jenny finally began to run out of words, the sun was starting to sink toward the horizon, lengthening the shadows on the grass. The breeze had become markedly cooler.

"I seem to have taken up most of your afternoon," Dag apologized. "Thank you. I only hope I haven't reawakened painful memories."

"I've never forgotten, Mr. Rawlings," Jenny said with sudden passion. "I think about what happened every day. I have nightmares more nights than not" She hesitated briefly, as if coming to some inner decision, then rushed on. "That's why I left the university. Everything reminded me of Peter."

She paused, then added, "And Professor Mills."

Dag could tell that Jenny wanted to talk–that she needed someone to listen to her. Deliberately, making sure she saw what he was doing, he reached down and switched his tape recorder off.

Jenny's eyes flicked up to look into his, and she blinked to hold back a tear. "The tabloids just printed what they wanted," she said sadly. "They twisted everything I said, made Gotham U sound like a hotbed of sex and sin. They even made things up. But it wasn't like that at all!"

She was quiet for a long moment, her eyes distant, wrapped in memories. "Peter was a genius," she said almost dreamily, then quickly corrected herself,
"Is a
genius. Robert Mills himself said Peter has the potential to revolutionize archaeology. But he's also very temperamental. He can be very . . . difficult with those close to him."

Another silence before her words came pouring out. "It was like that in Peru. Last year. Peter and I quarreled–it was over something trivial, I can't even remember what. But he said some hurtful things to me. I was upset."

Conflicting emotions crossed her pretty face, guilt and misery and grief all jumbled up together. "Robert . . . comforted me. One thing led to another, and . . . well, sorry to be so blunt, but Peter walked in on us."

"And you think that gave Peter motivation for what happened at the pyramid?"

"Yes. No. I don't know." Jenny was close to tears. "The Peter I know would never do a thing like that, not under any circumstances. But I told you–he started acting strangely as soon as we climbed the pyramid."

Hamish Stewart passed again, and Dag got to his feet. Jenny saw him wince with pain as he straightened his bad leg. She stood up herself and reached out a hand to shake his.

"Thank you, Mr. Rawlings," she said sincerely. "I feel a lot better now. I guess I needed someone to listen to me."

"That's something we all need," Dag agreed sagely. "Thank you again for your time, Ms. Ayles."

He took a couple of steps, then turned back to her as if he'd forgotten something.