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Asylum 7:
Back into the Fire

4:51 PM, Chicago.

Trouble was living large in Chicago, and the timing had never been better.

The last of his errands finished, Darius Blake walked down Meeker street toward the apartment, lugging his duffel bag. Even this far from the loop, there were moths dotting every window, glued to every tree.

The Old Testament-style insect invasion hadn't put the people of the city into a panic, but it had unnerved them. The stores had sold out of bottled water, toilet paper, and bug spray. The authorities were over taxed, and the press was fixated on the big story. Anything less than the parting of Lake Michigan would go unnoticed tonight.

Darius had talked to everyone in the community, what few were left anyway, and had made his final plans. A few of the old-timers were here in Chicago, and he'd made a few personal visits. But the rest of the community were scattered over the globe, reduced to voices on a phone or characters on a computer screen. Disembodied words.

That was all they had left now: talk. Regaling each other with tales of past glories and present aches. Oh, they'd offer advice. They'd tell you exactly how they'd accomplish the big job Darius had in mind. But they were nothing more than flag-pole sitters now, staying out of the way so they wouldn't get hurt.

He shook his head in disappointment. There was a time when they acted first, and only talked later. Before the war. Before barnstorming biplanes became lumbering airliners. Before all the blank parts of the map had been filled in.

Sure, for a lot of people, those had been dark times. The public needed the funny papers and the talkies to cheer up their great depression: the little girl with the empty eyes; the bloated starlet with her empty morals. And outside, the regular joes waited in line for their daily dole.

But not Darius and his colleagues. They'd charged around really living: saving the world, foiling nefarious plots, narrowly escaping death. All in time for cocktails at eight.

It was then that they'd talk. They'd take over any restaurant in whatever city they happened to be in. Darius chuckled, recalling the day the Lindy's staff asked them to keep it down. A few dozen Broadway entertainers stood around clutching their pearls and cufflinks, wondering how they'd lost their audience. That night they'd taken on the Great White Way and painted it red.

Ah, nostalgia. The disease of the old and foolish. Maybe he was just like Peter O'Toole in "My Favorite Year," too drunk to realize that not only must the show go on, it must go on without you.

But not yet.

Darius still had a job to do, and he needed allies who could do more than talk. The pickings, however, were slim. There were only a few young ones walking Darius' old path, but they didn't call themselves "adventurers" anymore. They handed out business cards, and they called themselves professionals.

Professional mercenaries, more like. They took his money, even though none of them had delivered what they promised.

But that was all going to change tonight. With the eyes of the city turned on the moths, Darius could strike. And he didn't need a dozen men for the job, just one man—the right man.

The only problem was that two weeks ago, the right man had woken up on the wrong side of the bed.

Darius reached the steps of the apartment building and looked up. The brownstone had been built in the twenties, the narrow windows set into white stone sills. The roof had been finished with elaborate cornices. It reminded him of the old days, and it was big and drafty enough to feel like home.

He went up the steps slowly, huffing with every step as he hauled the duffel up with him. The doorman, Marty, held the door for him.

Darius had stopped staying in Chicago hotels and had started renting an apartment here a year ago. Partly because he was spending so much time in the windy city, and partly because of Marty. He was a retired cop who didn't ask as many questions as the young turks behind the marble desks of the hotels. Questions like, how come Darius and his friends were always carrying those heavy suitcases in and out?

Darius thanked Marty and made his way to the elevator. He caught his own eye in the elevator's mirrored walls. He pushed a hand through his hair. He liked to say that Errol Flynn didn't have anything on him—not ever. There was a particular night at the Brown Derby….

The elevator lurched into motion, and he put out a hand to the mirrored walls to steady himself.

But the hand against the wall was spotted brown. And trembling.

When had he developed a tremor?

He pulled his hand away from the glass, closed his fist. The film of perspiration on the mirror began to shrink. Just like his world after the war.

He thought back to the grand farewell of the last Odyssey League building. He took one last lingering look up at the map that covered the entire wall. Vast regions that had once been solid black—unexplored—had been replaced by labeled, multicolored patches with clearly defined borders. Colored strings that had marked each member's journeys of discovery had been replaced by roads and highways. It made him long for a match.

That was the last day he'd seen most of them. Munroe, looking not a day older, cast a pall over the room. It was a relief when he left. Buck left soon after. Kane stayed the longest, holed up in a corner babbling to himself. They all thought the detective had descended into paranoia and madness, not realizing until much later that he was all too sane. But by then it was too late to save San Francisco.

Darius shook his head in disgust. Even the name of that vibrant city had been replaced. "Bay City" was an obscenity on his tongue.

The elevator rumbled to a stop and the door slid open. The apartment door was just across the hall, but it was like looking across a chasm.

The elevator began to close, and Darius put out an arm to stop it. He picked up his bag and went to the door. He fished out his key and worked the lock in the polished brass door knob. He turned the lock, and put on a grin. His skewed reflection grinned back at him.

"Tally ho," he said.

The long entrance hall was dark, not how he'd left it. His hand went to the light switch and jiggled it a few times. Nothing.

"Jonathan?" he called out. There was no answer.

He went slowly down the hallway, looking into each open doorway. It was too dark, and he was overcome with a sense of déjà vu. Too many night sweats had started with a scene exactly like this playing out in his brain.

"Jono?"

Darius set down his bag and unzipped his London Fog windbreaker. His revolver appeared in his hand, seemingly from thin air. Harry had taught him that trick, back in the twenties. Darius had paid back the stocky magician by letting him in on a trade secret: there was real magic out there.

Darius straightened his spin and ease through the doorway. He closed his eyes and pushed the door closed with this heel. He'd be less of a target in the dark. He opened his eyes and let them finish adjusting to the darkness. He inched forward, scanning left and right as he moved.

He stopped beneath the hall light, then reached up, standing on his toes. The bulb was hot to the touch. Someone had just unscrewed it.

He moved slowly forward.

He caught a flutter of movement from the dining room.

There's only one way to get the cheese, he thought. He stepped closer and peered into the room.

Shifting light came through the fluttering curtains over the window. On the dining room table were rows of arrows, gears, and cables—the entire Crossfire arsenal. The red costume was draped over a chair, the mask's telescopic sight staring back at him like a bloodshot Cyclops.

"Jonathan?"

"Here."

Darius gasped in surprise and pain as a hand clamped around his wrist and forcibly spun him around. The .38 clattered on the hardwood.

He looked up into the face of his nephew. "Okay, got me. Now quit playing rough!"

"Sorry. Just practicing."

Darius stepped back as his nephew brushed past him and flicked on the dining room light.

"Practicing what?" he said, rubbing his wrist. "How to beat up elderly uncles? I don't think you'll find any tonight at the hospital."

Jonathan didn't look up. He stood over the table, dismantling one of his specially designed arrow heads.

"How to keep the weight on my right leg. How to move quietly with this brace. How to see with this new vision of mine." He inspected the point on a hunting head, and placed the arrow in his quiver. "Besides, we're not going to the hospital tonight. Not now."

"Why not now? It's perfect timing! The authorities will be busy, we can sneak right in and no one will get hurt."

"No, its not perfect timing. People are already getting hurt out there. I watched the television."

"Great," Darius said. "Fine. After all we've done, after all we've worked for, you're going to screw up this chance for us and—"

"This was never about me," Jonathan said. He put down the arrow he'd been holding. "This is about what you've done and what you want, not me. I want answers, but I'm getting tired of the questions. They're not my choices! I never asked for any of this but I'll play the hand I'm dealt, fine. But dammit Darius, you've been dealing from the bottom of the deck."

"What do you mean? I've always been straight with you. I told you everything. I even handed you Woodbridge and his Black Knight on a silver platter."

"Right, but you only ever told me part of everything. The best way to lie is by telling half a truth. And you gave me that special arrow as well. But did you ever think to tell me what it would actually do to the Knight? I'm still not sure to this day whether I wanted the Knight dead or not, but I wasn't given the choice. You told me only what you wanted me to know, enough to make me dangerous but never enough to let me decide for myself!"

Darius looked exasperated. "So this is what you're going to decide? You're going to go help this girl and get involved with a bunch of heroes who don't need your help. You've got your own duty as The Knight of Christendom."

"No, I've got my duty to do the right thing. That's what my parents brought me up to believe regardless of what they conceived me to do. The sword can wait, these people need help now."

"You need to settle down, Jono. You don't know what'll happen when you get there."

"Neither do you. I find that strangely comforting." Jonathan grabbed his costume and tossed it at his uncle. "Besides, I'm not going in this. I've decided to stop looking like a clown. And I'm not going to play with these toys anymore, either." He swept the arrow heads off the table. "They did more harm than good."

Darius sighed and dumped the costume onto a chair. "So what can I do?"

"Nothing." Jonathan shrugged into his quiver and flexed his shoulders and arms. "No, there is one thing. Think about what you plan on telling me next. I'll play King Arthur, but you had better start being straight with me, Merlin. Otherwise I will be once and future pissed off."

"But…" Darius looked around helplessly. "But I'm not used to waiting."

Jonathan's gaze softened. He laid one hand on the old man's shoulder. "I know, I'm sorry." Jonathan reached out and pulled on the leather duster he'd had custom made for him over the last week. He adjusted the quiver so that it jutted through opening that had been sewn into the back. The heft of the Kevlar plating sewn into the lining felt good. "I really am sorry, Uncle Darius. But that's where we're different. You think our heritage makes us heroes, that we're something special. I don't. We're not anyone special just because we have a gift."

Jonathan picked up his bow, folded it at the middle and tucked into a holder built into the leg brace. He then turned and started to walk out of the room. "We're only special if we use that gift well."

Darius watched him go, thinking how much his nephew was like his brother, Simon. Simon was always giving those same speeches about right and wrong and the hard choices in between. Like the choice Simon made to stay and raise Jonathan once Madeline had become pregnant, leaving it to Darius to run all over the world trying to gather the pieces of the puzzle.

Jonathan was certainly a lot like Simon. But he was nothing like his father.

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