Ray Vallenzio, having managed in a very short time to do as much damage to a bar room as one man can do in one evening, got back from his mission before the other three heroes with which he was teamed did.
His mission had been to tackle the mystical angle on the fires. Of the five churches that had been burned, three had been destroyed through supernatural means. The other two were burned through mundane means to throw investigators off the trail. While Perfect and the others ran down their main lead on the physical arson, Ray had been dispatched to the otherworldly Sands of Time Club to investigate the other side of things.
Knowing that a mystically empowered hero with connections to the nigh-omniscient Seeress had been present at the first and the third of the magical fires—Ray and Dani, respectively—Perfect had surmised that another such champion may also have been at the second. Ray’s task had been to find that person.
Though his main contact at the club, Johnny Dark, had been absent, Ray had stumbled upon the enchanted gun-slinging monster hunter Jeroboam with almost disconcerting ease. In his experience, this was the way things went when you worked with (or more aptly, under) the Seeress: things just sort of fell into place for you, so long as it suited her.
That was why Ray still felt nervous, even after having expended a lot of energy in a pointless brawl. That nervousness persisted even as he arrived back at Perfect’s townhouse.
“Come on, let’s hurry up and get inside,” he said, ushering the gunfighter into the brownstone building ahead of him. “We really need to work up a secret entrance or something. Perfect’s not crazy about having us oddly-dressed sorts hanging around on her doorstep.”
“Speak for yourself, friend,” Jeroboam said.
His cowboy hat and black leather duster coat might have been a bit striking, but not quite so much as Ray’s appearance with his reddish-orange pants, bare chest and arms covered in glowing red lines, and a headpiece designed to look like a bandanna.
“Point,” Ray said, closing and locking the door behind them.
“Been a while since I did the whole team-up thing, but is this what passes for a secret headquarters these days?” Jeroboam asked Ray as he looked around Perfect’s living room.
“It is a bit like falling into a magazine cover,” Ray said. “I think Perfect was going for a camo effect. The rest of the floors are more impressive… um, as long as you stay out of her bedroom.”
While the living room looked like it had been decorated by somebody’s grandmother, Perfect’s room was kept exactly the same way it had been when she was a small child.
“I wasn’t really aimin’ on ending up there,” Jeroboam said, examining the tastefully tacky knicknacks on the end table.
“If we can, uh, get down to business,” Ray said, wanting to justify his status as the team’s “mystic expert” by having something more than just the gunslinger to present to Perfect when she returned from her mission. “You said you were fighting gargoyles when the church caught fire?”
“I was killing gargoyles when the church caught fire,” Jeroboam said.
“Did they seem to be, you know, involved in any way?” Ray asked. The churches had all been older Catholic ones. He didn’t know if they all had the full-on Gothic style, but it was possible that gargoyles of the ordinary, water-spouting variety had been part of their design.
“Nah, they were just bolting for the nearest hiding place,” Jeroboam said. “Old churches are where a hunted gargoyle goes to ground. Some of them can breathe fire, but they’re not sophisticated enough to lay the kind of spells you’re talking about.”
“If I didn’t know that it was the same kind of fire runes at two of the churches, I’d wonder… but, then, I should know better than to automatically suspect the firebreathers,” Ray said. “I get enough of that myself.”
“If you can breathe fire, why do you call yourself Fire-Eater?” Jeroboam said.
“What I just said: everybody suspects the firebreathers,” Ray said. “It’s better if people think of you as the guy who gets rid of fires, not the one who starts them.”
“Point,” Jeroboam said. “I’d rather not have most people think of me at all, but I can say it’s better to be known as a monster killer than a killer monster.”
“That sounds like some story,” Ray said.
“It is,” Jeroboam said. “Long one, too.”
“We’ve got time.”
“Not nearly enough,” Jeroboam said. “When’s your lady-friend supposed to get back?”
“She’s not my ‘lady-friend’, she’s my partner… or teammate, I guess. We didn’t really know how long the jobs would take, so we just planned on meeting back here,” Ray said. “Hang on, I’ll call her and check how she’s doing.”
His wristband had a concealed keypad that was connected wirelessly to the phone Perfect had hidden in his headgear.
“Oh, you got a little secret agent thing,” Jeroboam asked as Ray navigated the speed dial a little clumsily. “Are you one of the Ten?”
“The ten what?” Ray asked. “Oh, hang on, it’s ringing… hello, Perfect? This a good time? Yeah, you could say that… I found our other pawn.”
“Pawn?” Jeroboam echoed.
“Or agent, or whatever,” Ray amended, for his benefit. “Are you heading back soon? Okay. Lo… look for you, soon, then. I’ll look for you soon.”
“‘L-look for you soon,’” Jeroboam repeated, shaking his head.
“What?” Ray asked. “She’s out on a mission. I just thought I’d let her know I had her safety in mind.”
“Yeah,” Jeroboam said. “Anything to eat?”
“There’s probably something in the kitchen,” Ray said.
“Real food or tofu’d? This place has a tofu kind of a feel.”
Ray shrugged.
“I don’t exactly live here, and I don’t eat much.”
Jeroboam found some chicken and they settled down in the kitchen to wait. The minutes ticked by in silence, Jeroboam eating and Ray fidgeting. He wasn’t good at waiting. The fire inside him wanted to get up and move.
“So… magic guns?” Ray said, breaking the silence.
“Yep,” Jeroboam said. “Fire and Lightning.”
“Isn’t that a little odd?”
“How d’you mean?”
“Wouldn’t wands be a little more traditional?”
“I look like a wizard to you, boy?” Jeroboam asked.
“Swords, then,” Ray said. “Why not magic swords?”
“You ever see what happens when someone brings a knife to a gun fight?”
“Yeah, actually,” Ray said, thinking of an ex-partner of his. “She ended up killing three guys. It kind of put a damper on our relationship.”
“Well, smart money’s usually on the side with the guns,” Jeroboam said.
“Where did they come from, though?” Ray asked.
“That’s another long story,” Jeroboam said.
“Tell me.”
“Alright,” Jeroboam said. “In the beginning, there was darkness…”
“Skip ahead.”
“Then somebody said ’skip ahead’,” Jeroboam said.
“You’re fucking with me, aren’t you?” Ray asked.
“Just as hard as I can.”
“Fine, you want to keep your secret origin a secret,” Ray said. “But what can they do?”
“What it says on the tin,” Jeroboam said. “Fire and Lightning. That’s what they do. That’s what they are. Perdition’s flame and heaven’s thunder. It’s hard to find a creature that isn’t mortal to the touch of one or the other.”
“And you use them to hunt bounties,” Ray said.
“Mostly,” Jeroboam said. “But only ’cause they don’t hardly work as remotes.”
“Cute,” Ray said.
Further conversation was forestalled by the sound of a key in the front door.
“We’re in here,” Ray called as he heard Perfect’s voice.
“Great!” Perfect said.
Jeroboam stood as she led Dani and Adonis into the kitchen. His hands were at his sides.
“Perfect, this is Jeroboam, the monster hunter,” Ray said.
“Oh my God, that’s hilarious,” Perfect said, grinning.
“What is?” Ray asked.
“Jeroboam,” she said. “Double magnum.” At Ray’s blank stare, she elaborated. “The word ‘magnum’ is used to refer to both guns firing a large caliber of bullet and a standard size of wine bottle. A bottle that contains two ‘magnums’ is called a jeroboam, and he carries two ‘magnum’ guns. See? It’s funny.”
When Ray continued to look baffled, she turned to Jeroboam for support. He shook his head disgustedly, and the grin fell off her face.
“I thought it was funny,” she said.
“It was until you explained it,” he said.
“Sorry,” she said. “Anyway, this is Adonis, and, uh, Dani.”
“Call me the Blue Warrior,” Dani said, looking at the plate of demolished chicken. “Because I need food badly.”
“Um, okay,” Perfect said, not understanding the connection. “Blue Warrior, then. Was there any more of that left?”
“Nope,” Jeroboam said. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay, I know a pizza place that delivers late,” Perfect said. “We’ll order in a bit. First, let’s go over what we learned tonight.”
She related her experiences as well as Dani and Adonis’s, and then listened while Ray described what had happened in the Sands of Time. That didn’t take long, especially since he left out the bar fight.
“So, were the gargoyle creatures involved?” Perfect asked Jeroboam.
“Oh, we went over that,” Ray said. “They were just hiding there. That’s what gargoyles do, when they’re being hunted.”
“Well, thank you, Mr. Expert,” Jeroboam said.
“The question is, then… what do we do next?” Perfect said. “We’ve assembled all the players. We have to assume that each of you,” she said, looking at Dani, Ray, and Jeroboam in turn as she spoke, “is here for a reason…”
“Actually, I’m here because he said somethin’ about money,” Jeroboam said. “I don’t do ‘pro bono’.”
“Um, we can work out a per diem for active duty?” Perfect suggested, her face only showing momentary concern.
“I want the bounty on anything we bag, too,” he said.
“Fine,” Perfect said. “I wasn’t really counting on collecting any to begin with. It’s not like I don’t have plenty of money to begin with.”
“Then we’ve got ourselves an understanding,” Jeroboam said, holding out a hand which Perfect shook. “And you got yourself a gunslinger.”
“Okay, but getting back to the ‘what do we do next?’ thing?” Dani said. “Pizza?”
“Oh, right,” Perfect said. “Um, I like plain cheese… what does everybody else want?”
“I like plain cheese, too,” Dani said.
Perfect looked around the room.
“None for me, thanks,” Jeroboam said. “I never really took to pizza.”
“Don’t eat,” Adonis said.
“Don’t eat,” Ray said. “And… plain cheese? What are you guys, ten years old?”
“No!” Perfect and Dani said at the same time, Dani a little bit more defensively… even if she wasn’t quite that young, beneath the ring’s magic.
“I just… like plain cheese,” Perfect said.
“Yeah,” Dani agreed.
“Okay, okay, no sense getting all bent out of shape about it,” Ray said, holding up his hands. “It was just a joke. Don’t go telling Mr. Buttons on me, or whatever.”
“Who the hell is Mr. Buttons?” Jeroboam asked.
“Oh, he’s kind of… my mascot,” Perfect said. “A stuffed bunny, since I’m the Black Rabbit? He isn’t real,” she added. “Which, I know. That he isn’t.” She chuckled weakly.
“This money you have,” Jeroboam said. “Would it be of the variety that other people can see and touch?”
“I’m not crazy,” Perfect said.
“Don’t care if you are,” Jeroboam said. “Never met a superhero yet who wasn’t. A normal person doesn’t try to solve the world’s problems by puttin’ on a mask and beatin’ on them.”
“Aren’t you a superhero?” Dani asked.
“No.”
“What are you, then?” she asked.
“I kill monsters,” Jeroboam replied.
“But what are you?”
“That’s what I am,” Jeroboam said. “I kill monsters.”
“He has a secret origin,” Ray explained.
“Oh,” Dani said. “Okay. Let’s just get on with ordering the pizza, then.”
“And then work out our next step,” Perfect said. “Which is to find out who was talking to Palozzo about the ‘consulting job’… find out where his money was coming from.”
“Sounds like detective work,” Jeroboam said.
“Exactly,” Perfect said.
“I don’t do detective work,” Jeroboam said. “The half-naked pretty boy knows where to find me if you’ve got somethin’ that needs to be shot at.”
“No, I don’t,” Adonis said.
“The other one,” Jeroboam said.
Adonis looked confused.
“He means me,” Ray said.
“Fine,” Perfect said. “Just don’t go disappearing completely on us.”
“I’d ask for a retainer, but I only accept payment in hard currency… harder than you’ve probably got,” Jeroboam said.
“Oh, you think?” Perfect said. She looked offended. “You wait right there, cowboy.”
She headed into the basement and came back up a minute later, her gloved hand closed around something. She opened her fist palm-up to display a gold coin.
“Krugerrand,” she said. “That’s over eight hundred dollars worth of gold.”
“Eight hundred dollars in one coin?” Dani asked. A lifetime of fantasy roleplaying games had left her with a rather poor grasp of the sheer scarcity and resulting value of gold.
“Gold’s valuable,” Perfect said.
“And, at the moment, your dollar isn’t,” Jeroboam said. He took the coin, though. “But it’ll do me for a retainer, I suspect.”
“Right,” Perfect said. “Just make sure you’re available.”
“I’ll be around,” Jeroboam said. He tipped his hat to her, and then the others around the room. “Ma’am. Ray. Robot. Kid. I’ll find my own way out.”
“Well, he was… interesting,” Perfect said when he was gone. “I guess it’ll be good to have another person who knows the mystic side of things on the team, to help, uh, shore up your expertise.”
“Hey, I found him okay, didn’t I?” Ray said.
“If you’re even half right about the Seeress, it probably would have been impossible not to,” Perfect said. She sighed. “Anyway, it’s good to get another member but we’ve still got some holes on the roster, as far as I’m concerned, and we’ve certainly got more important things to do now than bicker.”
“Yeah,” Dani said, her voice hopeful. “Pizza?”
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