Masks: The Curtain

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MASKS “The Curtain” Curtain” Don’t look in the bag! Rae Masterson stood in line in the shade of the aircraft hangar, feeling the guilty weight of her shoulder bag pressing against her right hip. The breeze stirred the flowing black tendrils of her costume, wafting it around her like shadowy wings, but the bag hung there, heavy and still. Waiting. Rae swallowed and looked up at the towering building. Either it or she wouldn’t be coming out of the next few hours in one piece. For the third time in twenty minutes, she shifted anxiously under scratchy ebony gauze, sweating in the California heat. She hated this fabric. Of all the identities to use today, why did she have to pick Shadewalker? But she knew why. The line rippled, and Rae shuffled forward two steps. Shadewalker’s costume was itchy and hot as hell, but it also had about a dozen pockets hidden in its folds, and today she needed all the hidden cargo room she could get. The bag’s strap dug into her shoulder. Rae ignored it. The line rounded the corner of the hangar, affording her a glimpse of a makeshift security checkpoint at the door. A few bored-looking uniformed guards, a search table. No scanners or dogs in evidence, but there could still be a sorcerer or a telepath concealed nearby. Rae closed her eyes and tried to think evil thoughts. Murder, world domination, soon I will be unstoppable, now that I have you where I want you, Mr. Bond … Don’t look in the bag! She was at the front of the line. “Name?” said a guard slouched in a folding chair. He glanced dully at a clipboard. Rae drew herself up to her full unimpressive height. “Shadewalker,” she said coolly. “Gotta look in your purse, ma’am.” Rae started to sweat. She forced herself to hold out the black canvas messenger bag. “As you wish,” she said. “The spirits of darkness should be pleased. They haven’t eaten since that Jehovah’s Witness last week.”

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The man eyed the bag, then her. “You kiddin’ me, lady?” “If the spirits of darkness are to aid me in my quest this day, they will not tolerate deception in their presence,” Rae lied. She smiled wickedly and hefted the bag. “So I speak truly when I tell them you look delectable.” The man tilted his chair back on two legs and studied the proffered bag with a professional air. A muscle twitched near his right eye. Finally, his chair legs came down on the pavement with a scrape and he scowled at her. “You have a nice day, ma’am.” Rae pulled the bag back and hurried inside the hangar, trying not to look or feel relieved. Evil thoughts, evil thoughts, evil thoughts … Then her eyes adjusted to the dimness, and her train of thought went off the rails. She hadn’t known evil came in so many colors. Fluorescent capes and boots in one corner, dusky occult robes in another, cool silk suits here and there, oiled leather and spikes sprinkled throughout as muscle strutted and preened. Faces were set in cunning smiles, surly glowers, and mad wall-eyed stares. She saw empty holsters for death rays and conspicuously vacant scabbards for mystic blades; security had done its job on the bosses, though the bodyguards were probably still armed. It was the only way to achieve parity with the metahuman muscle. But with so many different power sources in the room, no one could afford a clash of egos. When this many supervillains got together, civility was as necessary as oxygen. Indignation boiled in Rae’s gut, and she gripped the strap of her bag more tightly. They were like carrion flies, feeding on the corpse of her home city. How dare they hold a superweapon auction in her town, as if there was nothing she could do about it? True, there weren’t nearly as many superheroes in Los Angeles as there were in most large cities—whatever had killed them all off ten years ago had really stuck. She was lucky if she ran into another masked face once a month. And it wasn’t like a high school girl in a homemade costume and mask was particularly intimidating. She didn’t have any powers or allies. Being a mask gave her an excuse for not having a social life, and it showed. She was, as usual, in over her head and sinking fast. These were people who held nations hostage, who started pandemics and ruled the world for minutes at a time, before real superheroes stopped them. She ate lunch alone every day at school. How many of these self-assured men and women even knew who Peregrine was?

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But that was all going to change, Rae told herself, stepping forward into the lofty room. She had secret pockets full of nitrocellulose, a long fuse, and her Peregrine costume in a bag. One way or another, it was going to be an afternoon to remember. *

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Trevor Grey kept his head down as the girl in black breezed past him. One more stranger to worry about. Terrific. He knew most of the faces around him—at least, he knew the costumes. Old hands, most of them, their ambitions clear, their voices and insignia familiar from a thousand grainy video manifestos. Captain Catastrophe, Madame Mortale, the Howling Skull ... he understood them, knew what they wanted. But the girl was going to be a problem. He could already tell. Stop it, he told himself. You’re being too paranoid. What would Jude say if he could see Trevor now? The boy who had tweaked Dr. Maligno’s nose in the middle of a rant, the sidekick who could hit any target with a slingshot, even from the middle of an aerial somersault—and now he was jumping at shadows. It was embarrassing. Of course, Jude hadn’t been around for his most recent disasters. Trevor closed his eyes behind his stolen sunglasses, willing himself not to think of the shadowy men with faces like foxhounds who haunted his nightmares. He hadn’t seen them in days. He had covered his tracks. They couldn’t be here in Los Angeles yet. He had time. As long as he didn’t blow his cover. Trevor glowered at the girl in black. A bodyguard had an excuse to glare at anyone. She didn’t seem to notice. He went back to scanning the room for trouble. His eyes briefly came to rest on the curtained-off area at one end of the hangar, softly aglow under rented lights. At the edges of his vision, he saw other faces turning toward the heavy black curtain, then turning away. This was an auction with only one item for sale, and they all wanted it. The message had come through the grapevine clear: One mask, sold as-is, one day only. Strong MS potential. Trevor suppressed a shiver. He hated Mad Science. He’d fought his share of monsters with tentacles and too many teeth. The thought of a mask ending up that way made him want to vomit. Which was why, he soothed himself, he’d hacked a few million fake dollars into a dummy account. As the agent of an absent villain, he could bid as high as he wanted and walk out with the merchandise before the check bounced. A hero would be free, some despicable

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people would be out a lot of money, and the foxhounds would have to chase their tails for another day. And if, as he suspected, the mask behind the curtain was Jude … Trevor forced himself to watch the girl in black as she strolled up to the curtain. Don’t think about it. Jude had been missing for years, leaving nothing for a farewell but a pool of blood on the hideout floor. Hope was a distraction Trevor couldn’t afford right now. The last time he’d let himself hope, the hounds had come. *

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Rae let her hips sway gently as she approached the curtain. Grown women walked like this—at least, they did on TV—so she had to, too. She would have preferred to make Shadewalker closer to Rae Masterson’s age, but there weren’t a lot of successful supervillains who were eighteen years old. The curtained area was semicircular, she noticed. The front arc of drapery was suspended from a freestanding frame, but the back was hung from a catwalk railing that ran along the back wall of the hangar. She supposed it made sense; this way no one could get an early look at the merchandise by peeking through the hangar’s grime-encrusted windows. But for someone with arson in mind, that catwalk was ideal. Rae drew her hands inside her Shadewalker robes and brushed her fingers lightly over hidden pockets full of flash paper. She sidled along the curtain, slipping a sheet out as she did. She paused just long enough to press it lightly in place, fine black film on heavy black fabric, deep in a fold. Then she moved on, palming another piece, keeping it ready. After a few steps, she had an inspiration. With her free hand, she reached out in front of her, spreading her fingers as if testing the air for something. She half-closed her eyes and stepped forward in a trance, moving her lips in silent nonsense syllables. By now the guard at the door had mentioned the crazy woman with the bag; let them think the spirits of darkness were telling her something about the merchandise. She pressed another flash paper into a fold, trailing the fine thread of the fuse between her fingers. Eyes on her felt like cold water on the back of her neck. She swayed to a stop and turned her head slightly to look.

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A young man stood nearby, staring at her from behind sunglasses that were slightly too large for his face. He was dressed in the conservative black and grey of a bodyguard or a highend professional henchman, but his sand-colored hair stood out from his head in a thatch that defied any comb. He had the careful three-quarters stance of someone ready for a fight. Rae gave him a dreamy Shadewalker smile and caressed another flash paper onto the curtain behind her. Sunglasses didn’t react. Slowly, Rae kept moving around the curtain, ignoring him. This wasn’t good. She’d have to finish soon, and then find somewhere to change before he caught on. Where was the nearest ladies’ room? She couldn’t allow too much time for Shadewalker to vanish and Peregrine to appear. Sunglasses was only going to get more suspicious when the curtain caught fire. Trying to breathe normally, she sauntered nonchalantly toward the catwalk stairs. Four minutes to go. *

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Trevor watched the girl in black slink up the stairs, lightly stroking the railing as she went. That was a woman who enjoyed walking entirely too much. She had the dramatic, flowing look of a magic user, but that wasn’t saying much. He’d faked magical powers himself once or twice in his sidekick days. A little sleight of hand was all it took. The girl mounted the catwalk and moved sinuously forward. She stepped softly on the pads of her feet, like a cat herself. And one hand was always on the rail, lightly brushing the black curtain below her. As if she needed to touch it somehow … Comprehension suddenly dawned. Trevor stepped as close as he dared to the curtain where she had lingered for a moment, squinting to see details on the matte black fabric. At last, he spotted it, hidden in the shadow of a fold: a thin rectangle of something plastered to the cloth. He glanced up at the girl in black. She was still slinking, still brushing the curtain, still ignoring him. Trevor darted into the deep fold, dug his fingernails under the rectangle, ripped it free, and slipped back into the near edge of the crowd before the girl could look up. He angled his body away from her and fingered the thin film, staring down at it through his dark lenses.

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It was dark and flimsy, and reminded him a little of the photographic film Jude had loaded into his old 35-millimeter camera when Trevor was a kid. But there was a funny smell about it, and a trailing thread from one corner that looked somehow familiar. In the back of his brain, a quiet alarm bell went off. Something about Los Angeles and movies … yes, that made sense. Nitrocellulose. Stage magicians used the stuff as flash paper to create sudden, distracting explosions. Most of the early Hollywood movies had been lost because their nitrocellulose prints had sparked fires in studio vaults. And if the girl in black was sticking panels of flash paper to the curtain, and connecting them with what now looked remarkably like fine, lightweight fuse thread … Trevor snapped his head back up to stare at the catwalk. The girl had vanished. That had to mean it wouldn’t be long before she detonated the flash paper and started a fire with a live mask still trapped behind the curtain. He looked around quickly, saw no one was watching him, and lunged for the drapes, snatching flash paper panels off and tangling sticky threads around them as he moved faster than he’d ever moved in his life. He mounted the stairs and kept snatching, praying he could break enough of the detonation chain to minimize the damage. He couldn’t afford to lose Jude now. And fire would bring the hounds as surely as his face on the news. The thought of fire stopped him halfway up the stairs. Why was the girl setting a fire? If she simply couldn’t afford to bid on the merchandise, why come to the auction at all? Perhaps she had some personal vendetta against Jude—but no one knew for sure who was behind the curtain, so vengeance at this stage was almost pointless. And if she wanted revenge on the sellers, she had an awfully roundabout way of taking it. Trevor looked down at the scraps of film in his hand. Flash paper was an illusionist’s tool. He’d used it himself before to pass for a magic user. The girl in the flowing, mystic-style costume was an imposter, just like him. Someone pretending to be someone she wasn’t. Someone who wasn’t a supervillain, but had snuck into a warehouse full of them. Someone whose mind ran to thinking Jude was better off dead than on the auction block. Someone whom he could just see disappearing into the ladies’ room at the far end of the hangar, as if she had to suddenly change her clothes for a big reveal … He’d been right. The girl was trouble. Trevor jogged up a few more steps, snatching flash paper, feeling a little sorry to be disrupting a fellow superhero’s carefully laid plan. But as much as he wanted to check the girl

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out right now—there weren’t supposed to be any superheroes left in L.A., were there?—he had a mentor to save. Then he reached the catwalk and glanced down to see what was behind the curtain. And froze. *

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Rae slipped into the ladies’ room and immediately cursed her luck. She wasn’t alone. There was a tall woman standing at the nearest sink, wobbling slightly on the stiletto heels of her thigh-high purple boots as she bent to peer at her face in the mirror. Her face, which was red and a little swollen under her spiked purple cowl. Rae scowled. Save me from crying people in the bathroom. Another delay she couldn’t afford. She stalked over to the next free sink and viciously yanked a paper towel from the dispenser. As she ran cold water on the paper, she heard the woman whisper, “Sorry.” Rae tried to ignore her. The paper sopped up the water and plastered itself to her fingers. Finally, she looked up. The woman stared miserably back at her, wet streaks now visible on her blotchy pink face. Without thinking about it, Rae handed her the wet towel. The masked woman began dabbing delicately at her cheeks. Rae watched for a moment, trying to think of something to say that didn’t sound irritated. There was a reason she ate lunch alone, dammit. Finally, stupidly, she asked, “You okay?” The woman snorted gently and dabbed some more. “You got a knife I can borrow? I need to stab someone.” Rae nervously tried a smile. “I’m more of a spirits-of-darkness girl.” “They do loaners?” “No. Sorry.” Rae was silent for a while, and watched the woman in purple trying to salvage her makeup. Madame Mortale, she thought she was called. She robbed banks and poisoned people. It was bizarre to see her like this. Somehow Rae had never imagined supervillains crying. “What happened?”

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Mortale waved the hand with the paper towel in it. “It’s stupid.” “Hey,” Rae said dryly, “I’m wearing black chiffon. I have experience with stupid.” That got a laugh, low and husky. Mortale pressed the towel to each cheek in turn. “It’s just—you know Captain Catastrophe?” Rae nodded, thinking of the last four times she’d arrested him. How did he keep making bail? “We used to have a thing, and it ended, and he’s here today and an ass, and …” She sighed. “He said my butt looked big in these pants.” The whole outfit was purple vinyl. Rae avoided looking. “I know, right? You’d think it wouldn’t bother me of all people, but …” Rae patted Mortale awkwardly on the shoulder, between two of the more wickedlooking spikes, and tried not to panic. All she could think of was empty lunch tables. How did other girls handle this? The ones without secret identities … “You know what?” she said, seizing on a desperate idea. Mortale looked blearily up at her. “Who’s the biggest fish out there?” Mortale shrugged. “I don’t know. Nightshark, I guess.” Rae felt a grin coming on. “He’s way out of Catastrophe’s league. Go flirt with him.” “Are you serious?” “As a heart attack. The more confident you are, the more jealous he’ll be. It’s perfect.” Mortale’s mouth quirked up on one side in a tentative half-smile. “I guess I could.” “Do it,” Rae told her. “And if anyone asks,” she winked, “tell you the spirits of darkness made you do it.” *

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There was no one behind the curtain.

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Trevor could hear the hum of a portable generator now that it wasn’t being muffled by the curtain, and it was plugged into what looked like a small steel refrigerator, like something out of a mad scientist’s dorm room. There was no way a person could fit into that. An unpleasant list of all the things that could be found in small refrigerators rolled through Trevor’s mind as he stared downward. One live mask, sold as-is. Cell cultures were technically alive. Body parts? Strong MS potential. Mad Science was about the only thing the contents of the fridge were good for anymore. Trevor sank to his knees on the catwalk. He had been searching the world for Jude, for years now. It wasn’t fair to find only a piece of him. And it could still be worse. Like Trevor, and presumably like the girl in black, Jude didn’t have any powers to speak of. A cell culture from him was of minimal use to this crowd. The fridge most likely contained a piece of someone else that no one had been able to save. Trevor looked down at the crumpled mass of flash paper in his hand, and made a decision. He moved faster slapping the panels back onto the curtain than he had in removing them, and still barely finished before the last one began to smoke in his hand. He tossed it at the curtain, spun into the crowd, and was nearly ten feet away when the fireball went up behind him. Screams and epithets sounded from the crowd, and Trevor felt himself being pushed in two directions at once as half of the people in attendance rushed toward the curtain to try to put out the fire, and the other half rushed the security station for their weapons. None of it helped. Flames gobbled the curtain like a starving animal, and Trevor heard more screaming from the doorway as a wave of people trying to escape began to trample those still trying to wrest their death rays from the weapons check. And above it all, rising from the catwalk, emerging from the smoke and flames like an angry phoenix, came a girl in a long black tunic embroidered with scarlet. Her face was covered by a black cloth mask, but her voice boomed into the lofty reaches of the hangar. “My name’s Peregrine,” she told the crowd of angry villains. “And you’re all about to have a very bad day.” Trevor began drifting toward a side exit, laughing quietly to himself, as the brawl began. The girl wasn’t half bad, for an amateur. He’d have to keep an eye on her.

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He glanced back over his shoulder as he opened the door, letting in the air and light of the afternoon outside. The girl leaped off the catwalk and dove into the audience as the burning curtain collapsed onto its diminutive contents. The mound of burning cloth sank as if there were nothing underneath it, as if the promise of the auction had vanished in the fire. The girl drove her elbow into a bodyguard’s jaw, probably shattering it. Trouble indeed.

Rae and Trevor come face to face in Masks. Follow their adventures for FREE at www.MySpace.com/MasksOnline!

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