"I want a look at the book first," the Question said. His "pseudoderm" mask rendered him faceless once more. Desert gear replaced his usual trench coat. An equipment belt and canteen were buckled around his waist.
"Forget your curiosity," Renee spat. "This is a damn Intergang reeducation camp. The girl I killed came from here, and the naughty mm down there is responsible." I'll be damned, she thought, if I let that scaly bitch brainwash another innocent kid.
But that seemed to be exactly what Whisper had in mind. Before Renee's appalled gaze, a pair of hulking beast-men dragged a teenage boy out onto the floor of the temple. One of the monsters was a shaggy wolf-man whom Renee recognized as Whisper's lycanthropic henchman, Abbot. His prisoner was a battered Arab youth who looked like he had already endured a couple rounds of beatings. Ugly scars and bruises covered his dusky skin. Disheveled black hair hung before his eyes. His head sagged downward, concealing his face. Trembling legs looked like they could no longer support his own weight.
"Amon Tomaz," Whisper declared solemnly. "For weeks now we have shown you and orphans like you the way of the Red Rage and the Rock...."
Renee started at the name. "Oh my God, it's him. Isis' brother!"
"And while others have taken the Word of Cain to heart, you have not." Whisper closed the book and pulled her hood back over her head. "This is the third time you have tried to run. It will be the last." She nodded at Abbot and the other beast-men. "See to it that his legs never obey him again." She turned away from the pulpit and headed out of the temple. "Start with his ankles."
Growling in anticipation, the huge werewolf grabbed Amon by the throat and lifted him off his feet. Foam dripped from his lupine snout. Before Renee could even think about stopping him, he savagely dashed the teenager onto the hard stone floor. More monsters, sporting various combinations of fur, feathers, and scales, surged forward to join in the carnage. With metal truncheons or their own oversized fists, they pounded the defenseless boy mercilessly. Fresh blood sprayed upon the carved walls of the subterranean temple.
Renee couldn't take it anymore. Even though Whisper was already disappearing down an adjacent catacomb, saving Amon suddenly took priority. She drew her gun and started to climb over the rail. "All right," she told Vic. "On three ..."
"Stop." To her surprise, he grabbed her from behind, holding her back. A kung fu move trapped her arms behind her.
What the hell? "They're beating him," she protested, trying to break free. "We can't just—"
He clamped his palm over her mouth. "We go down there, we'll die. Simple as that." His voice held none of its usual levity. "It stinks and it's wrong and it hurts like hell, but there's nothing we can do for Amon right now." He held tightly onto Renee as she swore into his glove. "Adam and Isis are on their way. They can handle this. We can't." She squirmed in his grip even as she knew, deep in her heart, that he was absolutely right. "There are some things you just have to accept, Renee."
Like hell, she thought bitterly. Trapped by both Vic's arms and cruel necessity, she could only watch helplessly as Abbot and his bestial cohorts beat the living crap out of Amon. The boy cried out at first, but his feeble protests were quickly replaced by the sound of cracking bones and the thud of heavy fists and boots against tender flesh. Renee couldn't even see Amon beneath the pack of vicious monsters piling onto him. Biting back sobs and screams, the other children either stared at the grisly scene with horror, or else buried their heads in their hands, trying unsuccessfully to hide from the awful sights and sounds. Would they ever be able to forget this nightmare? Would they even get the chance?
The beating lasted less than five minutes, but seemed to go on forever. Just when Renee thought she couldn't possibly stand another moment, however, the gang of monsters stepped back from their victim. Amon's pulped body lay facedown in a puddle of dark venous blood. His limbs were twisted at unnatural angles that made Renee's joints hurt just looking at them. Only the ragged sound of his breathing made it clear that he was simply unconscious and not dead. Renee guessed that Whisper intended to keep the crippled boy alive to serve as a living example of what happened to those who rejected the cult's teachings. Killing him would've been a mercy by comparison.
"Here endeth the Lesson," Abbot growled at the other orphans. The wolf-man took hold of Amon's limp right arm and dragged the boy down a shadowy stairway. Amon's abused body left a trail of blood across the dusty stone tiles. Vic waited until both Abbot and Amon were out of sight before finally letting go of Renee.
She glared at him. "You really are a bastard."
"Well, I was raised in an orphanage, so you're probably right." His featureless countenance gave no hint of what he really felt about what they had just witnessed. He nodded at an adjoining tunnel. "Now let's get mov—"
"CAUGHT YOU!"
Without warning, a huge monster charged at them. Over nine feet tall, with at least four hundred pounds of mutated muscle, the hairless beast-man was as red as a cooked lobster and twice as ugly. Jagged tusks jutted from his lower jaw. Yellow eyes blazed beneath a sloping brow. He had no nose, and only narrow slits where his ears should have been. A tattered loincloth spared Renee a peek at his inhuman private parts. Thank heaven for small favors, she thought.
"Oops," Vic blurted, embarrassed at being taken unawares.
Renee took aim at the oncoming ogre. "You were saying something about acceptance?"
"Not quite what I meant," Vic conceded. He leaned backward to give Renee a clear shot at the lobster-man.
"Didn't think so." Squeezing the trigger, she blew a hole right through the middle of the monster's torso. Bulging yellow eyes stared down in confusion at the gaping cavity in his chest.
Would that be enough to stop the beast? Vic didn't wait to find out. Grabbing onto Renee once more, he threw them both over the railing. "Remember to bend your knees!" he suggested as they dropped toward the floor of the temple.
Despite Vic's sage advice, she landed hard on her butt. "Ooof!"
"Cover me!" he shouted, after making a more nimble landing. To her surprise, he sprang for the pulpit behind them. Intergang hoodlums, human and otherwise, drew weapons from beneath their robes and opened fire on the intruders. Bullets chipped away at the elaborately gruesome carvings. Renee ducked behind a blood-stained baptismal font.
"Charlie, what are you doing?" She returned fire with her ray gun. For the moment, the crackling energy blasts seemed to be holding the cultists at bay. Behind her, the shackled children threw themselves onto the floor in order to avoid the gunfire. Renee prayed that none of the orphans would get shot by mistake. She wasn't sure she could live with herself if another child died because of her.
"Going for the book!" Vic explained. He leaped at the pulpit, snatching the heavy tome from its resting place as he hurled past the marble pedestal, then hit the floor in a roll and jumped back up onto his feet. He clutched the book against his chest. "Gotcha!"
Renee questioned his priorities. "I'm not sure now's the time to be boosting your collection!" Bits of stone flew from the font protecting her. The temple echoed with the blare of gunfire. An energy blast disintegrated a gun-toting acolyte, but there were plenty more where he came from. She was seriously outnumbered here, and could definitely use some backup. "Charlie..."
"Renee, watch out!" he suddenly hollered from several feet away.
A leopard-man dropped from the mezzanine, landing upon the floor right next to her. Feline claws slashed across her stomach, drawing blood. Gasping in pain, she swung her gun against the monster's skull. The blow stunned the spotted beast-man, but only for a moment. Blood seeped through her fingers as she clutched her belly with her free hand. With a ferocious roar, the leopard-man came at her again. Her gun came up too slowly....
I'm going to die here, she realized.
A thunderous rumble shook the temple. The leopard-man looked up in surprise as a slab-sized chunk of the ceiling crashed down onto his head. Black Adam landed on the slab, flattening the monster. Bulle
ts ricocheted off Adam's back and arms as he shielded Vic and Renee with his own indestructible body. He nodded grimly at the two Americans.
The Kahndaqi cavalry had arrived.
"We came as soon as we could," Isis called out as she swooped down through the hole her husband had opened in the ceiling. At her command, thick roots sprouted from the floor, snaring several of the cultists. Back in Gotham, Renee had seen Poison Ivy pull similar stunts; she couldn't help wondering how Isis would fare against Gotham's most homicidal plant-lover. My money's on the goddess, she thought.
The remaining acolytes and beast-men fled the temple. Letting them go, at least for the moment, Isis landed next to Renee. "Are you all right?" Her dark eyes zeroed in on the bloody gash across Renee's stomach. "You're wounded...."
The deep laceration stung like hell, but that wasn't what was important now. "We found your brother, Isis! We found Amon!"
Isis froze as though struck by lightning. "Where?"
"They've taken him below." Renee tried to prepare the other woman for the worst. "Isis ... he's hurt."
Concern showed on Isis' lovely face, but she did not despair. "I can heal him," she asserted. "Just as I can heal your wound."
She laid her hand gently upon Renee's injured stomach. A purple glow radiated from Isis' slender fingers and the searing pain immediately ceased. Whoa, Renee thought. That feels better already. The blood stopped flowing as her torn flesh swiftly knitted itself back together. Within seconds, no trace of the cut remained. Only the slash marks in her T-shirt proved that she had ever been attacked in the first place.
How about that? Renee thought. Her smooth skin tingled where Isis had healed her.
Maybe it wasn't too late for Amon after all?
"We need support now!" a tiger-man growled into a handheld communicator. Three more monsters looked on anxiously. "Black Adam and Isis are here! Repeat, we need—"
Side by side, Isis and Black Adam smashed through a stone wall into a dungeon beneath the temple, where a makeshift medical facility appeared to have been set up. Her heart leaped as she spotted Amon lying atop a crumbling sacrificial altar that now doubled as an operating table. An IV poured cold plasma into his veins. Electronic apparatus monitored his vital signs.
Blessed Goddess, she prayed to her namesake, grant me the power to save him.
"Let all of your 'support' come," Black Adam raged. "Let all of Intergang come." A mutated brute with the head of a warthog and the body of a man fired a laser rifle at the avenging champion. A ruby beam bounced harmlessly off Adam's brawny chest, winging an ape-man nearby, before he tore apart the rifle with his bare hands. A titanic blow sent both the warthog and the ape-man flying across the chamber. An instant later, Adam crushed the tiger-man's communicator within his fist, before throwing the feline henchman up against the wall. "I welcome them!"
While her husband dealt with their enemies, Isis rushed to her brother's side. By the gods! she thought, shocked by the extent of his injuries. She barely recognized him, so badly had he been beaten. His once handsome face was now hidden behind fresh cuts and bruises. His eyes were swollen shut, so she could not tell if he was conscious, while the rest of his body also bore the marks of extreme violence and cruelty, hr particular, the bones in his ankles and pelvis looked as though they had been reduced to powder. Blood pooled beneath him.
"What did they do to him?" she said, aghast.
Victor Szasz and Renee entered through the breach in the wall. They stepped carefully over the fallen rubble. "Looks like Intergang didn't sell him into slavery like you thought," the Question explained. Isis found his faceless guise disturbing. "They were trying to brainwash him and some other kids into joining their religion of crime."
Isis had never heard of anything more obscene.
"He tried to escape," Renee added.
That sounds like him, Isis thought with a pained smile. Amon had always been a headstrong child, fearless and high-spirited; it was what she had loved most about him. A tear trickled down her face as she gazed down at his vandalized form. Was even the power of Isis enough to repair the damage?
"Adrianna?" To her surprise, his swollen eyelids opened slightly. The whites of his eyes were stained bright red. His lips parted, revealing cracked and missing teeth. His voice was so weak she had to lean forward to hear him. "Adrianna, is that you?"
"Yes, Amon." Her throat tightened as she gently stroked his head.
He struggled to keep his eyes open. A broken nose distorted his voice. "You look ... so pretty." -
Isis fought back a sob. In all the times she had imagined their reunion, she had never foreseen finding him like this. It's not fair , she lamented. If only we could have rescued him earlier... I
"Are these the ones who did this to him, Question?" Black Adam demanded, looking back over his shoulder at the faceless detective. Adam now held both the warthog and the tiger-man up against the wall. His powerful fists gripped their hairy throats. .
"Yes," Victor confirmed.
Adam's expression darkened. "Then let them feel their bones crushed and shattered. One at a time." His subhuman captives squealed and squawked as he squeezed their necks tightly. The tiger-man's claws slashed uselessly at Adam's mighty arm.
"No, Adam!" Isis summoned a mighty gale, which blew Adam away from the prisoners. Loose dust and debris swirled across the dungeon. "Winds, quell my husband's rage!"
The cyclonic gust slammed the beast-men into the wall, rendering them unconscious. Their grotesque bodies dropped limply onto the floor. Cheated of his vengeance, Adam spun around to confront his wife.
"Look at what these monsters did to your brother, Isis! He is my family now and he is dying!" A murderous wrath contorted his noble features. His fists were clenched so tightly that the blood fled from his knuckles. "They deserve a slow death! Plucked apart like the insects they are!"
"Please," Isis pleaded. Heartsick, she buried her face in her hands. "Too many people here—too many people in the world—are already hurting." Lifting her head, she laid her hands upon her brother's ravaged body. "Amon's wounds ... the fresh ones cover others from days before. He's been beaten many times before this."
Purple energy coursed over the supine youth, but the eldritch glow swiftly faded away, leaving Amon almost as mutilated as before. Only a few of his more superficial injuries had been healed. "His nerves have been twisted and severed," she sobbed. Kohl streaked her cheeks as she wept openly. "His wounds are too deep even for my powers over nature."
Raindrops suddenly fell from the roof of the dungeon. Renee looked up in confusion as the unexpected precipitation splattered against her face. "It's raining ... inside?"
"Isis," the Question said simply. Nature itself was weeping in sympathy with its mistress.
She sadly turned away from the bloody altar. Her teary eyes sought out her husband's. "My brother's flesh will heal, Adam, but he'll never walk again."
Her sorrow brought out his gentler side. The anger left his face, replaced by a look of profound sympathy for his wife's anguish. He nodded to himself, as though reaching a decision, and strode past her to approach Amon's bedside. His deep voice addressed the crippled boy.
"Amon, I am Black Adam. Your sister's husband and, by that right, your brother." He placed his palm upon the youth's black-and-blue chest. "We are family." , . .
The Question moved forward to get a better look. "What's he doing to him?"
I don't know, Isis thought. As far as she knew, Adam possessed no healing powers.
"We have a bond now," he declared. Rain spilled down from the ceiling, washing away Amon's blood. "Say my name, brother. Say it."
Through split lips, Amon fought to mouth the words. "Bl-Black ..
Sparks flared beneath Adam's fingers. Electricity crackled across Amon's ravaged flesh. His eyes lit up with galvanic fire. Renewed vigor suffused his voice as he shouted:
"BLACK ADAM!"
Thunder rocked the underground chamber as a mystic lightning bolt struck Amon,
shattering the altar beneath him. Adam and the others were driven backward by the force of the strike. The blinding flash forced them to blink and look away. Hissing sparks erupted from the life-sign monitors. The
IV stand toppled over. Isis would have feared for her brother's life had she not survived a similar thunderbolt in the Rock of Eternity nearly three months ago. Hope surged within her heart. The supernatural rain stopped falling. Could it be ... ? •
Yes! Where once Amon had lain broken and bleeding, her brother now stood tall once more. Not only were all his grievous wounds and injuries healed, but he looked stronger and fitter than ever before. Starvation and torture no longer left their imprint upon him, and his blood-soaked loincloth had been transformed into a sleek black uniform that bore a marked resemblance to Adam's. A golden lightning bolt was emblazoned upon his chest.
Clear brown eyes looked down upon his restored flesh and form. He flexed his arm experimentally, stunned to find it working once more. "I hear voices in my head," he said, visibly baffled by his metamorphosis.
"They are the gods that power me," Black Adam said solemnly. "You now have the strength of your namesake, Amon."
Understanding dawned in the boy's eyes, along with absolute delight. "Yes, and the stamina of Shu! The swiftness of Heru! The power of Aton!" Testing his new abilities, he smashed what remained of the broken altar with a single blow. Solid stone exploded beneath his fist. He sprang into the air, defying gravity. "The wisdom of Zehuti! The courage of Mehen!"
Isis recognized the names of the Egyptian deities who granted Black Adam their divine attributes. She turned to her husband. "How?"
Adam shrugged. "I simply shared a portion of my power with your brother, just as Captain Marvel has done with Freddy Freeman." Isis recalled how Billy Batson had transformed a handicapped American youth into Captain Marvel Jr. "It is something I have always been able to do," Adam explained. "But I never had a family to share my gifts with."