"The State Department has shut down our embassy in Bialya," a third voice reported. "All American personnel are to be evacuated immediately."
Too little, too late, Waller thought grimly. We should have forced a regime change there months ago. And in Kahndaq too. She sorted through the mug shots on her desk, picking out a new Suicide Squad. So far, she hadn't found anyone in custody strong enough to bring the rampaging superhuman down. I knew Black Adam was a loose cannon, and noiv he's gone off... just like I predicted.
The prison's official warden came running into her office. "I have the White House on line one," he announced shrilly. "The Pentagon is on line two."
"Hold my calls," Waller barked. "And get me the Justice Society!"
ea alya.
The fighter jet crashed into the center of a crowded bazaar.
Flames erupted within the market, consuming shops, merchants, and customers alike. The few survivors choked on the smoke as they pulled themselves across the shattered pavement. Shocked men and women called out for their loved ones. Confused children cried for their parents. The moans and screams of the dying and the injured filled the air. Blood poured across the cobblestones. Billowing black fumes hid the moon and stars.
Black Adam strode out of the heart of the blaze. A torn jet wing crunched beneath his boots. Bloody tracks charted his progress across the wreckage. His dark eyes scanned the horizon. In the distance, more jets were impaled atop the spires of wrecked skyscrapers and mosques. Fireballs spewed into the sky.
Adam didn't even know what this city's name had been. He had left the ruins of the capital far behind him and was now making his way across the entire country. The wisdom of the gods might have informed him of his precise location, but Adam didn't care enough to listen. All of Bialya would pay for sheltering the Horsemen. Let others make a list of the dead.
I have had my share of burials, he thought. And more.
He paused for a moment, his unquenchable rage ebbing slightly. An overturned flower cart, now being devoured by blossoms of bright orange flame, lay directly in his path. A single yellow rose floated in a crimson puddle, its delicate petals soaking up the blood. The fragile flower reminded him of all he had lost.
. Isis . . .
He knelt down beside the puddle and plucked the rose from the blood. For a second, sorrow unmanned him and a solitary tear leaked from his cheek. There had been a time, not so long ago, when he had finally found true happiness.
A bottle smashed against the back of his head, disturbing his grief. "Murderer!" an hysterical voice cried out. "Demon!" .
Black Adam rose to find a mob of vengeful Bialyans advancing on him. The crazed civilians were obviously possessed of more fury than sense. They brandished knives, clubs, handguns, and rifles as they sought to stamp out the menace in their midst. Shots rang out. Lead bullets flattened themselves against his impervious flesh. Their lust for revenge reminded Adam of his own.
"Avenge us...."
So Isis had beseeched him as she had lain dying in his arms. He would not deny his wife her last request. No power on Earth could stop him, let alone this pathetic mob.
"You!" he accused the ungrateful rabble. Isis had devoted her life to saving the world's people, and look how they had repaid her. The spirits of Osiris, Shiruta, Gon, and Hurut joined Isis inside his skull, crying out for justice. "You took them away again. You took them all away!"
He crushed the bloody flower in his hand.
"Where is the Horseman?" He flung himself into the crowd, determined to wrest the truth from them even if he had to take every man and woman apart one by one. "Where is Death?"
A bloody crimson haze descended over his vision.
All he saw was red.
MANHATTAN.
"Containment?" Power Girl exclaimed. "Are they out of their minds?"
Before the Justice League, there was the Justice Society of America, Earth's original super hero team. Now composed of gray-haired veterans and their younger proteges, the JSA was ready to take on any threat to world peace, especially when the League was not available.
Like now, for instance. The so-called Infinite Crisis had left the League in disarray. Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman were all MIA, while their various teammates were either missing as well, or coping with the fallout from the Crisis. Hal Jordan, John Stewart, and Earth's other Green Lanterns were all off in space, on peacekeeping missions throughout the galaxy. Hawkman and Supergirl had been lost in space during the Rann-Thanagar War. Aquaman was busy rebuilding Atlantis. Bart Allen, the youngest surviving Flash, was still recovering from his battle with that evil Superboy from another dimension. Martian Manhunter was reputed to be on a top secret undercover mission....
So it's up to us, Alan Scott thought. Earth's first Green Lantern, he presided over the tense meeting taking place in the JS A's Manhattan headquarters. His teammates—Flash, Wildcat, Hourman, Stargirl, Mister Terrific, Doctor Mid-Nite, and Power Girl—were gathered around the marble round table in their conference room. They looked worried, but ready to go. As soon as the UN gives us the go-ahead. '
"We're told that the Security Council will have a further decision within the hour," he informed the team. Black Adam's status as a foreign leader, not to mention his Freed om-of-Power treaties with various hostile nations, made this whole situation politically dicey. No one wanted to start World War III....
But Adam might not give us a choice.
That wasn't good enough for Power Girl. She paced restlessly on the other side of the table, too worked up to sit still. The buxom blonde heroine's fiery temper matched her heat-vision. Her eyes flared as brightly as the red sun of her native Krypton. "There won't be a Bialya in an hour!"
"Believe me, Karen," Green Lantern said. "We know that better than anyone."
Emerald flames flashed within his power ring.
BIALYA.
An airport smoldered in the distance. Toppled skyscrapers jutted at odd angles, like gigantic works of modern art. A crashed 747 had been ripped asunder, spilling its human cargo out onto the rubble. Still bodies littered the streets. Broken glass glinted amidst the shattered steel and concrete. Garbage rotted along with the corpses. Countless fires ate away at the foundations of the ruined buildings. The crash of falling timbers and beams occasionally disturbed the sepulchral silence of the murdered country Screams and gunfire no longer echoed in the night. There was only the crackle of the flames, and the keening of the wind as it passed through the broken buildings. Bialya had become a ghost town, inhabited by only a single restless spirit.
Black Adam wandered through the wasteland, dazed and muttering to himself. The bodies of his victims were strewn in every direction. Scarlet rivers flowed into the sewers beneath whatever city this was. His knuckles were caked with blood.
"Where ... are ... you?” His eyes searched fruitlessly for his prey. He had been fighting and killing for what felt like an eternity now, and yet the last of the Horsemen continued to elude him. Frustration overcame him and he rocketed through an empty high-rise with such force that the entire building flew apart. "WHERE ARE YOU?"
The remains of the skyscraper crashed to earth, raising a huge cloud of pulverized concrete. Black Adam hovered hundreds of feet above the wreckage. His shoulders sagged and he cradled his face in his bloody hands. He could not rest until he had slain his wife's killer, but how much longer must he search? He should have never let Azraeuz escape Kahndaq in the first place. I should have made certain he was dead before.
The cawing of birds came from somewhere overhead. Surprised by the sound, he lifted his gaze and beheld scores of vultures and crows circling in the air above him. As he watched in morbid fascination, they descended and began feeding on the corpses populating the streets below. He rose higher and saw that yet more scavengers were coming to join in the feast. Indeed, it seemed as though the eaters of carrion were circling above the entire nation. All of Bialya had become a meal for them.
And flapping amongst the vultures, his
great black wings spread out behind him, Azraeuz presided over the banquet. His lethal scythe sliced through the smoke rising up from the ruins as the fourth and final Horseman spoke at last.
"With every murder. . . with, the death of every man, woman, and child ... I have grown stronger."
He swooped down out of the sky, tackling Adam in midair, and sending them both crashing toward the earth. The force of their landing dug a deep trench across what, ironically enough, appeared to be an abandoned cemetery. They slammed into a string of granite headstones, smashing the weathered markers into dust. Rotting coffins and skeletons were uprooted and tossed about. The pungent reek of Death filled Black Adam's nostrils. Squawking vultures scattered in alarm.
"All thanks to you," Azraeuz gloated. His voice was like the rattle of dry bones as he rose from the freshly furrowed trench and swung his scythe at Black Adam. The edge of the blade slashed across Adam's chest, drawing blood. "I knew you would bring your unreasoning rage here. You were certain to give into it without that female meat at your side, whispering her sentimental platitudes into your ear." The scythe whistled through the dusty air. "I knew you would feed me with spilled blood and stopped hearts." He raised the scythe high, preparing to separate Adam's head from his shoulders. "Now I hunger for your death, mortal!"
Black Adam caught the blade with his bare hands. The razor-sharp edge sliced through his skin, making his hands slick with blood, but he did not let go. "You make false claims," Adam hissed through gritted teeth. "You are not Death." He swung the blade down and around so that it jabbed straight into Azraeuz's gut—and out through his back. "I am."
Letting go of the blade, Adam grabbed onto the Horseman and pulled him close. ■
"Shazam!"
A lightning bolt zapped down from the sky, striking both he and Azraeuz. The lightning transformed Black Adam back into his mortal guise, while electrocuting the Horseman at the same time. His body jerking spasmodically,
Azraeuz let out a howl of agony as his flesh fried upon his bones. Smoke rose from his feathered wings. The smell of burning meat supplanted the putrescent odor he usually exuded. Charred black skin flaked off his body
Teth-Adam, clad in an ancient Egyptian loincloth and headdress, savored his enemy's torment. But he was not through with the Horseman yet.
"Shazam!"
A second thunderbolt hit the pair. Azraeuz's bronze armor melted, fusing to his carbonized flesh. Still impaled upon his own scythe, which had acted as a lightning rod, attracting the mystical energy, he crashed to the ground. Viscous green tears leaked from the sockets of his skull as he whimpered in pain. Teth-Adam became Black Adam once more.
His superhuman strength restored, Adam wrested a jagged tombstone from the ground. "Now, monster, you are going to answer every question I ask."
Azraeuz attempted to crawl away, dragging himself through the damp graveyard dirt. The feathers had been burned away from his wings, leaving only the bare pinions behind. The blade of the scythe jutted up through his shoulder blades. His cloven hooves scraped against the ground.
"You are going to tell me where I can find your masters."
Black Adam drove the pointed tip of the headstone into the Horseman's back, breaking his spine. Azraeuz's charred tail twitched once, then fell limp. He reached backward, groping for the headstone, but merely sliced his fingers upon his own scythe. The scorched pinions spasmed violently.
"And then, almighty 'Death'..." Black Adam placed his hand against the back of the Horseman's head and drove his bony face into the mud. His fingers poked through the monster's skull. Embalming fluid flowed from the wounds. "I am going to spend the rest of the night slowly ending your life."
Destroying the last Horseman would not completely avenge Isis' murder. The creature's masters still had to answer for their crimes.
But it was a good start.
WEEK 46
OOLOIMG ISLAND.
"Red Alert!"
Crimson lights flashed and warning klaxons sounded inside the main laboratory. Panicked scientists dashed to their battle stations as the island's sensors picked up a humanoid figure zooming toward the tropical atoll at close to the speed of sound. A holographic wall monitor identified the figure as Black Adam, who had clearly discovered the origin of the Four Horsemen—and was hell-bent on revenge.
"He sterilized Bialya," Rigoro Mortis whispered, aghast. The puny scientist seemed to shrink a few inches more. "One million men, women, and children in less than twenty-four hours ..."
"Just think what he'll do to us!" Veronica Cale added. All the color drained from her exquisite features.
Only Dr. Sivana appeared untroubled by Black Adam's approach. He rubbed his hands together in fiendish anticipation. "Oh, I've been waiting for this for a long, long time. The Black Marvel himself at my mercy!" He cackled eagerly. "Bring it on!"
The other scientists gazed nervously at the oversized monitor. On the screen, Black Adam flew straight into a deluge of scalding chemicals. His silk uniform bubbled and sizzled, but he kept on flying, leaving a trail of steam behind him. His clenched fists tore through the corrosive clouds.
"He survived my acid rainstorm!" Doctor Death gasped. He lowered his gas mask, revealing pointed ears, bushy eyebrows, and a satanic goatee. He grabbed onto a fuming vial of poison like a child clutching his security blanket.
"But the Perimeter Force Shield is designed to withstand a direct asteroid strike," Baron Bug desperately reminded his colleagues, "of the sort which brought about the extinction of the dinosaurs!"
His words did little to reassure Doctor Tyme, who paced back and forth across the laboratory. The hands of his clock face spun hysterically. "How can you be so calm, Sivana?" he accused their leader. "The most dangerous living being on the planet is mere miles away from our soft, vulnerable guts." His blue cape flapped pathetically behind him. "And I still haven't found my lost fifty-two seconds!"
Talk about a cuckoo clock, Sivana thought. He counted down to Black Adam's arrival. "Five hundred miles away. Three hundred. One hundred ..."
"We're all going to die," Cale moaned. A most unflattering display of guilt compromised her beauty; rumor had it that she'd been having nightmares ever since the unveiling of the Four Horsemen. "We deserve to die*"
A tremendous sonic boom shook the lab. "The Perimeter Force Shield has shattered!" Baron Bug announced. "Black Adam is here!"
"Just give me a moment," Rigoro Mortis pleaded. His hairless dome was slick with perspiration. His hands trembled as he clumsily attempted to screw together a handheld control console that looked like a cross between a PlayStation joystick and an old-fashioned TV antenna. Loose screws slipped between his fingers. He swore in Latin as they bounced across the floor.
Sivana savored the other scientist's anxiety. "Sweating, Mortis? Now you know what it's like having the Marvels on your heels." None of these lesser lights appreciated what he had been up against all these years, "He has the power of six gods. Think about that!"
"Oh yeah!" Mortis snapped back. "Well, I'm an atheist and I have the powers of ultra-science at my disposal, in the form of the Super-Hood Mark II! The greatest killer android the world has ever seen." He finally succeeded in fitting the control device together. "He'll save us!"
He stared up at the screen, where Black Adam could be seen closing in on the island. Before Adam reached the coral ridge surrounding the atoll, however, a monstrous figure rose up from the sea below. Over fifty feet tall, the Super-Hood Mark II was a hulking artificial humanoid who bore a distinct resemblance to Boris Karloff in Frankenstein. Pasty white pseudoflesh covered its hairless cranium. A sneer occupied its brutish countenance. High-tech cannons rotated upon its arms. Swollen plastic tanks, filled with a transparent gel, bubbled upon its back. Crude stitches held its scalp together.
Doesn't look all that different from the Mark I, Sivana thought dubiously. Mortis is a real one-trick pony.
A mammoth arm aimed at Black Adam. The attached cannon sprayed the sticky gel at its
target, coating Black Adam with the goo. The giant's other hand grabbed onto the immobilized immortal. Heat-rays shot from the SuperHood's sunken eyes, setting the gel ablaze. Black Adam went up in flames.
"See!" Mortis crowed, dancing excitedly. "Super-flammable liquid plastic plus thermo-vision!"
Unimpressed, Sivana leaned back against his chair and sneered. "All you're doing is making him mad." His hands were clasped behind his head. "And when he gets mad, he makes you dead."
Sure enough, Black Adam was making short work of the Super -Hood Mark II. Heedless of the red-hot flames enveloping his body, he twisted free of the android's grip, tearing off Super-Hood's right arm in the process. The dismembered giant sheared away from Black Adam as explosions erupted from his shoulder. Mortis' grotesque creation tumbled backward into the sea, disappearing beneath the waves. The android's synthetic green blood formed an oil slick atop the water.
So much for that ill-conceived monstrosity, Sivana thought smugly, even as another of the mad scientists stepped up to bat.
"Time for Baron Bug to save us all!" The crazed cyber-entomologist tapped frantically at the keypad of his remote control device. "Oh God, oh God," he muttered under his breath. "Where are my Insectrons?"
He let out a sigh of relief as a swarm of mechanical insects appeared on the screen. Buzzing furiously, the robotic bees, hornets, and wasps rushed toward Black Adam, who hurled Super-Hood's severed arm at the first wave of Insectrons. The limb exploded against the bugs, wiping out several at once. Mangled steel wings and feelers splashed down into the sea.
But Baron Bug had been very industrious during his stay at Oolong Island. Yet more Insectrons assailed Black Adam, biting and stinging every inch of his body. He slapped and swatted at them with his mighty hands, crushing them by the handful, but they threw themselves against him with suicidal determination. The largest of the Insectrons, a hawk-sized Robo-Wasp, clung to his back. A foot-long radioactive stinger stabbed repeatedly into his back.