With a cry of triumph, he sped through the cards, deftly dodging them as he went. They were more than just cards, he realized—each one was rimmed with a sharp, steel edge. He ducked, bobbed, and weaved, running almost blind through the thicket of cards, intent on one thing and one thing only: catching the magician on the other side of the cloud. He slipped between queens and kings, batted aside a flurry of deuces, one-eyed jacks, and aces. Hearts, clubs, spades, and diamonds fluttered in the air around him—a storm of playing cards.
When he emerged on the other side, Hocus Pocus was nowhere to be seen.
But he did see a cluster of CCPD cops, their cruisers parked at angles on the street. Two uniformed cops were ushering civilians behind the cars, as a phalanx of armed and armored tech officers fanned out. They had complicated rifles aimed at him.
“FLASH!” one of them called out through a bullhorn. “DROP THE STOLEN GOODS AND PUT YOUR HANDS IN THE AIR!”
And much to Barry’s shock, he felt something heavy in his hand. He looked down to realize that somehow he had picked up the bag of stolen merchandise. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t drop it.
“Do you see that?” he heard someone saying.
“The Flash robbed the store!”
“He stole everything—”
“I thought he was a hero—”
The crowd had turned into an angry mob, and they were angry at him. He couldn’t really blame them.
“What are you up to?” someone called out from behind the police barricade.
“You’re supposed to be a good guy!” someone else yelled.
Barry dodged to his left just in time to avoid a sandwich someone had flung at him. An instant later, as he kicked into superspeed, the air around him went thick with pitas, water bottles, cans of soda, hot dogs, and more as the mob began pelting him with food and crying out at his villainy.
No doubt triggered by his becoming a blur, the cops started firing. Barry didn’t know what kind of bullets they were using—maybe they were just rubber—but he didn’t want to find out the hard way, either. He still had one free hand, and he pointed that hand at the cops. He started spinning it around and around, until the speed and friction of his motion generated a whirlwind that knocked several cops off their feet.
“STAND DOWN!” the cop with the bullhorn commanded. “FLASH! STAND DOWN IMMEDIATELY!”
How had he gotten to this point? How had he ended up fighting his fellow law enforcement officers?
But he knew the answer. He knew it was all Hocus Pocus.
Bullets started flying again. He dodged and weaved, still clinging to the bag. Somewhere, Hocus Pocus was still commanding him, ordering him to hold on to it. It slowed him down, but just a little. He was still faster than bullets, fast enough to step between gunshots, then sweep out with the heavy bag, knocking down a row of cops like bowling pins.
He wanted to explain to them what was happening, but what would he say? How could he convince them? He couldn’t, he knew.
So he did what he always did: He ran.
He ran away.
Running was what he was best at, but it had never felt so cowardly before. He couldn’t help it, though. He had to escape. From the accusations and anger of the crowd. From his own shame at attacking the cops. From all of it.
Moments into his run, he felt the mental tug of Hocus Pocus’s yoke, yanking him in a certain direction. On the outskirts of town, near a stand of trees by the highway, he found the magician waiting for him.
“Kneel,” came the command.
Gritting his teeth, the Flash dropped to one knee before the magician, his head lowered in supplication.
“If I had planned it all out before coming here,” Hocus Pocus said, chortling, “it still would not have worked out half so well. The true magician must always be prepared to improvise.”
“You’re no magician,” Barry snarled. “You’re just a crook with a gimmick.”
Hocus Pocus drew himself up to his full height. His eyes flashed with venom and righteous anger. “I am one of a lineage of magicians, you jackanapes! I have come here to do what others could not, to destroy the Flash once and for all and claim the title of Most Exalted Abra Kadabra from my master. I will let nothing and no one stand in my way!” he thundered.
“I’ll stop you,” Barry promised.
With a flourish that was practically Shakespearean, Hocus Pocus executed a long, slow, complicated bow that brought his eyes level with Barry’s. The Flash felt the magician’s breath wash over him and longed to slug him. But he couldn’t move.
“Good luck, puppet,” Pocus murmured. “I look forward to our continued . . . engagements.”
And then he patted the Flash on the head. Like a master with a loyal yet stupid puppy.
“Why did you have me take the jewelry?” the Flash asked. “What are you going to do with it?”
“Hmm. I don’t really have any plans. I just wanted everyone in the city to know that you took it all. After I’m gone, you can go dump it in the ocean before returning to your pathetic excuse for a life.”
And then Pocus walked away. Barry wanted to watch, to see where he was going, but he couldn’t move until long after the last footsteps had faded.
15
The Internet lit up and soon #DarkFlash and #BadFlash were trending not only in Central City but worldwide. Barry didn’t want to pay attention; he wanted to stay locked away at STAR Labs, but H.R. had a fascination with morbid news. He had a streaming ticker from the Internet scrolling on a monitor in the Cortex and read aloud the very worst of it, occasionally punctuating a really brutal turn of phrase with a rapid tattoo from the drumsticks he carried around in his back pocket. Cisco and Caitlin were there, too, watching the screens with considerably less excitement.
“I’m still no closer to figuring this guy out,” Barry told them. “He wants me out of the way, and he wants the city for himself—”
“Standard bad-guy stuff,” Cisco put in.
“—and,” Barry went on, “he wants to do all of this so that he can supplant some guy he calls the Most Exalted Abra Kadabra. The idea that there’re more like this one out there—”
“Uhhh . . .” Cisco’s eyes glazed over. “Did you say Abra Kadabra?”
Barry glanced at him curiously. “Yeah. Are you OK?”
Cisco licked his lips nervously. “Yeah. Yeah, I think so. I thought I . . .” He trailed off. Blinked rapidly. “I thought I, uh, vibed something for a second there.” He shook his head and shivered all over. “Man, it’s all that caffeine I’ve been mainlining to work on this case. It’s making me see things now.”
“#BadFlash should run out to sea and drown!” H.R. barked, clicking his sticks together. “Actually, you could just run on the water, couldn’t you? So, that’s kind of a waste of a burn.”
“Please stop it, H.R.” Barry slumped at a desk, his head buried in his arms.
“It’s important to see what people are thinking,” H.R. admonished him.
“A bunch of brainwashed yahoos?” Cisco had recovered from his momentary lapse. “Don’t care.”
H.R. became very serious, pointing his sticks at Cisco in a vaguely threatening manner. “Hey. Those yahoos—lovely word, BTW—are our fellow citizens. They’ve been manipulated by Pocus, and they deserve our help.”
Cisco shrugged, somewhat embarrassed. “Whatever,” he mumbled defensively.
“At the pier, when we snapped out of it, we knew something was wrong,” Caitlin said. Why don’t they realize they were being manipulated?”
“Because he’s gotten more subtle,” Barry said, remembering. “He jump-started them by controlling them, but then put on a show. The Flash versus Hocus Pocus. Made me look like a thief. Made me fight cops. Made me fight him. He made himself look good so that no one would think it was weird to applaud for him and hate me.”
“For once this is a problem that falls squarely in my wheelhouse.” H.R. tucked the sticks into his pocket, stepped behind Barry, and began
massaging his shoulders. “Listen up, Barry Allen. Your problem is no longer scientific. It is now an issue of marketing. Of public relations, as it were. And that’s my bailiwick. My zone. My area of expertise.”
“Marketing?” Barry looked up and shrugged H.R.’s hands off.
“Observe.” H.R. switched one of the screens to the local news channel. A reporter stood downtown, just outside Broome & Son.
“—scene where Central City’s hero, the Flash, performed what some are calling a ‘heel turn.’ According to eyewitnesses, the Flash entered the store, only to emerge moments later with a bag stuffed full of what we can only assume was jewelry. Owner Jason Broome tells NewsChannel 52 that every item of value had been stolen.”
The screen cut to a haggard man identified in the caption as “Jason Broome, Owner—Broome & Son.”
“We’ve been picked clean,” Broome said in a voice hoarse with grief and shock.
Back to the reporter. “With hundreds of eyewitnesses to the theft, the Flash has quite a bit of explaining to do,” she said seriously. “Back to you in the studio.”
“Oh man,” Barry mumbled.
The video feed switched to the studio. A middle-aged anchorman gazed sternly out from the TV screen. “No one knows why Central City’s Scarlet Speedster would suddenly turn evil,” he intoned, “but this turn of events could prove disastrous. No word yet on whether or not Kid Flash is similarly compromised, but if not, he may be our only hope against a speedster run amok.”
They cut to a commercial. Cisco muted the TV.
“‘A speedster run amok’?” Barry moaned. “Are you kidding me?”
“It’s a decent enough play on words,” H.R. told him. “But really, this is an issue of perception now. You have a story—a good one—to get out there. You were controlled by a madman.”
Caitlin had been silent this whole time, but now she finally spoke. “I don’t know, H.R. This is different from anything we’ve ever faced before. I don’t know if we can explain mind control and nanites to people in any way that’s convincing. Not on a large scale.”
“But Barry’s not the only one controlled,” Cisco said. “All those people in the crowd, applauding. Wouldn’t they be inclined to believe us?”
Caitlin shrugged. “Remember the pier? No one seemed thrown off when they applauded. They seemed a little embarrassed afterward, that’s all. I think his control is very subtle. It makes people do things in such an artful way that they don’t feel compelled. They just do it. As long as it’s nothing outlandish, they don’t really notice they’re being controlled.”
“She’s right,” Barry told them. “It’s not like he’s hammering away in my head. I just do these things before I even realize it. If I didn’t know for a fact I was being controlled, I might think this was all my idea.”
Deflated, Cisco sank into a chair next to Barry. “I’m sorry, man. I really am. I’ve been studying those nanites 24-7 and I’m nowhere. I wish I had better news.”
Barry cradled his head in his hands. Once again, it was as though he could feel the nanites in there, even though he knew that was impossible. He was the fastest man alive, but he was frozen into inaction by his own brain.
“I don’t know what to do,” he admitted.
“Never fear!” H.R. chortled. “I’m on it!” Before anyone could respond, he vanished down the hall, clacking his drumsticks along the walls as he went.
“Well, that’s comforting,” Cisco joked darkly.
“I’ll take all the help I can get,” Barry confessed.
“I do have a tiny bit of good news,” Caitlin said, fidgeting. “Not about your brain, but about your case.”
“What case? I’m on leave.”
“That blood sample you brought in?”
“Oh, right. I forgot.” It had only been an hour or so, but it felt like an eternity.
“It seemed important to you,” Caitlin said, tapping at her tablet to bring up some graphs, “so I ran some tests on it while you were gone. Here.”
She handed over the tablet, and Barry examined the results. “You ran a TORCH panel to test for different kinds of infections?” he said.
“Well, yeah. I mean, I didn’t know who the sample was from, and it might have been an infant or a pregnant woman, so I figured why not, and I found—”
“T. gondii,” Barry whispered.
Caitlin blinked. “How did you guess? That’s on the next screen.”
Barry handed the tablet back to her. “I have to call Joe.”
“Whoa, hold up!” Cisco pointed the remote at the TV and cranked the volume.
The reporter from earlier was now standing in front of CCPD. A wind stirred her hair. “—being told at this hour,” she said, “that CCPD is issuing an all-points bulletin, that’s an APB, for the Flash. Here’s Captain Singh of the Central City Police Department.”
The screen switched to an image of the press briefing room inside the precinct. Flashbulbs popped and voices overlapped as Captain Singh, looking distinctly uncomfortable behind the podium, read from a sheet of paper.
“As of noon today, I have issued an APB for the costumed vigilante commonly known as the Flash. All units and officers are advised that the Flash should be apprehended if seen. Due to his superpowers, the Flash is considered armed and dangerous. Our Tech Unit, with the help of our friends at STAR Labs, will outfit officers with appropriate gear to assist in the arrest.” He sighed and rubbed his forehead, then spoke like a man being sent to the electric chair. “I’ll take a few questions.”
The assembled reporters went wild.
Cisco muted the TV again. “Don’t worry, Barry. I’m not going to give them anything that would actually help them catch you. No matter what kind of deal we have with the city.”
Barry shook his head and watched a muted Singh field questions. “He’s ruining both of my lives. That’s got to be some kind of record.” He turned to Cisco. “And don’t you dare weaken any of the countermeasures requested by CCPD.”
“Are you nuts? You want them to be able to catch you?”
“Let me worry about that. But what if Pocus goes beyond making me his waiter and personal valet? What if he has me do something really bad?”
Caitlin swallowed hard. “I guess then . . . I guess then we really do want the police to be able to stop you.”
Joe ducked out of the press conference when his phone started buzzing in his pocket. He was grateful for the excuse. He both liked and respected Singh as a man, as a cop, and as a boss. But he couldn’t stand watching him sully the Flash’s good name and put out an order for the hero’s arrest. Was it justified? Probably, based on what little Singh knew, but it still stung for Joe.
He liked to think he would feel the same way even if Barry wasn’t his son in every way but genetically.
Before the phone got to the third ring, he’d made it into a hallway just off the press room and answered, “Detective West.”
“Joe, it’s Barry.”
“You seeing this on TV?” Joe checked to make sure no one was eavesdropping. “I’m sorry, Barry. I found out right before he called the press conference, and he wanted me in the room. I couldn’t call to give you a heads-up.”
“It’s OK, Joe.” Barry sounded like it wasn’t exactly OK, but he wasn’t nearly as broken up as Joe expected him to be. “I’m calling about Mitchell MacDonald.”
“Who?”
“MacDonald. The guy in the alley this morning, off Waid.”
Joe paused at the elevator. Cops milled about. Too open and exposed. He ducked into the fire stairs.
“How do you know his name?” he demanded. “You’re off the job.”
“Never mind. You need to have the coroner check for an organ transplant. See who prescribed him that prednisone—it’s an immunosuppressant.”
“Barry . . .”
“We found T. gondii antibodies in his blood, Joe.” Barry’s voice was low and worried. Despite the topic and the circumstances, Joe couldn’t suppress a flu
sh of pride. Barry’s life was falling apart, and all he cared about was serving justice. “It might actually be a coincidence, because a lot of people walk around with T. gondii in their bodies and show no symptoms, but you need to have the coroner confirm whether or not he died from it.”
“Right.” Joe made a mental note to call the coroner right away, then realized something. “Wait. Wait. How’d you get a blood sample from this dude?”
“Can you really not imagine how?”
Joe blew out his breath. “Man, that’s technically illegal. And a violation of the chain of evidence.”
“Just think of it as me putting in unpaid overtime, if that helps assuage your conscience. Get on it, OK?”
“You think this is intentional? You think someone has weaponized this worm?”
“I don’t know. Can’t say without more data. Could be that or could be someone’s hunting people who are immunosuppressed for some reason.”
Joe nodded. “OK, I’m on it. But Barry—no more stunts like this, you understand? And stay out of the red jammies for a while, at least until we can sort out this Hocus Pocus mess and put this APB to bed.”
“I can’t make any promises. If people are in trouble—”
“—you’re gonna help them. I know. Damn, you’re annoying. Where’d you get that stubborn streak?”
Barry chuckled down the phone line. “Look in the mirror sometime, Joe,” he said, and hung up.
16
For a moment, Barry throught Pocus might have commandeered his brain again.
He was on the pier but didn’t remember going there, or even wanting to go there.
It was the morning following Barry’s conversation with Joe, and he found himself standing before Madame Xanadu’s. But Pocus had nothing to do with it.
He stepped over the threshold into the dark interior once more. The bell rang again. The smell of incense and lilac assaulted him, then soothed him as he adjusted to it.