And now there was the phone call from Gus Bernhardt. That call had jolted him into an entirely different frame of mind.
Criminals?
In Pine Deep?
Half of him wanted to laugh out loud at the very thought, and the other half of him was already feeling moths fluttering in his stomach. Halloween less than a month away. Already a third of the stores in town had their windows done up for the coming season, and all of the plans for the costume parade had long ago been finalized. There were still a million details to see to. Terry had managed a magnificent coup of signing David Boreanez and James Marsters to be co — grand marshals of the parade for a lot less money than he was prepared to pay, and Good Morning America was going to do a Halloween morning broadcast from Town Hall. He was talking with Regis Philben’s people about doing a spot at the hayride. School buses were bringing hundreds of kids to the farms each week to visit with the pumpkin growers (though some of the farmers had actually had to import clean and nondiseased pumpkins from Crestville and Black Marsh to keep up appearances), and the Pine Deep Authentic Candy Corn was going to be dropped in half the trick-or-treaters’ bags from New York to Baltimore.
Despite the crop blight it was a busier year than most, and Terry was already feeling the pressure weighing him down as he balanced the financial crisis of the farmers with the amazing boom for the in-town businesses. Now this: a carload of big-city criminals with guns was something Terry Wolfe and his haunted little town did not need, thank you very much. The very thought of how this craziness might affect business had Terry grinding his teeth and sweating bullets at the same time. The more he thought about it, the faster he walked. His big fists were white-knuckled tight as he climbed the hill.
He crossed Wolfe Lane, glancing by reflex down the winding path to where his family had lived since Colonial times. Nearly one hundred and twenty years ago, Mordechai Wolfowitz had laid the cobbles on which the heels of Terry’s expensive Italian shoes clicked as he hurried to the chief’s office. Mordechai’s great-grandson, Aaron — the one who changed the family name to Wolfe — had planted the long line of brooding oaks that stood like dour sentinels along the south side of the street. As he stepped up on the far curb, Terry slowed his pace just a fraction, imagining as he often did that he could see his little sister, Mandy, running up the lane to meet him, her red curls bouncing as she ran, her green eyes alive with humor and mischief and laughter on her lips.
The memory was brief, as it always was; and it hurt, as it always did.
There were only empty shadows on Wolfe Lane, broken here and there by the glow drooping from antique lampposts and the lights of his house at the far end. Still, he could almost hear the small and gentle sound of Mandy’s laughter….
Then the edge of the first store on the next block obscured his vision, and the display window full of the confections of AHHHH — FUDGE! filled his awareness. His frown became a brief smile and then an acknowledging murmur as the owner waved a fudge-smeared spatula at him. Terry moved on up the hill, whisking through light and shadow, heading for the chief’s office. Behind him, the now forgotten darkness at the mouth of Wolfe Lane seemed to swirl and roil, becoming vaguely thicker. Nearby, Terry’s marmalade tabby, Party Cat, crouched by the roots of the lane’s first towering oak hunkered down over a dead starling; he pawed at the broken wings playfully and bent forward to bite — and abruptly froze, eyes snapping wide, hairs springing up straight along his spine. Party Cat stared at the boiling darkness, arching his back and laying his chest low to the ground as something slowly emerged from the blackness of the shadows. The cat’s throat vibrated with a feral growl, half of defiance and half of fear.
The shape seemed to be part of the shadows rather than merely in them, but as it moved it became defined, seeking form and structure as it stepped into the spill of pale streetlight. Party Cat hissed, baring his fangs, glaring up at the form with intense yellow eyes. The shape turned toward him, eyes meeting eyes. The cat’s wrinkled and snarling lips trembled, the intensity of the challenge ebbing, mouth becoming gradually relaxed, the furry lips sagging down over the fangs slowly and with uncertainty. The shape just stood there, green eyes watching the cat, making no move. Party Cat sniffed the air, searching for a scent, then meowed plaintively at the odor he smelled: staleness, an earthiness mixed with a sharp coppery tang.
The figure stirred, turned away from the cat, and stepped farther out of the shadows into the lamplight. It was a small shape, not even four feet tall. The chilly wind stirred the tatters of dark green cotton that hung vaguely in dress-shape disarray on the tiny form, and the wind teased and tossed the red curls that framed the pale, pale face. Pale except where streaks of dark red cut slashes through the purity of the flesh.
The figure watched Terry’s broad back retreating up the hill.
After a moment, it followed.
Iron Mike Sweeney was the Enemy of Evil.
It was an awesome responsibility for one his age, but it was his special secret that within that shell of a teenage human male dwelled the mind of a thousand warriors from all times and dimensions, drawn together and focused through him, through his perfectly developed muscles and sinews. He was the perfect weapon, the ultimate warrior.
He rode through the streets of Pine Deep on the War Machine, a device of such cunning design that to mortal eyes it appeared to be nothing more than a twelve-speed Huffy mountain bike. The glittering black tubes of its frame were crammed with cutting-edge microtechnology that channeled unbelievable power through the bike and into every cell of Iron Mike’s body, filling him with raw power and healing him when he was slashed or cut or burned in his deadly duels with the Agents of Destruction. The handlebars were tightly wrapped with antiradiation insulation simulating black electrical tape, and these power bars threw up crackling energy shields through which no amount of laser fire could ever hope to penetrate. The mother-box of twelve hyperaccelerating gears was fashioned from alien technology Iron Mike had salvaged from the wreck of an old spacecraft. When Iron Mike mounted the War Machine and gripped its handles, he became as one with the machine, and his cyborg system drew energy from it, just as his mind drew knowledge from its interface with the InfinityMind uplink he wore on his belt. Disguised as a mere Sony Walkman, the InfinityMind was simply the projection into this reality of an omnidimensional supercomputer built by the same race that had made the alien spacecraft. The InfinityMind shared its limitless data with Iron Mike, the Enemy of Evil, giving him specialized knowledge that had many times saved his life.
Iron Mike Sweeney was ready for the coming battle. He was more ready than he had ever been. His fighting skills had been refined by a thousand battles, and through the teachings of his Zen master, Shinobi, his mind was cool, detached, receptive.
Upon the War Machine he sat at the top of Corn Hill, watching the town below him. Night had come upon the town, and Iron Mike, Enemy of Evil, was ready. Energy hummed through the War Machine’s circuitry. Across Iron Mike’s chest was the strap supporting his satchel of fusion bombs. Each was rolled tightly to compress its charge, and bound with a single unbreakable strand of a rare natural material similar in appearance to rubber bands. Iron Mike had disguised the bombs to look like copies of the Evening Standard and Times. He smiled thinly, amused at his own cleverness. None of the Evil Ones would ever suspect that they were under attack. He would ride down among them, heaving fusion bombs onto their very doorsteps, and then he would go to warp drive and soar to a minimum safe distance of one thousand kilometers before he remote-detonated the bombs. Then the whole of Corn Hill, that wretched hive of scum and villainy, would become one huge mushroom cloud of cleansing nuclear fire. Not even the minions of the Evil One could survive that. Then the rest of Pine Deep could sleep in peace for another night, the lives and souls of all the true humans protected yet again by Iron Mike Sweeney, the Enemy of Evil.