The "main loading dock" was the central garage, which attached to the house via an underground passage and exited in the lobby. Once closed, the door leading to the passage looked like an ordinary closet, albeit a locked one. It was Rose's second visit to the estate -- the first was Joseph's wedding -- and she still couldn't adjust to the ostentatious display of wealth. Her mother had not been poor, and neither was Joseph; all her life, Rose had lived in very comfortable settings. But none of them could compare in size and luxury to Kane Manor. Her envy was tempered by her memories of Jessica's dislike of the Manor and everything it represented; it was a criminal waste of money on useless luxuries that was much better spent on tzedakah, in her opinion.
Adeline wasted no time getting back to the business of tracking down Wade. She and Amber vanished into the "Searchers, Inc. Wing" of the Manor, leaving Rose and Joe to find their own busywork. Joe headed listlessly up to his studio, so Rose went to the same guest room she'd used the last time she had visited and dumped her bags on the bed. Let Adeline do the legwork; when the time was right, Rose would take matters into her own hands. She slid her Verdi CD into her new portable CD player, popped the headphones over her ears, and lay back on the bed to enjoy the music.
Amber knocked on her door halfway through the Anvil Chorus. "Hon, Addie wants you an' Joe down in the living room; she's got some info on Wade you probably wanna hear."
Adeline was smoking -- casually, it would seem, but Rose knew better. Joe had let it slip some time ago that his mother was more prone to lighting up when she was tense, and it didn't take a genius to see why she might feel that way now. It was no secret that Adeline didn't think much of Slade's fathering an illegitimate daughter, though she had no problem with Rose herself. Rose, on the other hand, saw Adeline as just another extension of her hated father, and had made the mistake of saying as much upon their first meeting. The look on Joseph's face had let her know just how unappreciated her comment had been, so for his sake, she had kept her mouth shut on the issue from then on. But the undercurrent of friction remained.
Joseph was already there, still looking pale and tired. Moreso than he had before, Rose thought, concerned that her brother wouldn't be up to a life-or-death battle with his warped uncle. She glanced at Adeline as she dropped onto the couch next to Joseph, wondering if the news she had to tell was the cause of his drained appearance.
"This telegram was delivered to us twenty minutes ago," Adeline said without introduction. She handed the telegram to Rose. "All attempts to trace it beyond the company office that produced it have failed, which means our next step is to meet him on his turf."
Amazing, that in this age of incredible technology, things like email and the Internet were still science-fiction dreams to many countries. Either Wade had retreated to one such locale, or wanted them to think he had. Rose stared down at the single line of blurred type until she realized the letters were blurred by her angry tears and not by some inferior brand of ink.
JOE TELL ROSE I HAVE ESTELLA STOP TANGIER STOP YOU KNOW WHERE STOP END
"Why Estella?" she choked. "She doesn't have anything to do with this; she doesn't even know Wade. She's got little kids --" She stopped herself, forcing the tears down. There would be time for tears later, if they were needed. She could only hope they wouldn't be. "Tangier is in Morocco, right? What's so special about that place?"
Adeline exhaled a cloud of smoke, hiding the quick movement of her eyes to Joseph's face. "Tangier is where the Jackal took Joseph. He's referring to the warehouse where the Jackal challenged Slade to reveal his employer's identity." Where Slade's pride overruled his common sense, and Joseph paid the price of that folly.
"As for Estella, I'm sure she was simply a convenient lure to entice you to accompany us," Adeline added. "It won't be necessary, of course; Joseph and I are more than capable of handling Wade and rescuing your friend. You'll stay here with Amber, where you'll be safe."
"Like hell I will!" Rose spat. Bad enough that her brother, seven years her elder, occasionally treated her like a child; she didn't have to take that from a woman who was no relation to her whatsoever. "I can take care of myself!"
Adeline regarded her impassively. "I'm certain your mother taught you basic self-defense," she conceded, "but you'll need more than basic skills to fight an obsessed, seasoned killer like Wade. Skills that you clearly didn't possess during your first encounter with him, so there's little reason for me to assume that you suddenly possess them now."
Rose's eyes darkened as she glared at Adeline, and in that split second, Adeline recognized the nature of Rose's new defensive skills. Long familiar with this particular power, she didn't panic when Rose vanished or when her body moved of its own accord, tossing the cigarette into the nearby ashtray and rising from the chair to pace restlessly around the living room. The loss of her vocal control, however, was both unexpected and unnerving.
"See?" she heard herself say, her hands waving in the air for emphasis. "Do you think Wade will expect this? Do you think he can counter this? Do you think you're a better match for him than I am? He'll expect whatever you throw at him. I'm a wild card."
Joseph blocked her path suddenly, towering over her with a presence he rarely asserted so aggressively. 'Leave her,' he signed sharply. 'Now.'
She hesitated. She had no desire to irritate her brother, but by the same token, she wanted his acknowledgement that he wasn't the only one to wield the power that was their father's twisted inheritance. He wanted her to leave his mother, did he? Fine, she would do just that.
Her eyes met his, and their world exploded.
Someone groaned; it took Adeline several seconds to realize the voice was her own. There had been a blinding flash of light, accompanied by a feeling comparable to being vaporized, the molecules of her body flying apart from each other in a single instant.
The plush carpet was soft, but not a particularly comfortable substitute for a bed. She opened her eyes and stared up at the chandelier overhead. The light hurt, but the pain was almost good; it confirmed that she was alive. Still, she chose to block the light with one very solid arm across her face. Excellent; she was not only alive, she was intact.
But could the same be said for Joseph? She forced herself to sit up, desperately casting about for her son.
He had been thrown clear across the room; she couldn't tell if he'd actually hit the wall or stopped just short of it. Clutching his head in obvious pain, he lay on his side, curled into a tight fetal position. He didn't respond when she called his name; shaking him gently also produced no result. There were no physical injuries that she could detect; apparently, she'd caught only the edge of the massive psychic backlash of which Joseph had taken the brunt.
Turning to admonish Rose for her carelessness, Adeline was surprised to see the girl in similar straits on the other side of the room. It dawned on her that the half-siblings' identical powers worked as a repellent, the same way like ends of a magnet repulsed each other.
Well, she was no expert in psychic phenomena. If neither of them recovered in the space of an hour, she would have to deal with Wade on her own, and pray that her son would survive unharmed. She would also have to have Amber contact someone with telepathic experience to find out what damage had been done, and hopefully, to correct it. Not too many names on that list; the one she trusted the most was Charles.
Fortunately, it wasn't necessary. Both Joseph and Rose revived after 45 minutes, though neither looked particularly happy to be awake. Shedding the blankets Adeline had draped them with, they barely had the energy to drag themselves to the couch and collapse, exhausted.
'Sorry,' Rose signed weakly.
Joseph flashed an 'OK' with the last of his strength.
"Good, you're awake," Adeline noted as she breezed into the room, Amber in tow. She sounded relaxed, but if she had really been so unconcerned, she wouldn't have said anything at all, and Joseph knew it. He gave her a weak nod and winced at the pain produced by the movement.
"You can rest on the way to Tangier," she told him, helping him stand while Amber assisted Rose. "We can't afford to wait any longer; the more time that passes, the more likely it is that Wade's need for violence will increase. Not only will that be bad news for Estella, it will make it harder for us to take him down."
The journey from the couch to Tangier was a blur. Logically, he knew that they had to have driven to the airport and taken one of the Searchers, Inc. jets to northern Africa, but he recalled none of it. One minute, his mother was waking him, telling him they needed to leave, and the next she was waking him again, telling him that they had arrived.
At least his headache had lessened. Rose, too, was looking more alert than she had been. They quickly changed their clothes, grabbed their passports, and followed Adeline off the plane, leaving Amber to guard it. Attacking the plane was probably too subtle for Wade, but better safe than sorry.
They carried no obvious baggage, so the trip through customs was brief. They had arrived at night, as they had intended to; as Wade had expected them to. Adeline remembered the route to the warehouse as though she had just walked it yesterday. Ducking into a narrow alley, she stopped at the far end and turned to face her son.
"That's it," she whispered, pointing quickly to the building across the street from them.
He didn't recognize it. There was no reason he should; he'd been very young, and they had taken him to the nondescript building in the middle of the night. Nonetheless, it surprised him that there was no emotional impact upon seeing the building, considering that his entire life had been disrupted there.
They quickly removed their loose outer clothing, revealing black bodysuits underneath. Pulling on black hoods that left only their eyes uncovered, they stuffed their clothes into a black bag Adeline had brought with her and left it tucked into a doorway in the alley. Adeline wore a gun strapped to either leg in black leather holsters, and a black-sheathed knife on her left arm. Rose carried a black-stained hardwood bo staff strapped to her back; alone of the three of them, Joseph was unarmed.
Stealthily, they crept across the poorly-lit street and climbed the building's fire escape ladder to the roof. No sense in walking into an expected ambush by using the front door, after all. Silence was essential, now; though no surveillance cameras were mounted in the vicinity, there was little ambient noise in the city at this time of night, and all their efforts to avoid detection would be for naught if Wade heard them approach.
'He wants to draw us inside,' Adeline signed, 'so she's bound to be hidden somewhere in the central region of the warehouse. He may or may not be guarding her, so no matter where you are, be alert.' She glanced at Joseph. 'Honey, are you sure you don't want a gun? You know Wade will be armed to the teeth.'
He shook his head. 'I don't need one.'
She looked skeptical. 'Your power only works on eye contact. If he's facing you, he can shoot at you.'
'I wouldn't shoot him in the back anyway, if that's what you're advocating,' he replied angrily. 'You should know that by now.'
'I do,' she conceded. 'That's why I'm worried. Your sense of honor has no place in this kind of fight. In a battle to the death, I prefer it to be the enemy's death.'
He dismissed her concern with a wave of his hand. 'I'll be fine.'
'I'll take a gun,' Rose chimed in, suspecting that Adeline would reject the offer.
She was right. 'You're too young,' Adeline said, 'and I suspect you've never been trained to use one. I don't want you shooting one of us -- or even yourself -- by mistake. Stick with what you know.'
Rose nodded. She didn't need a gun either; it would just make killing Wade that much easier.
'Remember our plan,' Adeline reminded them as they picked the lock on the roof entrance. 'Rose scopes out the upper floor; Joseph and I will comb the main warehouse. Whoever finds Estella first, get her to the roof and out of the way.'
'She can help us,' Rose insisted. 'She taught me marital arts.' Adeline sighed. 'Don't assume she'll be in any shape to help anyone, Rose,' she warned. 'I have no idea what Wade did to her during her capture -- look what he did to Jessica, just to keep her quiet. He's psychotic; that's not an easy thing to second-guess.'
With that sobering reminder, they made their way down the stairs, leaving Rose at the second floor while they continued to the main floor. They separated instantly, Adeline moving toward the front of the warehouse while Joseph covered the back.
A new shipment of goods must have arrived recently, for the warehouse was full of crates, some stacked nearly as high as the ceiling. It made for excellent cover, but difficult searching, in the narrow, maze-like corridors between piles of crates. The lighting was dim and intermittent, the corridors anything but an easily-navigable gridwork.
The interior of the building was as unfamiliar as the exterior, though that was less of a surprise, since the configuration of its contents changed with every delivery. There was something vaguely unsettling about being here, knowing what had happened so long ago. His mind kept wandering back to those earlier events, and he had to fight to keep his concentration in the present -- it was definitely a bad time for a trip down memory lane.
Sometimes, though, the trip was unavoidable. Turning a corner around yet another stack of boxes, Joseph came upon a battered wooden door, its red paint flaking off in irregular patches. The sign on the door wasn't in English, but the word must have meant 'office', since that was what the door led to. Joseph knew that without ever opening the door; this was one thing that he remembered perfectly, despite his countless attempts to forget.
His heart pounded fearfully as he moved tentatively toward the door. Part of him wanted to run from it, to hide from the memories it evoked, while the other part of him wanted to confront those same memories, to assure himself that he was in control of them, and not the other way around. One trembling hand gripped the door handle, and for several long seconds, he simply stood there, unable to proceed.
Slowly, he turned the knob and pushed open the door. The hinges had been recently oiled, so the door swung inward without the screeching protest of rusty metal he so vividly recalled. His other hand automatically found the light switch, illuminating a room he had no real wish to ever see again.
Odd, how it was so much smaller than he'd remembered. The room was almost a closet, barely large enough to contain the metal file cabinets and rickety wooden desk that filled it. Other than its size, though, it was identical to his memories, right down to the clutter of papers on the left-hand side of the desk, the binders stacked on the file cabinets, and the thin layer of dust that covered everything.
The images struck with the force of a tsunami. The Jackal's masked henchman, dragging him into the room and closing the door; lifting him, struggling, onto the desk, pushing him face-down on its rough wooden surface; the pain, tearing through him like nothing he'd ever felt before. His breath caught in a ragged gasp and he stumbled backward, out of the room, away from the awful memories that threatened to overwhelm him.
That awkward, instinctive reaction saved his life. Wade's bullet, intended for his head, buried itself in the doorpost instead. Titans training took over, and he dove out of the line of fire, rolling behind a tower of crates. An adrenaline rush suppressed the nausea evoked by the unpleasant recollections of moments ago, and he used the strength it provided to swiftly climb the stacked crates, perching near the top.
What now? He could hear the soft footsteps of Wade's cautious approach, and knew that his uncle would not miss spotting him eventually. Thanks to the long months of abuse at the hands of the Wildebeests, he was no longer as fast or as strong as he had been during his time as a Titan, and Wade was in top physical condition, with a strength borne of psychosis. Plus, he was armed, while Joseph was not; though he had his powers, they were well-known to Wade, who could thwart them as effortlessly as avoiding eye contact. He would just have to strike first and hope for the best.
"I know you're there, Joe," Wade whispered, his voice carrying easily through the silence of the warehouse. "I have to kill you; it's nothing personal, you understand, but you're his son. Like Rose is his daughter. You both have to die, but if you show yourself now, I promise you, I'll make it quick."
Wade came into view as he passed under a nearby lamp, gun drawn and ready to fire at a moment's notice. The hand holding the gun was artificial, a metal gauntlet, and Joe remembered Rose's comment about shooting Wade's hand off after her mother's death. With the exception of his thigh-high boots, though, his costume no longer resembled Grant's. Instead, it was a red bodysuit, with long metal shoulder guards and ammunition belts crossed over his chest. If his costume had a mask, he wasn't bothering with it now; no point, since his identity was no secret to any of the people he stalked.
Joseph leapt from concealment as Wade passed under him, translating his downward momentum into a powerful kick that sent the gun flying into the shadows. Simultaneously, he lashed out with his arm, aiming an elbow at Wade's face. The contact was only grazing, and Wade recovered swiftly, pulling a knife from his belt sheath to replace the weapon he'd lost. As expected, he didn't look Joseph in the eye; victory, if it came at all, would not come so easily.
If Wade had hoped that Joseph was phobic about knives, he was in for a disappointment. As much as he disliked using knives, he had no problem fighting a person wielding one. Wade's grip on the knife was loose; his artificial hand was nowhere near as dexterous as it needed to be in order to use such a weapon effectively. Realizing that, he switched the blade to his other hand, though now he was handicapped by having to use his non-dominant hand, which was not as swift and sure in its aim.
He swung wildly at Joseph, who evaded the attack gracefully, sliding closer to Wade in the wake of the swing to block a return stroke. A quick turn of the wrist and Joseph disarmed his uncle again, kicking the knife away as it dropped from Wade's grasp.
Unfortunately, the knife was merely a ploy to bring him into contact range. Wade's steel fist shot out, slamming into Joseph's temple and dropping him like a marionette whose strings had just been cut.
Wade was on him before he could recover, pressing one knee firmly into his back to prevent him from rising. Dazed, he was unable to stop his uncle from looping a nylon cord around his neck and pulling it tight. He clawed desperately at the garrote as it bit into his throat, squeezing off the air flow to his lungs as Wade cinched it ever tighter, but to no avail.
His struggles grew weaker and finally stopped altogether as he slid into unconsciousness. Wade kept the garrote taut for a few more seconds and then released his grip. Choking Joseph to death would take too long; he had to find his other weapons. He spied his knife lying on the floor against some crates and ran to retrieve it.
Joseph still hadn't moved when he returned, which was good; since Joe was Addie's son, Wade didn't want to hurt him more than was necessary. This wouldn't be the first time Joseph had his throat slit, but this time, at least, he wouldn't feel it. Positioning himself behind his nephew to avoid what was going to be a decidedly messy spray of blood, he removed the hood, tossed it aside, and grabbed a handful of blonde hair, pulling Joseph's head back.
The knife flew from his hand as Rose body-slammed him, knocking him away from her brother. Her bo staff shot out repeatedly, cracking him across the face, the arm, the ribs, the knee. He was going to pay for what he'd done to her, to her mother, to Estella, to Joe. She'd sworn to kill him, but she never said she would make it quick.
Wade, however, was determined to be difficult. He blocked her staff with his artificial hand and tried to twist it from her grip. In her effort to prevent him from doing so, she allowed him to draw her closer -- too close, as it happened. He swept his leg out and knocked her off her feet, causing her to lose her hold on the bo staff as she fell.
He was fast, much faster than one would suspect of a man his age. He leapt to his feet and swung the staff down at her face; she instinctively raised her arm to block it. Unlike her uncle, though, her arm wasn't metal, and the bone snapped with an audible sound. Galvanized by the pain, she glared up at him, and when he made the mistake of meeting her eyes, she possessed him.
She had expected resistance, but not effective resistance. Wade's insanity gave him an edge she didn't know how to counter. Her control of him was incomplete, as he thrashed and stumbled about in his attempts to break free of her.
It was pointless, she realized; she had no way to kill him while she remained inside of him, and she couldn't get him under control enough to force him to kill himself. Spying a telltale lump on the floor that was concealed by the dim lighting, she relinquished her host body and dove away from him.
As she suspected, the object was Wade's gun. She rolled into position and brought the weapon to bear on her uncle. Firing one-handed was difficult even for a good marksman; for someone with no shooting experience, it was a disaster. The gun's recoil sent bullets flying in all directions, some of them narrowly missing Joseph, who had yet to regain consciousness. By sheer luck, two of the bullets actually hit Wade, though neither in a place to do him any serious harm.
Hindsight, as they say, is 20/20. Instead of facing a homicidal psychopath, she was now facing a wounded, enraged homicidal psychopath. Not one of her better decisions.
All she could do was throw the empty gun at him as he approached. He batted it aside with her bo staff and kept coming, following her as she retreated. Her foot kicked the knife he had dropped when she tackled him, and she scooped it up, unsure of how to use it most effectively. It wasn't balanced properly for throwing, but if she let him get close enough for her to use it, he had a better chance of killing her first.
She flipped the knife around so that she was holding the blade and flung it at Wade's face. He partially deflected it with his metal hand, so that it cut a deep gouge across his cheek before clattering to the ground behind him. Rose bit her lip; now she was well and truly dead.
A movement in the shadows near Joseph registered in her peripheral vision, and she threw herself to the ground the moment before the air was filled with bullets. Even with her arms over her head she could hear as Adeline reloaded and pumped another round into Wade, then used her second gun and emptied that as well.
Cautiously, she lifted her head in the silence that followed. Wade's body had been thrown back by the force of the bullets, and lay in a bloodied heap against the far wall. Her bo staff, chipped by the bullets that had struck it, was lying across his chest, soaked by the blood and bits of tissue blown from his body. She'd buy another one, she decided, unwilling to venture close enough to the gory scene to rescue what was left of her staff.
Estella was behind Adeline, looking pale, frightened, and in pain. Rose noticed that she was holding one arm gingerly, and suspected that Wade had used more force than was strictly necessary in abducting her. Getting to her feet, Rose realized she was only in slightly better shape than Estella; in addition to her broken arm, she was shaking so badly she could barely walk over to where the others stood.
Estella gave her a one-armed hug as Adeline dropped to one knee next to Joseph, who was just beginning to stir. His neck was ringed with dark bruises where the garrote had cut in, and his lips had an unnaturally bluish tint to them, but Wade hadn't managed inflict any permanent damage. Even so, he had to rest for several minutes before getting to his feet.
Adeline glanced at her watch. "We still have an hour or two before anyone will show up for work, but I'd like to be gone long before then. As it is, it won't be particularly difficult to link Wade's body to our trip here, so I'll have my hands full at Searchers, Inc. deflecting questions from various authorities; I don't want to compound that difficulty by being here in person when witnesses show up."
Joseph turned briefly toward the back of the warehouse. 'There's something I need to do first.' looked uneasy. "Honey, don't do this to yourself. It's over. It's been over nearly two decades."
'Maybe for you,' he signed curtly. 'I live with it every day.' Still unsteady on his feet, Rose had to help him down the dark aisles. He hesitated only briefly as they approached the door to the rear loading bay, then pushed the door open and stepped out onto the loading dock.
The dock faced a narrow alley that eventually opened onto a main street. Empty crates were sporadically stacked on either side, illuminated by the light poles that jutted out from the side of the warehouse. It looked no different than any industrial-park alley, bearing no signs of the violence that had occurred here so many years ago.
He left Rose standing in the doorway and slowly walked to where he had been on the dock the last time he'd been here. Staring down the alley, his vision blurred by tears, he could almost see the figures of his parents as they confronted the Jackal, his mother pleading for his life while his father refused to compromise his professional standing. What happened next was a blur of action, and he had found himself lying on the ground, bleeding to death while his father proved his physical superiority to his rival. He had lost consciousness there, cold and alone, aware only of the pain and the ever-increasing difficulty in breathing as his lungs filled with blood.
Overcome by emotions that he had kept repressed for almost 20 years, he sank to his knees and buried his face in his hands, his whole body shaking with the force of his sobs. Had he really meant so little to his father, that his life was less important than his father's reputation? How could his mother, who trained both his father and the man who had become the Jackal, fail to see where the confrontation was heading and act to stop it? Why was he targeted, and not his older brother, who was clearly his father's favorite? What had he done, to deserve having his whole world torn apart?
Rose knelt next to her brother and hugged him with her good arm. She didn't know what to say to make things better, so she simply sat there, quietly humming a soothing Israeli song she'd learned from a CD Jessica had given her. Gradually, his tears abated, and they sat in silence for a few more minutes before got to his feet and extended a hand to help her up.
Adeline and Estella were exactly where Joseph and Rose had left them, though the reddish tint to Adeline's eyes revealed that Joseph hadn't been the only one upset about their location. The sooner they all left, the better. They exited through the front door and retraced their steps to the alley where they had left their civilian clothes. Estella had to help Rose dress, and they made their way back to the airport, where Amber waited anxiously with the plane.
The insane cycle of revenge had finally ended. The Jackal was dead, the Ravager was dead, and the ghosts they had left in their wake had been laid to rest. The more recent injuries, both physical and spiritual, would need time to heal fully, but now they could fill that time with the peace and joy that had been missing too often in the past. Today marked the final day of their old lives, haunted by pain and violence and loss; from now on, life would be what they made of it.
All things considered, it was quite an impressive birthday present.
Author's Postscript: Rose's Jerichoesque powers courtesy of Louise Freeman Davis' "A Rose In Bloom", which can be found in the Titans Lair Fan Fiction Library.
� 2000 by Rachel Ehrlich
Joseph Wilson, Rose Worth, Adeline Kane, Captain Hall, Amber, and Wade DeFarge � DC Comics
Dr. Jessica Wilson, Lt. Alexander Scott, Nurse Axelsen, and Estella � Rachel Ehrlich
Dictionary of Hebrew Terms Used
todah rabah = thank you very much
ahuv = beloved (male; ahuvah for a female)
tzedakah = justice; charity