Netherwar by Christopher Golden & Jeff Mariotte PROLOGUE The world itself had a premonition�it shivered with a prescient foreboding of impending evil. Only one man shared the world's terrible, despairing foreknowledge, and that man was Cardinal Francesco DeMedici. He had felt it before, so long ago that none of the children of the children of the people who wrote the history of that age still lived. But DeMedici lived on. Lived on for one purpose only. To feel the evil approaching, and to combat it by whatever means necessary. The Pope who had entrusted him with that sacred obligation was dust now. But DeMedici kept his sacred trust. No matter that the years and the solitary nature of that trust had turned him hard and bitter, that he might have done things in the pursuit of his obligation that the Pope had never intended. If he was never going to die, he would not have to concern himself with the righteous judgment of the Lord. It would not be accurate to say that Cardinal DeMedici had grown lax in the pursuit of his sacred trust. Rather, it had made him arrogant. He had seen and done things that would have driven others mad�had, in fact, saved the entire human race from eternal damnation, and an agony unimagined. But that had been a long time ago, and waiting to do it again had become a bit� well, boring. So it was with a mixture of dread and delicious anticipation that Francesco first sensed the approach of evil, sizzling electrically in the air like the crackle of an oncoming storm. He had known it even before the current Pope had called for him. He had left his villa with the soft, brown leather case within an hour, and had whistled jauntily as he strolled down to his limousine. The trip to Rome had been uneventful, but that would change. His reemergence, particularly with the artifact in his care, would eventually draw the interest of all manner of human agencies. But it was the inhuman that was his concern. His revulsion toward the darkness was matched only by his determination to keep it from encroaching upon the world. The time was approaching when Francesco DeMedici would be called upon to save humanity once more. And he would do it, or die trying. That was his sacred trust. It was also the only thing that defined him. It was who he was. Il Mediatore. The human being who was whispered about among the tribes of the night. As the Cardinal's aide, Lorenzo, steered the sedan along the winding back roads that separated Rome from Florence, an odd expression bloomed on DeMedici's face. Somewhere between a snarl and a smile, it was the face of the warrior within him. After a time, the streetlights flashing by in the dark above and the gentle rocking of the road below took its toll. He was, after all, the oldest human being on Earth. Francesco began to drift off to sleep with evil hanging heavily in the air like the moisture of thunderclouds. He could practically smell it. DeMedici was jostled awake when the sedan bounced in several ruts on the soft shoulder of the road. When his eyes flickered open, he glanced over at the driver's side to see that Lorenzo was already getting out of the car. "What is it?" DeMedici asked in Italian, a small spark of fear in his heart despite his arrogance. "What's wrong, Lorenzo?" "Nothing, Your Eminence," Lorenzo replied in that same language. "The car is making strange noises." Another night, this might have eased DeMedici's mind. But not with the malevolence which seemed to flit ghostlike through his consciousness in every waking moment. "Be careful," the Cardinal said. Something slammed against the passenger's side window, and DeMedici leapt in his seat, sliding away from the glass as he turned to stare at the madness in the face that leered in at him. Lorenzo's face. "You might have thought to mention that to him before," were the words that came out of that face. But they were not said in Lorenzo's voice. Nor did the burning red eyes that glowed in the darkness beyond the car window belong to the Cardinal's chauffeur. "Back, demon!" DeMedici shouted. His warning didn't stop Lorenzo from tearing the passenger door from its moorings with a deafening screech of metal. The Cardinal scrambled back in the seat, but he could not escape the inhumanly powerful hands that reached in to grasp at his clothing and haul him out into the night. A little piece of Hell had escaped into the world. And that was only the beginning. CHAPTER ONE Bobby Lane looked down on his friends. Not from very high up�they'd been warned to keep a low profile, and a goateed blond guy dressed in red and gold spandex hovering just above the tree line would be sure to attract some attention, even if he weren't seemingly enveloped in flames. Which Bobby was. But it wasn't easy to stay inconspicuous while trying desperately to stay alive. Not to mention that an aerial view was good strategy in the middle of a pitched battle. So he stayed level with the treetops, hoping his glow wouldn't be too brilliant in the afternoon sunshine, and marveled at how quickly a day could go from totally normal to completely insane. They had left the house that afternoon for a simple tour of the Supercomputer Center at the University of California, San Diego, arranged for the group by their mentor and guardian, Mr. Lynch. Jack Lynch. Who also happened to be Bobby's father, much to Bobby's frequent dismay. His father had set them all up in a sweet sprawl in La Jolla�Bobby, Grunge, Roxy, Sarah, and Caitlin�and the kids would all be enrolled at UCSD come September. But on this sunny summer Saturday, Caitlin Fairchild had really, really wanted to check out the supercomputers, and the others had basically come along for the ride. Good thing they had, Bobby figured. Someone else had wanted access to the hardware today� someone whose interest was less academic than Caitlin's. They'd never encountered him before, but they knew the type�power hungry, greedy, probably certifiably insane, yet possessed of a certain criminal intelligence. And he had friends�half-a-dozen goons wrapped in Kevlar body suits with straps and belts which presumably performed some function other than high-tech "supervillain" fashion. Bobby and his friends were on the other side of that fence. Superhumans. Heroes. Just like in the comics. Sometimes it was a blast. Other times� not so much. Like now. The goons were well armed, so maybe the belts and straps carried ammunition or power supplies for their weapons. They called their boss Doc, but that didn't reveal much information. There were plenty of "Docs" in the underworld community. This one wasn't familiar, but he fit into the category Grunge labeled "big-heads." His cranium was enlarged far beyond normal size. On the vegetable scale, Bobby figured Doc was long past watermelon and closing in on Great Pumpkin. From where he hung, burning, high in the air, Bobby watched Doc scurry across the campus lawn, and tried not to laugh. He made a pretty comical figure, running with his big, pale head, white lab coat flapping around a skinny frame, stick-like arms and legs pumping as he ran. It was even funnier when Roxy used her powers to levitate Doc whatever into the air. The big-headed guy looked pretty frustrated, flailing about and running in place three feet off the ground. His goons posed more of a problem. They weren't afraid to use their weapons�it had been the sound of a gunshot that had alerted the team to trouble in the Supercomputer Center� and now that the gunmen were effectively cornered, they held their weapons trained on Bobby's friends. They weren't all armed with standard projectile-launching weapons, either. Three of them had what looked like automatic weapons, but three carried fancier armament�laser rifles or plasma blasters or electron-pulse weapons, maybe. Bobby had zoned out during some of Mr. Lynch's weaponry lectures. Now he regretted it, but, he reflected, he wasn't called Burnout for nothing. It was his code name now, but he'd had that nickname in high school, way before he got his powers. The goons were backed up against the outside wall of the Supercomputer Center. They'd been on their way in, blasting past a couple of guards, when the sound of their weapons had interrupted the tour the five teens were getting. Bobby and Grunge, at least, were thankful for the interruption. Probably Roxy, too. Sarah was hard to read�she could have been bored to death, but her impassive face didn't show it. Caitlin, though, had been fascinated, asking hundreds of questions of Dr. Garner, their somewhat geeky guide. Garner seemed interested in her questions, as well, but he could have been masking interest in her body. Hard to tell, usually. But it was just a fact of life: nobody ever failed to notice Caitlin's body. So the lay of the land was this: Caitlin, Grunge, and Sarah advancing on the six goons, who held their weapons at the ready and looked primed to use them. The goons, backs against the wall, but standing at the corner of the building. Roxy, busy fifteen yards away holding Doc whoever aloft. If the goons were going to try to cut and run, they'd go around the corner and gain a second or two. If they were going to stay and fight, they'd start now because otherwise they'd be pinned to the wall. They fought. Six weapons started blasting at once. The conventional arms made the most noise�the high-speed burst of automatic weapons fire, the clink of shells hitting the ground. Bobby soared into position directly over his friends and loosed a blast of searing heat, creating a barrier between the goons and his teammates, melting most of the bullets before they could travel five feet. He figured Grunge could take care of the gunmen after that. But he'd been too late to stop the first barrage from the assault rifles. Thankfully, Bobby Lane's friends were more than capabl...
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