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So I hear, she thought sourly. He seemed to be making a career of it in there, so she killed a few moments checking her gear in the mirror. The gun belt had come out perfectly, and the pistol replica she carried looked like standard-issue SHIELD, but it was plastic and sealed with the orange peace bond required by the convention for all weapons. She had little pouches on the belt; they looked very official, but she’d filled them with lipstick, a compact, gum, cash, a debit card, her cell phone charger, a printed schedule that was folded neatly into a block, and a small stage makeup kit to keep her face freshly bruised. The version of Maria Hill she was playing today was specific to the Helicarrier attack scene from the first Avengers film and not the internal revolt by sleeper HYDRA agents from the second Captain America movie. There were differences, and those differences mattered. It was all about attention to detail.
Rachael intended to leverage her costume making and pop culture purity of knowledge into a job in the film industry, or maybe at a Disney attraction. There were a lot of Hollywood people at the Comic Con. You never knew who might see her and ask. She wouldn’t be the first cosplayer to get a nod from the gods of moviemaking.
There was another knock on the door, and Rachael gave her hair a final pat and went over to let her in. Gayla the Plastic Fantastic. Rachael took a breath and fixed an utterly false but hopefully believable friendly smile on her face, and then she opened the door.
Gayla stood there, dressed as Angela, the female version of Thor from the comics, with miles and miles of cleavage that had no origin in human biology.
Rachael stared at her.
And screamed.
Gayla’s costume was perfect.
Her flesh was not.
There was a huge, gaping, bleeding wound on her upper arm, from which bright-red blood pumped.
Rachael screamed very loudly.
And . . . then she suddenly laughed.
“You creep!” she yelled. “You scared the crap out of me.”
It was such an intensely realistic wound that Rachael was disgusted, impressed, and jealous all at the same time. She could do costumes, but makeup effects were a different skill set.
She gave Gayla a playful shove.
Gayla staggered backward and nearly fell.
“Oh, sorry,” said Rachael quickly, snaking a hand out to catch her arm. “What’s the theme? Is this a cross-theme thing? Like Thor after she gets mauled by dark elves, or . . .”
Gayla opened her mouth.
Not to answer.
Not to scream.
Instead of sound, she vomited a pint of blood that was so dark it was nearly black. It struck Rachael’s chest.
And then Gayla was falling.
Falling.
And the world was falling too.
Completely and irrevocably off its hinges.
4
Now
Doylestown
Ghoulie shot to his feet, scattering bones and dried leaves.
Rags rose with him, her calm dissolving into immediate combat awareness. She did not carry a gun, favoring weapons that made little or no sound. So she whipped out the matched pair of fighting sticks Captain Ledger had taught her to use so many years ago. They were thirty-inch lengths of half-inch pipe fitted with lethal knobs with narrow tungsten-alloy blades on one side and slender spikes on the other.
The person across the street was dressed in a blue costume with red-and-white stripes around the torso and a white star on the chest. Red boots and gloves, a mask that covered the upper part of the head and had a white A on the forehead. The figure carried a round shield painted with concentric red-and-white circles around another white star.
