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| Issue #1 September 2009 |
“This is Where We Introduce Our Hero” Written By Brent Lambert |
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Minneapolis, MN
Jericho Whitecrow completed the white circle on the pavement with a sturdy, thick chunk of chalk. Rising up from his feet, Jericho admired the inscription he had created. He wasn’t intensely versed I the magical rituals typically employed by Europeans, but he knew enough to accomplish what he was looking to do. Once he had summoned the man, he would have all the proper tutelage that he desired.
Often he wondered why so many European rituals required the night. The magic of his people equally embraced the daylight and darkness. It probably spoke to their dour temperament. The white man’s hand stretched across the globe, but they never struck Jericho as a particularly happy people. All that power and not an ounce of joy derived from it.
He doubted the man he was about to call back from the dead was anymore pleasant, but The Shaman Society was coming for him and he needed allies. Allies that this man would be able to gather. If it was a war that Society wanted then it was a war they would get. Stepping back form the circle, Jericho tossed a human finger bone into the center. It wasn’t an exact throw, but Jericho didn’t want to be close once the fireworks started. He knew a door to a demonic realm would be opened and he refused to be accidentally taken into the vortex.
Lifting his hands into the air, Jericho said, “Bring forth the one known as Patriarch. Loose his soul from your flames and give him flesh across bone once more.”
Jericho’s circle glowed red and stretched its crimson light into the sky. The bone began to rattle and spin like it was being subjected to California’s worst. Rattling was soon overshadowed by the screeching and baying of demons. The smell of sulfur and carcass overwhelmed Jericho. He imagined rotten green and gray corpses raising up form the bowels of hell, their flesh being baked by the eternal blaze.
The ground beneath the rattling bone began to crack and rip itself apart. Green light now interacted with red in some strange mockery of the Yuletide season. Brown, fleshy vines erupted from the cracks beginning to latch onto the bone and spinning it into a cocoon. It seemed like the faster the vines twisted, the louder the demons howled. The shaman prayed the spell would soon be over before he was noticed.
Soon Jericho found himself staring at a man-sized cocoon that was pulsating with the speed of a frightened heart. The glowing lights vanished and the howling ceased. Cracks in the ground repaired themselves and Jericho’s ritual circle rolled away like dust in The Old West. It had all occurred in the way Jericho thought it would. Now there was just one more step that needed to be done.
Pulling a dagger from his belt, the shaman walked to the cocoon and said, “I pulled you from the fiery den. Now bow as I bow and bend as I bend. Your will is mines. So I say now and at the end.”
Yanking the dagger down, Jericho cut into the thick mass of the cocoon and dragged it down. It was like digging through a bag of gritty gelatin. He knew his spell had worked though and his cargo was in there. That much was for certain. Now there was work to be done.
Phoenix, AZ
Jason sat down the Dreamcatcher on the dusty counter and said, “You know I never believed in those things growing up. I had thought it was a bunch of bullshit just because white people seemed to have a thing for them.”
His cousin, Damien, laughed from behind his cash register. “Oh yea and anything white people like must automatically be bullshit.”
A mischievous grin crossed Jason’s face. “I dare you to ask Grandpa that question.”
Damien groaned and bent down to pick up his yellow dustpan. “Grandpa doesn’t like anybody, much less white people. You would think he had seen Geronimo hang for all the belly aching he does.”
Jason got a bit more serious. “He did see our people. Hell, we’re seeing them hang. Everyday it seems like things are getting worse and the world doesn’t give a shit.”
Damien looked somber, but it didn’t fit his youthful, unblemished features. For a man of thirty-seven you could have sworn he wasn’t a day over twenty-three. His eyes even conveyed a youthful exuberance. He had always maintained he looked this way because he didn’t let emotions like sad and somber enter into his life.
“You’re right. Our people are ignored. They always have been, but that’s what we got you for. Right American Eagle?”
Jason heard the muffled snicker at the end of his cousin’s question. “Do you know how much flack I still catch about that name? I can still hear Grandpa calling me a stomped penis from his bedroom.”
Damien laughed again and flashed a set of pearly whites that looked like they had come straight out of a Colgate commercial. “You’re the only person I’ve ever heard him call that, but what did you expect? Not only do you call yourself an AMERICAN, but also you tag on the bald eagle to the end. Did you really think you wouldn’t catch hell?”
Folding his arms across his chest, Jason didn’t want to answer the question. Of course he knew that there would be people on the reservations not happy with his name choice, but Jason had did it for legit reasons. If he was going to be accepted as a super hero across the globe then he couldn’t play the minority (more like nearly annihilated people) card. He was going to have to embrace the country he was in and he did. For all the ignorant, horrible, and downright evil things that Americans had done to his people across the centuries he was now as much one of them as any other Indian.
As Damien swept his pawnshop, he felt the intense thoughts coming off of his younger cousin. “Don’t worry little foot. I know why you did it and I think its going to work in the long haul. Eventually you can bring to light issues everyone else might have forgotten about.”
Jason nodded. “At least someone around here gets it. You have a trinket in here that can help me out with that?”
Damien kept sweeping and laughed. “My friend if only my magic was really that powerful. Don’t you think I would have done such a thing by now.”
Walking up to one of the many shelves in the large pawnshop, Jason stared at what could have been a voodoo doll. Not exactly a tool shamans were thought to typically use, but Damien collected an assortment of mystical trinkets from across the world. Most folks just thought he was trying to rip them off, but Jason knew otherwise.
“I use to think that the whole shaman deal was a bunch of bullshit too. I just didn’t believe in magic.”
Propping the broom up against a wall, Damien picked up his dustpan and emptied into a tiny trashcan. “What changed your mind?”
Jason turned around and flashed his mischievous grin again. “Then I got to fight aliens.”
Damien laughed. “Well, I can see how that might change some perspectives. So are you and Aami coming to my house tonight or what?”
Aami Cho. The first real girlfriend that Jason had had since the 12th grade when he was dating Jessica Scott. Back then dating homely girls wasn’t considered half as bad since most of the boys weren’t exactly lookers themselves. Thankfully, Aami was a different case entirely. She was divinity in motion and Jason loved her.
“I’m going to have to call and see if it’s cool with her. Eliza and her might have something planned,” Jason said as he pulled out a sleek Blackberry from his pocket and dialed Aami.
“Tell Eliza she’s more than welcome to come over too if she wants,” Damien said as he stuffed the cash earned for the day into a deposit bag to take to the bank. He didn’t like to leave stray money lying around.
He was hoping that by the end of the year he’d have enough money to send his little sister off to a decent school. Jason had offered to foot most of the bill, but Damien didn’t feel right borrowing money from little foot. Jason had insisted on more than a few occasions, but Damien refused every time. He was a man and he could stand on his own two feet.
Putting his Blackberry back in his pocket, Jason said, “She’s down. Eliza’s coming too.”
“Great. I’ll make sure to swing by the store and get some more dip. I think Jerry ate what was left from last Movie Night.”
Jerry was the overweight, smelly roommate that everyone loved to hate. Jason groaned at hearing the name. “Please tell me he’s not going to be there tonight.”
“Nope. Supposedly has some kind of date.”
Jason rolled his eyes. “That just means he’s going to be at some peep show all night. Nasty bastard.”
Damien picked up his laptop from a shelf underneath the cash register and said, “Can we just have a good night please? I don’t like rooming with Jerry anymore than you like dealing with him, but he pays the bills.”
“And I’ve already told you that I can—
“Man let’s not go there again. I’m grown Jason. I can take care of my own affairs.”
Jason wished that his cousin would just to take his money and stop being a whiny bitch about it. Because if he did he wouldn’t have to put up with stinky Jerry and he wouldn’t be stressing about sending his sister off to school. If only Aunt Madeline and Uncle Lewis were around. They would listen to him and knock Damien over the head for being so damn stubborn.
“Ok cuz. I’ll leave it alone. What’s the movie?”
“Hellraiser.”
Tulsa, OK
Interlude 1
The man removed his bike helmet and shook his shaggy, brown hair. Dillon had let it grow a great deal since his days at the carnival. “So you want me to go in there and raise some hell?”
Dr. Noah Black’s office was dimly lit so Dillon wasn’t able to see the man’s face curl up into a snarl. He had summoned Dillon to one of his many “hiding in plain sight” bases of operation to hire him for a particular job. Noah had hoped at this point in the man’s career that the mercenary would have long subdued the carnival performer, but he seemed to have been mistaken in that hope.
“I wouldn’t exactly call it raising hell Mr. Zarro. I simply require that you steal a laser for me and my associates from Crane Securities. Nothing more than that. Do not overstate the importance of this task Mr. Zarro.”
Dillon held his hands defensively. He could barely see the man, but he heard the cold snap in his voice. “I got it. Just the laser. That’s all you want. I can handle that.”
“Good. See to it that you do. Good day Mr. Zarro.”
Mr. Zarro walked out of the room feeling very uncomfortable about who he was dealing with. He wasn’t exactly high profile on the mercenary ladder so he didn’t know anything about Dr. Black or the people he worked for.
Phoenix, AZ (Apartment of Damien Strongbow)
Aami in all her beauty walked around the corner with a bowl of popcorn in her hands. She was wearing an LSU t-shirt and skinny jeans, but even in her casual dress she looked like royalty. Her jet black hair was perfectly even and stood to be softer than silk. Not a single blemish could be found on her body and Jason had tried to find one every night for the first two weeks they dated. Perfection maybe an impossible feat, but Aami came pretty close to the finish line. That didn’t even take into account her smile, which Jason fell a little more in love with every time he saw it.
Walking past Jason and Damien, she sat next to her roommate, Eliza, on the futon. She sat the bowl in-between them and they began to chomp down on the popcorn. It prompted a laugh from Jason. “The movie hasn’t even started.”
Eliza looked up at Jason with her “deer in headlights” eyes. They always looked that way and it made her hard to ever take her seriously. Her short, crimped up brown hair in combination with her eyes and slightly buck teeth gave her the appearance of a squirrel. Not exactly divinity in motion, but she did well enough on the dating scene.
“There’s enough popcorn to make it through the movie and then some,” Eliza said between handfuls. She was trying to watch her weight anyway so she didn’t plan on eating too much. That was a problem Aami didn’t have to worry about because she could eat an ox and not do a bit of damage to her perfect figure. “Besides you act like that’s going to stop Mulan.”
Mulan was Aami’s nickname that was promptly earned on her first meeting with Eliza. Some boys had taken a bit of an aggressive fancy to Eliza and weren’t going to take no for an answer. Aami had shown up and broke two arms that night (she claimed it was an accident). From that point the two’s friendship blossomed. Aami had just moved to Phoenix at that point and Eliza’s list of friends had grown short. Circumstance played in their favor to hit it off.
“I tried reaching for Aami’s food once. I still have the bite marks to prove it,” Jason said.
Aami looked up from her munching and winked. “Thought you would appreciate a girl who knows how to use her mouth.”
Damien rolled his eyes and stood up from the futon he was sitting on with Jason. “Please, can we avoid the dirty talk? You two don’t have to rub in the fact you’re bumping uglies.”
Growing up, Jason remembered his cousin always having a lady around his arm until he got married to Sarah. He had been a groomsman in the wedding and remembered how happy they were. It seemed like ever since she died and his parents followed, Damien never really tried to have someone in his life. Jason figured it had to be by choice because his cousin was a looker, but he never felt like it wasn’t his place to pay. After that depressing thought he needed a drink.
“Hey man if you’re going to the fridge can you grab me a Corona?” Jason asked.
Eliza turned her tiny nose up and said, “You mean the shit that’s piss with a fancy name?”
“What would you prefer that I drink? A Sex on the Beach? Maybe a nice lil dry Martini?”
“Ummm, that actually sounds pretty good,” Aami laughed as she wiped her hands with a napkin.
“Babe only you would think that having a Martini after popcorn is a good thing.”
NEXT ISSUE: Just what does Jericho pull from the cocoon? And how does Bullet Biker intend to complete his task?
Author’s Notes
This is the first issue of what I hope to be a fruitful series. American Eagle isn’t the typical hero you expect to see pop up with a title in fanfic, but I think we need more series like this one in the community. I think one of the things I’m going to enjoy most about this title is that I’m getting to build up everything. I can pull in whatever elements of the Marvel Universe I want to because there is nothing really established for American Eagle. So expect to see the obscure bucket dug into here. I’ll provide some links as I feel appropriate for those who might be a bit more curious.
Keep reading. Things are going to get fun.
-Brent