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But in the end, it was all worth it. Tonight they would unveil the first iteration of Magus Incorporated stock for hundreds of potential investors. All it meant was a high society dinner party thrown at incredibly short notice. He still didn’t quite feel comfortable in his new identity of John Perry. The freshly tailored, brand new tuxedo did little to improve his comfort level. Standing in a private dressing room, set up specifically for him and the party.

I go out and fight crime in a costume every damn night. I can handle something as simple as a party. He again straightened his bowtie, took a deep breath, and checked himself in the mirror.

“You look fine. Calm down.”

Amy stood in the back of the dressing room. She wore a Roberto Cavalli evening gown and a diamond necklace that combined could probably pay off the entire party several times over. Her hair freshly cut and styled, her glasses replaced by contact lenses, and her makeup applied by the finest studio in the city, she could pass for a fashion model.

He gave her a sly grin. “No one’s even going to notice me if I’m standing next to you.”

She hid her blush behind a promptly retrieved drink from a passing member of the wait staff. “That will be quite enough of that talk, Mister Perry. We have a lot of people to meet tonight. Save your double entendres for them please.”

“You wound me, Ms. Evans. But you are right; we have a crowd to meet. I trust you will make the introductions?”

“I suppose. I’ve done most of the setting up for this company after all. I wouldn’t expect you to know anyone I’ve actually invited to your party.”

He gave her a broad grin as they made their way out the door. “I was at the meetings. You didn’t tell me I had to pay attention.”

As they entered the ballroom they were met with a round of applause. He counted over three dozen guests, all dressed to the nines.

A man in his early thirties, prematurely bald except for the graying tufts over his ears, scooted across the floor to meet them. He reached out his hand as soon as he reached them. Amy made the introductions.

“You remember Maury, right?”

He vaguely recalled sitting in on the meetings where they hired Maury Scheele. He would be the company’s chief operating officer, in charge of the day to day operations for Magus Inc.

“Glad to see you hear,”Robert put on his best fake grin as he spoke to Maury. “I think you have a bright future with us here at Magus.”

“Without a doubt, Mister Perry. With someone as committed as you as our chief exec, and Ms. Evans watching the money, I know we can take this company places in a matter of months.”

“Good to hear it. I trust my company will go far in your hands, Maury. But enough company talk, we have a meet and greet to get done.”He gave his COO a quick pat on the back before he headed towards the crowd.

Amy rushed to keep up with her intrepid employer, just as Robert reached the first of the crowd. He shook the hands of two older gentlemen. She introduced them as executives at the company’s two primary banking partners. After a little bit of small talk related to other potential business ventures (Robert reminded himself to get used to that tonight), Amy moved him back in to the crowd.

They were stopped short by a youngish man in his twenties. Despite his age, his hair was platinum blonde, very nearly white. He greeted Robert with an equally wry grin.

Amy again made the introductions as the two men shook hands. “John Perry, I would like you to meet Parker Prince. Parker is the CEO of MEC Prince World.”She gave a light chuckle. “He will be the competition soon enough.”

“Soon enough?”Parker said. “My dear, Ms. Evans, I am the competition already. But I promise not to execute any hostile takeovers while I’m here tonight.”

“That’s very gracious of you, Mister Prince.”Robert couldn’t quite get the name out of his head. He felt he should know the name Prince. It gave him an uncomfortable feeling in the pit of his stomach. The same gut feeling he often got when he walked in to a trap.

“Please, call me Parker. When I’m talking to someone with as much money as I have, I like to drop the formalities.”

“Fair enough. Nice to meet you, Parker. If you would excuse me, I have a lot of other guest to meet.”Robert wanted nothing more than to extricate himself from this situation. He knew Parker Prince meant trouble in the long run. He would do his research on his business rival at a later time. After the party.

“Indeed you do. You should give me a call tomorrow. I may just have an offer you can’t refuse.”

“I’m not interested in business partnerships at the moment, but if that changes, you would be the first I call.”He gave Parker one last friendly nod. He made his way across the room towards a blonde and a brunette in dresses so low cut only the peep show girls could have worn them back in his day. He had to admit, certain things about the twenty-first century appealed to him.

The blonde giggled as he bowed and made his introduction. He started in to some idle chit-chat with the ladies, but his eyes and focus were actually on the room.

The feeling in his gut twisted like a knife. This wasn’t just the faint unease he felt around Parker Prince. Something was very wrong about the entire situation. Something dangerous, maybe even deadly.

His eyes were caught by a flash of raven black hair across the room. The hair was short, cut in a bob reminiscent of the style of his youth, nearly eighty years ago. Her dress was simple, elegant and stylish, but nowhere near as revealing as his two current companions. But it was her face. He remembered that faith.

“Beth?”

The girls giggled at his sides. “No, silly. My name is Veronica,”the brunette said. “My friend’s Betsy. We’re almost like those comic girls. But trust me when I say you are no Archie, baby.”They each leaned in and placed themselves under either arm.

Robert quickly pulled away. He moved across the room just as she disappeared in to a crowd of chatting million- and billionaires. He followed her, but it was like she disappeared.

How is she here? His head again throbbed as memories flooded back to him. How could someone I met seventy years ago be just as young now as they were back then? He couldn’t fathom an answer to his own question. I can’t even explain my own youth. But my very presence as a mid-twenties male in the twenty-first century means I can’t rule anything out.

It didn’t seem to matter anyway. Whether the woman he saw was Beth Barr or not, she was most definitely gone back to from whatever ephemeral place from which she first arrived.

The blast of machine gun instantly brought him fully back in to the here and now. He whipped his body around to face the entrance. A half dozen thugs dressed in mismatched clothes and ski masks, each armed with an AK-47, made their way on to the ballroom floor. A step behind the last of the men came their obvious leader.

He stood at least six and a half feet tall, although his arms and legs were almost unnaturally thin. Beneath a loose brown tunic and slacks, his body twisted unnaturally at his knees, hips, shoulders, and elbows, almost as if he was painted by a surrealist.

His face was equally distorted. His left cheek hung lower than the right and his teeth were a gnarled, broken mess. His left eye was bloodshot and red; his blonde hair fell in tatters around it. The piece of cloth fell over his right eye and seemed to be stapled directly to the man’s scalp.

“My name is Mangle.”He sounded like he chewed glass as he spoke. “You will be giving me every valuable in your possession. And I mean everything. Right down to those ten thousand dollar dresses, ladies. If you all cooperate, I will leave most of you alive. If not—”

Mangle’s left hand shot up at a speed faster than any normal human could move. The pistol in his hand discharged. Robert could only watch as the forehead of a sixty year old man suddenly fountained blood.

Robert seethed with rage. He wanted to act, wanted to destroy the man in front of him. Secret identity be damned, he needs to be stopped.

Blinding pain struck his temples. Memories rushed in to his head in a flash of burning agony. The world disappeared in a blinding flash of remembrance.

*****

October 1940. It was the kind of party no self-respecting human being would want any part of. People still starved on the street, but I stood amongst the New Salem elite as they chatted about their latest money making endeavor. It sickened me, made me want to leave immediately, but I knew I needed to act the part. Robert Benton must appear as the rich playboy I pretended to be or else Vengeance’s mission could be exposed.

I made small talk, but focused as much attention on the ladies as possible. I wasn’t really dating again at that time, but the playboy image needed to continue. I couldn’t have people reminded that just a year ago, my loved ones lay in a bloody pool on the streets below.

I reassured myself that Teddy had the protection of the city well in hand and that I would only be away from my usual nightly circumstances for a few hours. My self-assurances did little to subdue the growing feel of unease in the pit of my stomach.

Something’s happening out there, I thought. Something bad. I have to get out there, help Terry, stop whatever is terrorizing my city.

I didn’t realize that just like it would seventy some years later, danger was coming to me. I started towards the exit, but before I could leave, the sound of tapping came at the windows from all sides. Not just one tap here and there. But a continuous unending monotone of taps. They came slow and steady. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. A young businessman, only a year or two older than myself, made his way to the nearest window to see if he could find the source of the racket. The first of the ravens crashed through the window. Its beak scratched the man horribly across the face. He fell to the ground and clutched at the wounds on his face.

Windows shattered and a dozen more birds fluttered in to the room on their black wings. They spun around the roof in a circle, occasionally sweeping downward to harass the party-goers. Anyone that tried to fight the birds was met by an attack by the entire flock. The ravens seemed to have claws sharpened to a deadly razor’s edge. The victims of the attacks were left in a bloody heap.

A shadow moved across the window the first man opened. A moment later, a person hurdled through the open frame.

She wore a skin-hugging night blue bodysuit. Her boots, gloves, and the skirt falling down to her knees were all a darker black. Her hair was the same black as her birds. Her face was covered by a domino mask, frilled above each eye to look like feather-tips.

“If you don’t want your eyes pecked out of your skulls, you will put your money and jewels in the bags my feathered friends are delivering to your sides. Anyone that tries to be a hero will look like that one over there”She pointed to the first victim’s bloody face. “And when all is said and done, I will leave you to what’s left of your party. And you will be able to tell your high society friends the stories about how you were once mugged by Nightbird!”

I saw this only in the periphery of my vision. As soon as the first bird attacked, I ducked in to the nearest closet. With the door barely cracked, I ripped my outer clothes away to reveal the costume underneath. The mask came out of a compartment hidden on my belt buckle. My cape was still in the Citadel, but otherwise I wore the costume of Vengeance.

I waited until she neared the door before I entered the fray. Her eyes went wide as I hurled a trio of V-blades towards her precious ravens. Each caught a bird square in the throat, bisecting their head from their body. She cried out in shock as her birds fell, pulled down by the weight of the money bags they carried.

“You… you killed my angels!”Nightbird threw herself towards me. She caught me in the shoulder and drove me from my feet. The V-blades in my hand fell to the floor as we sprawled down to the floor.

She scratched and clawed at my face. Her fingernails ripped in to my skin, but it was clear from her plan of attack that she possessed no formal combat training.

I drove my elbow hard in to her solar plexus. She immediately gasped for air. I rolled us both over and drove my forearm down in to her throat.

“Call off the birds!”

She whistled and the birds instantly dropped their moneybags. They fluttered over to the broken windows and perched on the frames.

I hauled Nightbird to her feet. “Get rid of them.”She whistled again, a slightly higher pitch note, and the birds disappeared from the windows in to the night. I looked across the room and saw the chief of police among the other attendees.

“I’ll trust she will be fine in your care, chief?”

“Of course, Vengeance. Thank you again. I don’t know where these freaks come from, but the city can rest assured that it will be safe with you around!”

I only nodded. I turned and darted from the room. It was already late, so I made the decision not to return to the party. It wasn’t until the next day’s paper that I learned that Nightbird escaped from police custody on the way to the station. It seemed that her birds were trained even to pick locks.

Little did I know how many more times I would encounter Nightbird, Beth Barr, in the future.

*****

Mangle and his stooges lacked the class of Nightbird, and their thirst for blood differed from my old foe’s love of jewels. But the situation seemed uncannily similar to Robert. He started to slide back to the dressing room. Unlike the situation seventy years past, I owned our current location. The Magus Incorporated offices were equipped with multiple secret compartments designed for just this type of situation. All contained the components that made up the Vengeance costume.

A window shattered on the far side of the room. Robert could only stand in awe as an unfamiliar individual in an all too recognizable costume dropped in to the room.

The faint whoop of compressed air repeated in a staccato as a half dozen V-blades launched across the room from some contraption mounted on his left wrist. Each blade found their mark on Mangle’s goons. They cut in to gun hands and upper arms, immediately disarming the thugs. The figure sprung up and over the battlefield. His other hand came down. Stilettos shot from a similar device on his right wrist. They struck the remaining thugs and instantly shot a burst of tranquilizer in to their bloodstream. They dropped like rocks to the floor.

He landed in front of Mangle. The villain’s massive deformed figure towered over the boy. Robert figured the boy couldn’t be over thirteen.

Mangle swung a distended fist, but the boy ducked to avoid the blow. A nightstick emerged from somewhere in the boy’s flowing red cape and crashed in to the bigger man’s head. Mangle roared with pain even as the boy brought up his free hand and launched a V-blade in to Mangle’s chest. Bone shattered as the blade sliced through skin and crushed ribs. The villain staggered. The boy leaped in to the air and brought the nightstick down across his forehead. Mangle dropped like a rock to the floor.

Robert stood in awe. The costume was utterly familiar. He wore a larger version of it ever day. Admittedly the design was slight different. The cape was darker, and the domino mask harkened back to the early days of his career. But he knew his own costume anywhere.

Or more accurately the costume of Rancor. No, this can’t be right. Could Rancor not only be back, but thirteen again?

Robert moved to intercept the boy, but this new Rancor moved faster than lightning. He sprung away from Mangle and hurled his body through the broken window. Robert rushed to the window, but he could only watch the boy land on some kind of hovering motorcycle and dash away in to the night.

Even as Amy walked to his side, Robert was already plotting his next move. The new company be damned. It was time to find out what was happening in this city.