Chapter Two London, December 1944
"You've been a bad boy, haven't you, Harry?"
Horrible Harry Flint, pre-eminent London black marketer and scoundrel, moaned.
"Aaooww! Yeh. I have."
"And you deserve to be punished, don't you?"
The East End's most feared crime boss whimpered.
"God yes. Please, mistress… punish me proper like!"
"Very well." Inga Von Schmerz released her hold on the leash that was digging the dog collar into the gangster's multiple chins. "Lady Luger will show you what a horrid little piece of filth you are." And she reached back her arm, lightly flicking the leather whip through the air, and brought it whooshing forward…
Twenty minutes later, slightly breathless and perspiring, Lady Luger, a vision of pale flesh and black leather, strode through the hallway of the rented bungalow, to where Dr. Sonderbar was frowning at a cold cup of tea, and holding a telegram flimsy in her hand.
"He's giving it all to us," the blonde smiled. "As many of his bullyboys as we'll need, the use of the plane and a secluded landing strip."
"And the authorities--?"
"Know better than to interfere with the slimy bastard's planes--his black market keeps London's decadent wealthy stocked with their port and cigars." She turned to an undercover officer who was serving as clerk to the operation. "And, make sure friend Harry sees the pictures--I seriously doubt he'd cross us, but one look at himself wearing nothing but a dog collar and a clamp on his balls should emphasize the necessity for discretion."
As the clerk departed, he was passed by one of the hulking, enthralled women who had aided in Rita's abduction.
"The English crook was as good as his word," she spoke in an eerie monotone. "He telephoned his men to be expecting us."
"Well, that's good," the doctor muttered grimly, shaking the telegram, "because the damned Americans have already discovered that their friend is missing, and are about to mount a search for her."
If she expected Lady Luger to react angrily to the news, she was mistaken: the blonde smiled broadly.
"Good." At the doctor's expression of surprise, she explained. "Capturing them in their sleep would have been so easy… but to confront and defeat them on the field of battle… that is true conquest, as all true warriors desire." She nodded to Sonderbar. "To our cars, doctor-- I don't want to miss even one moment of my glorious triumph!"
Unnoticed by the eager Lady Luger, the doctor flinched at the use of the word "my." Without a word, she gathered up a black leather satchel, and followed.
+++
The information that Rita had disappeared, and perhaps been kidnapped, had come to light as detective work so often did: an overheard conversation, someone seen where they didn't belong, an interrupted routine. So far, the only firm information was that a team of what were probably Nazi collaborators had snuck out of the Strand Palace, probably with the imprisoned Rita.
As evening fell, Laura Lane had returned to her room at Bloomsbury's Hotel Russell for a quick bite, and a change into her Blue Phantom costume, intending to head out and start shaking down the London underworld for information. She'd just finished slipping into her scarlet cape when she heard a commotion of some sort that sounded as though it had begun at the lobby, but was making its way up the stairs to her third-story room. Rita hadn't just been kidnapped, then-she'd been interrogated, and forced to give up her friends' identity and locations. Laura pulled on her mask, her face set in a grim expression: if the rats coming for her had harmed one hair of Rita's head, the Blue Phantom was going to make them sorry they were ever born.
Feet in the hallway, and a crash against the door to her room. It held once, wouldn't twice.
Laura slid back into the shadows, the blue and crimson of her costume subtly blending into the darkness. Her fingers reached for the comfort of the twin .45 automatics holstered at her waist; then realized that they were worse than useless to her: shooting into the corridor, or even in the room, ran the risk of injuring or killing an innocent guest: the walls in the 19th century building weren't designed to stop high-powered slugs.
"All right, boys," she muttered, "here's a little present from the good ol' U.S. of A."
And as the door gave way under the assault of a burly shoulder, the Blue Phantom drew from within her costume a small device that resembled a child's toy gun. And as the first of Horrible Harry's hoodlums stood framed in the light of the corridor, she flicked the switch on the underside, and a nearly-inaudible hum was accompanied by a field of deep indigo light that fanned out from the gunbarrel and enveloped the two men in its eerie glow.
"Like it, tough guys? I call this one my Blu-Ray--try it on for size!"
There was a strangled moan from the man in front, who sank to his knees, covering his face. "I… I can't see. It's all blue. Like someone put a blue screen of death in front of my face!"
A kick to the chin from a fashionable red pump sent him sprawling backwards into the blackness of unconsciousness. The Blue Phantom spun, crimson cloak and midnight tresses whirling, and delivered a kick to the back of the other thug's knees; he sprawled forward, only to have a pair of the creamiest thighs he had ever seen scissor around his neck, and squeeze breath out of him until he joined his partner on the floor in oblivion.
"Ooff!" A third man charged into the room, doing his best Red Grange, and slamming a shoulder into the small of Laura's back. The Blu-Ray gun flew from her hand, but she rolled with the impact, and threw herself back upright, landing in a fighting crouch on the balls of her feet. The man appeared to have decided on a favorite mode of attack, though, and put his head down, bulling furiously toward the heroine. The space between them was too small, there was no time to dodge or duck. She braced herself as he slammed into her. The man weighed more than she'd estimated, though, and the force of their collision took her off her feet, and crashing backwards into the third-story window!
The man's headlong charge carried them both through the window, and it was only the hair-trigger reflexes of the Blue Phantom that allowed her to grab hold of one cornice of the building, while below her, the thug plunged three stories, crumpling motionless on the pavement.
"Whoa, Nellie!" Laura gasped as she swung out over the darkened London street, one red pump already dangling off her toes. She wasn't going to be able to hold onto the tiny corner of brick for long; she looked down, and decided that her assailant's supine form was as good a landing spot as she was likely to find. She gritted her teeth, swung halfway back toward the ledge, to better her aim, and let go.
She landed with a loud thump on the man's back, legs coiled to roll and distribute the force of the landing to her unwilling cushion, and the street. She tumbled head over heels, shoes and pistols lost, and fetched up face-down in the street, winded and bruised, but remarkably still in one piece.
She was just starting to try to stand, and shake the dizziness from her brain, when from the corner of her eye, she saw someone behind her: a tall, savagely attractive blonde in a black leather greatcoat. She was raising her right hand into the air; wrapped around it was what appeared to be a huge bullwhip, and the butt of it protruded from the bottom of her fist.
"Sleep well, fraulein Phantom. You will be joining your pretty actress friend shortly."
Still half-dazed from the fall, the Blue Phantom could do nothing but watch the clubbing handle descend toward her head. There was a terrible thud, the world spun, stars exploded against her eyes, and the Blue Phantom sank into blackness.
Lady Luger stood over her prey, as two of Harry's thugs came sheepishly up behind her.
"She's a right handful, that one. Nat, there, will be lucky if he's out of hospital inside a month."
"Never mind that," Lady Luger snapped. "Tie her up, as you were instructed."
"Has this'n got any o' them superpowers?"
"You mean apart from the ability to prance about London in December in her underwear? No."
"Ah. Well that's all right, then."
They rolled the stunned Laura over onto her back; even beneath the concealing mask her beauty nearly stopped the thugs in their tracks. But Harry said to humor the blonde, and you didn't get on Harry's wrong side. So, in accordance with Lady Luger's instructions, they lay Laura out flat, hands at her sides. Leather cuffs were buckled around each of her wrists, which continued to lie at her sides. A heavy leather belt was then fastened to the cuffs and wrapped around Laura's waist. One man lifted the unconscious heroine off the ground enough for his partner to run the belt around behind the girl's back, where it was joined to the other cuffed wrist. Now, even had she been conscious, Laura would have been helpless to move her hands from their position, rigidly at her waist.
More of the leather belts were produced, broader than the first, and strapped around her legs and torso. One ran just beneath the bosom that swelled her costume, pinning her arms even more firmly to her sides; another just at her wrists, allowing even less freedom than the wrist cuffs.
Both men swallowed hard as they contemplated the next part of the operation: securing the captive's legs. If the Blue Phantom's costume left little to the imagination above the waist, it left none below, as the shapeliest gams either of the thugs had ever seen gleamed pale and exposed in the dim street light, all the way down to the bare feet. Under the blonde's watchful eye, they did their best to apply the leather bonds to Larua's thighs, calves, and ankles without appearing to take too much pleasure in the process.
The leather was supple, but stiff enough that it held Laura's body virtually rigid.
Once their captive was secure, one of the thugs started to fumble in the heroine's tumbled tresses to undo her mask.
"Nein!" Lady Luger snapped. "She is to be unwrapped only by the Fuhrer himself!" Her eyes narrowed as the man's gaze dropped from the mask to the lush figure that strained both costume and credibility, lying bound and helpless. "That means everything, schweinhund."
"Need her gagged, ma'am?" One of the thugs asked.
"I shall attend to that myself," Lady Luger replied with grim satisfaction.
From her pocket, she drew a wide length of silk ribbon, in a shimmering gold. Bending over the dazed girl, she slipped the ribbon around her head, tugging at the ends to pull her head up, and wrapped it around her head, drawing the thick fabric between her captive's fine white teeth. She wrapped it a second time, across the top of the dark locks, nearly covering the masked girl's cheeks, and tied it off in a thick knot between her teeth.
The Blue Phantom's eyes flickered woozily open just as the blonde's long, elegant fingers drew the loose ends of the silk ribbon into an enormous golden bow that nearly obscured her face. The woman took Laura's face in her hands, her blue eyes as cold and cruel as winter.
"Such a pretty gift for our glorious Fuhrer to open." The two villains then lifted the tightly-trussed form of the helpless Blue Phantom, and deposited her in the back of the lorry.
+++
The fact that Rita had been captured, and probably interrogated, worried Joan Justice more than it might once have. In recent months, the effects of the Liberty Nine serum that gave her Liberty Lass' super-powers had been ebbing and flowing unpredictably. The government scientists were just as baffled as they were by the fact that the serum seemed only to work on her in the first place. Whatever the explanation, it was quite possible that her enemies now realized she was less formidable than usual.
Still, she thought, I can probably manage as long as I don't need to throw any tanks around. She adjusted the sky-blue cape that draped the shoulders of her form-hugging red top, long golden hair sweeping across arms and shoulders decorated with white stars. Gauntlets and boots in matching sky blue completed the ensemble, making the transformation from Joan Justice to Liberty Lass complete.
She'd called over to Laura's hotel, and received no answer. Sounds like the Blue Phantom's already out on the hunt. Hang on, Rita, she thought as she opened the second-story window, we're coming.
And she took one step, then a second, hurling herself up and through the window…
And that was when the net landed.
"Whaa--?" From her vantage, she couldn't see the two crooks who stood atop the low roof, waiting for Liberty Lass to make her appearance, as they had known she would, and had dropped the net over her.
The net, in fact, was three nets-- three layers of mesh steel, with magnetized weights sewn into its perimeter, designed to seek out and bond with each other, wrapping the heroine in yards and yards of heavy netting.
It was less the weight than surprise, though, that sent Liberty Lass tumbling from the air as the mesh enveloped her. She landed with a "thud" in the darkened street, and was immediately swarmed by a half-dozen of Horrible Harry's toughest goons.
Powerful legs sent her springing back up from the pavement, scattering thugs in all directions. At that point, a strategic retreat might have been the better part of valor, but the star-spangled super-girl was not about to let these jokers think they'd got the better of her. She made a leap to try and get high enough into the air to land on them, but a powerful hand grabbed the edge of the netting and yanked back, sending Liberty Lass once more tumbling to the ground.
All right, you jamokes, I'm getting pretty tired of this.
Joan threw herself to her feet, trying to punch her way out of the net, but her strongest blows had no effect on the mesh, which simply absorbed each clout, and refused stubbornly to release her.
She managed to shake her head free, at least. One of her foes made a grab for the swinging mane of blond hair, missed, and found himself tumbling head over heels as the furious heroine head-butted him.
But every time she got clear of one thug, it seemed that two others would rush up and seize hold of the net, adding just enough drag to keep her from getting airborne or shedding the net.
As the blond bombshell flailed against the mesh, one of the goons stepped forward: taller than the others, a burly, bullet-headed yob, who sneered as he balled up a fist.
"Right--time to show this piece o'tail that women should be seen and not heard!" He drew back a fist like an anvil, and slammed it forward into the side of Liberty Lass' face.
The blonde's head whipped aside from the impact, golden locks flying… but then she casually turned her face back to the thug, and smiled broadly… savoring the astonishment on his face… whereupon she let loose with a kick that sent him hurtling across the street, slamming up against the side of a building before sinking slowly to the ground.
If the rest of them go down that easily, she thought to herself… when, from behind, she felt a slender form slam into her back, and a woman's legs wrapped themselves about her waist.
"What the heck…?" Liberty Lass tried to free one arm to reach to her back and remove whoever was back there, when something large and black passed in front of her eyes, and in the next instant, a black gas mask had been slapped over her face.
"Uggh!" So startled she could barely react, Liberty Lass felt the straps of the mask pulled around her head, across her long blond hair, and fastened tightly over it, holding the mask in place. She gasped… and realized that this mask wasn't filtering outside air-it was treated with some kind of anaesthetic, and was actually filling her lungs with some kind of knockout drug!
Now Liberty Lass fought the net with real desperation, but diminishing effectiveness. She could feel the fumes invading her lungs, sapping her will to resist, or even stay awake.
From behind, the harsh voice of Dr. Sonderbar murmured into her ear.
"Resistance is useless, pretty one. For all your strength, fraulein, you are still human. You still need to breathe, and your brain it is just as susceptible to my drugs as any woman's. So breathe deeply, and allow the inevitable to take place."
The woman's gloating wasn't telling Liberty Lass anything she hadn't already figured out. She was losing control of her limbs, and the weight of the steel mesh was becoming impossible to resist as it dragged her body down.
The woman's breath was warm on Joan's ear, and her hands clutched her prey in a close, intimate grasp. "You… with your perfect body, and your glorious Aryan features… you and I will make history together."
Liberty Lass went to her knees, the woman on her back riding her down like a show horse performing a bow. Blackness began to creep over her mind, and her last conscious thought was the terrible guilt of knowing that if she, the most powerful member of the team, had been taken, her friends were likely prisoners as well… she had let them down. And with that bleak thought, she slipped into senselessness.
Dr. Sonderbar released her hold on the captive, who slumped forward, still wrapped in the net.
"Very well done, Doctor."
She turned to see Lady Luger, who had evidently been watching from the front seat of the covered lorry. "You didn't need my help at all."
"And precisely why would you have imagined that I would…"
But Inga Von Schmerz wasn't listening, as she lit from the truck and began walking toward the captured heroine.
"Shame about the third one," Lady Luger muttered, as Dr. Sonderbar joined her.
The doctor shrugged. "The actress couldn't tell us what she doesn't know: the heroine known as Miss Mask is undercover and incommunicado. If even her friends don't know how to find her, we're certainly not going to, at least not in the time we have."
Lady Luger nodded in resignation. "True." She brightened. "At least we will have removed three interfering enemies of the Reich, and can present them to the Fuhrer for his pleasure."
Doctor Sonderbar nodded, but distractedly, as though that thought had just occurred to her. "Yes, of course. For the Fuhrer."
At the same time, the bullet-headed thug that Liberty Lass had kicked into the wall had staggered back to his feet, and limped toward the helpless captive. He lashed out at her with a booted toe, though the unconscious heroine didn't react as it caught her in the ribs.
"There!" he snarled. "Guess we showed her!"
"Indeed we did," Lady Luger agreed… then drew one of her pistols and drilled a perfect hole in the center of his forehead.
As the body pitched backward to the ground, she glared at the other gangsters, standing stock-still, their mouths hanging open.
"I have put up with you swine because it served my purpose to do so, but do not try my patience. You and your boss have been paid, so earn your keep."
She gave instructions to the thugs for restraining their captive further. Just as they had the Blue Phantom, the men were instructed to fasten Joan so that her hands were at her sides, with supplemental bonds ensuring that her body was straight and near-rigid. In the case of Liberty Lass, though, the bonds of choice were heavy steel chains, wrapped right over the netting. By the time they had secured her arms, torso, legs, and ankles, Liberty Lass was helpless in a metallic cocoon... a cocoon which weighed a good two hundred pounds as the thugs lifted her and laid her into the back of the lorry, alongside the equally helpless Blue Phantom and Rio Rita, who had been released from her painful balltie, only to be re-bound in the same rigid position as her friends, her gag replaced with a ribbon the same shade of red as her dress, the knot filling her mouth, the huge bow draped across her face.
As the cocoon was placed on the floor, Laura Lane was just able to turn her head enough to see the bound and masked figure laid beside her, and even through the chains, netting and mask, that distinctive red, white, and blue uniform was unmistakable.
Rather than gagging the blond super-girl, Lady Luger simply left the drugged mask on, ensuring that she wouldn't even have the chance to test the effectiveness of her bonds. Lady Luger did, however, take a wide silken ribbon, similar to the ones stifling the other captives, but in a festive green color, and tie it around the mask, finishing it off with another bow.
She turned to address the men once more.
"Now, you scum, our business is at an end, but for one last point: should even one word of our presence here find its way to the British authorities, your families will be exterminated with no more thought than I just gave to killing that piece of filth," she nodded at the dead man. "Now go. Leave. Disappear."
And a dozen of London's most feared hoodlums did exactly that.
Lady Luger watched with satisfaction as the vermin scattered, then climbed up into the lorry for the ride to the airfield.