NOTE: The events in HERALDS: ORIGINS take place after the current LADY LIBERATORS series.

“Another, then,” the voice in the shadows commanded. “Reveal to me the third of my five Heralds, child.”

Delphi sprawled upon the stone floor, the fingers of her trailing hand stirring the thick, opaque waters of her scrying pool once more. “Where to now?” she breathed, more for her own benefit than that of her mysterious companion. “Some crucial place, in time and space, beyond the timeless moment of these ancient walls…”

A new image began to form in the oracle, and Delphi smiled – as did the watcher in the darkness, although for different reason. For Delphi, sweetly innocent upon first impression yet curiously ambivalent towards the moral objective of her companion’s schemes, the act of conjuring portents was a delight in itself, delivering a sensual pleasure. For the watcher, this sequence of revelations was a fundamental source of enlightenment. The pieces were coming together now, slowly but surely; eventually the whole picture would stand revealed.

And then the war could begin…

…a war the Mistress of the Ten Rings would be assured of winning.

THIS ONE IS THE SPECTER…

By Meriades Rai

1942. The war across Europe was raging on with no signs of relenting, and London… well, London continued to suffer. Her mother was already two years dead, a victim of in the Blitz, but Jacqueline’s heart had yet to mend. Perhaps it never would. She could only lose herself in the darkness and desperation of the nightly air raids, patrolling the ruined streets of the nation’s capital with her fellow volunteers in the Home Guard and hoping-

“Lady Falsworth?”

The woman at the end of the hall flinched at the sound of her name, startled from her reverie. She turned, her expression melancholy. She wondered if she’d been crying. Memories of the war – of her mother, and everything else that had happened to her back then, from the extraordinary to the tragic – always stirred old sorrows. She needn’t have worried. The two workmen presently ogling her weren’t the empathetic type, and were too… distracted to detect any poignancy in the moment.

Lady Jacqueline Falsworth – Jackie – was tall and trim, with ash blonde hair that fell carelessly to the shoulder and disarming blue eyes, and she wore a floaty, ankle-length summer dress of sunflower yellow that emphasized the elegant curves of her body quite delightfully. Seductively even, given that she was standing in front of a large window and that the sunlight spilling through the glass was demonstrating how the dress – like many dresses of the type – was rather diaphanous.

The two men along the hall had paused in the act of hefting a rather enormous mirror in a bronze frame between them. It was a heavy mirror, and loitering in this way wasn’t doing either of the men much good in terms of back strain, but they didn’t mind. Not with the whole window and sunlight and see-through summer dress thing going on.

You see, in their opinion, this Lady Falsworth was a right sort. A right sort, in common London English, meaning that she was a bit tasty. Meaning that she was a fit old bird. Meaning that she was rather pleasing on the eye. And it was true enough, because she was. Especially as someone had mentioned to the men before they’d taken this job that the lady in question was supposed to be in her fifties at least, and they’d been overjoyed to discover that she didn’t look a day over twenty-five. And not even in a Sharon Stone or Michelle Pfeiffer kind of way, because even though they were fit, tasty, fiftysomething sorts as well, this was a completely different kettle of fish. In fact-

“Did you want something?” Jackie asked, pertly.

The workmen, both of whom were possibly called Gary – although that might just have been Lady Falsworth not paying due attention when they’d introduced themselves earlier – glanced at one another.

“Yeah,” said one of the Garys, who was actually called Dave. “Where’d you want this mirror, love?”

“Oh. Yes. In the bedroom please.”

The other Gary, who was actually called Clive, broke into a grin and made his eyebrows dance. “Oy oy!” he said, with a chuckle.

“Oy oy!” said Dave.

“Oy oy!” said Clive, again.

Jackie looked perplexed.

“Big mirror,” said Clive. “In the bedroom.”

“Oy oy,” said Dave, although less spiritedly this time.

Jackie scowled. Clive and Dave both sniffed and nodded.

“Right then. Bedroom it is.”

Dave nudged Clive, and Clive winked at Dave.

“Oy oy,” said Clive. But, mercifully, that was that, and the two men hefted the mirror again with a grunt and went on their way, leaving Jackie to stare after them witheringly. Under other circumstances she might have engaged in some racy banter – she was usually up for a bit of saucy tip and wink with best of them, thank you very much – but right now she wasn’t in the mood. She turned back to the window with a sigh and gazed out once more upon the grounds of her Hertfordshire mansion home, as she’d been doing a good long while before being interrupted. Not that she was noticing the hedgerows or the well-tended rosebushes, or the fountains and emerald lawns. Her memories kept intruding – along with other anxieties, rooted in the present.

“Where are you, Jim?” Jackie murmured to herself. “What the bloody hell have you gone and got yourself into now?”

It was true that Jacqueline Falsworth didn’t look a day over twenty-five but this was even stranger than the workmen had realized, given that she wasn’t in her fifties, as was the rumor, but was instead in her eighties. Eighty-seven to be exact; and it was now sixty-eight years since that fateful night in 1942 when she’d almost lost her young life, not to the peril of German bombs in the same way as her mother, but to a far more unfathomable horror.

That was the night she’d been bitten by a vampire…

Jackie had signed up to serve in Britain’s Home Guard following her mother’s death, inspired not only by the bravery and sacrifice of other ordinary men and women but also by the colorful escapades of the Marvels; super-powered individuals such as Captain America, The Human Torch and The Sub-Mariner, among others. And, of course, there was her father’s example – Lord James Montgomery Falsworth had been a wartime superhero himself, operating under the name of Union Jack. Growing up, Jackie had never imagined she would one day fight alongside those great heroes as part of the team known as The Invaders, and then under other circumstances in later years.

In fact, if it weren’t for the Human Torch then Jackie wouldn’t even have survived the war.

The vampire who had attacked her during one of London’s nightly air raids called himself Baron Blood, a Nazi sympathizer who later unmasked himself as Jackie’s uncle, and Lord Falsworth’s brother, John Falsworth. Dying from the Baron’s bite – perhaps on the verge of becoming undead herself – Jackie had been saved by a transfusion of the Torch’s synthetic blood. The Human Torch, whose real name was Jim Hammond, wasn’t truly human as his codename suggested but was instead a highly sophisticated android, and his ‘blood’ – a remarkable concoction of chemicals very few people understood even now, seventy years on – had reacted with the nascent vampiric enzymes in Jackie’s own bloodstream to restore her to full health… and beyond.

Jackie had developed special powers of her own through these events, her metabolism accelerated and entire physiology augmented to the point that she could move at incredible speeds; she could run five times more quickly than the most accomplished athlete, her reflexes and perception were enhanced almost beyond measure, and her skin and musculature were toughened enough to endure all manner of physical punishment provoked by operating at such velocity over extended periods of time. Taking the codename Spitfire, Jackie had been welcomed into the ranks of The Invaders on her own merit. And then, a few years later, another transfusion of the Human Torch’s chemical blood nigh identical to the first had further augmented the way her body worked, in this instance negating the ageing process and maintaining Jackie’s supernatural youth through all the decades that followed.

It was a curious thing, to have spent the end of her childhood in an era when the threat of death was so prevalent, but to then endure the next seventy years cheating death so comfortably.

Jackie still adopted her Spitfire identity from time to time, but she’d never truly embraced the life of a hero. It was uncanny, however, that so many of her colleagues from that distant generation had also survived into the next century, one way or another. At least, that was the case up until recently. Now Jackie’s heart was heavy with grief, for she’d finally outlived poor Steve – the late, lamented Captain America – and she was worried that her oldest friend, Jim Hammond, was treading the same dark path.

The last time Jackie had heard from Jim he’d been intending to engage The Hulk – The Hulk! – in combat, and it didn’t take a genius to work out how badly a venture that foolhardy would end. If only-

“No!”

Jackie was jolted from her sad rumination by a sudden cry from the room down the hall – the bedroom, where the two workmen had just delivered the antique mirror Jackie had recently acquired at auction for a considerable sum. In the space between two heartbeats she was there, her reactions as swift as lightning. To Dave and Clive it would have seemed as if the blonde woman had simply materialized in the doorway, the air blurring slightly in her wake, if only they’d been watching; instead, and quite understandably, their attention was focused on the monster currently emerging from the mirror itself, where it was now propped against the far wall of the room.

Jackie paled, her soft blue eyes shooting wide. “What in God’s name…?” she breathed, but even as the words passed her lips she was accepting that no God that she ascribed to had played a part in the creation of this beast.

The monster was gargantuan, eleven or twelve feet tall and almost as wide across, so huge that it seemed impossible it could have fitted its massive bulk through the mirror, even if stepping through solid glass from some other place was an everyday occurrence. It was grayish-black in color and strangely smooth, the hue and general texture of polished stone, and its arms and legs were thick and squat and were obviously intended solely for movement, balance and frequent, violent bludgeoning, rather than any act that required the barest hint of artistry. Worst of all, the beast’s head was no more than a shapeless lump of rock upon neckless shoulders, boasting no features save for a horizontal gash that would have stretched from ear to ear if the creature had possessed such things. This wasn’t a mouth, Jackie saw. It was some kind of eye, glowing amber and red with some deep, inner magic, the dark light of Somewhere Else.

Jacqueline Falsworth had encountered monsters in her time, but this was her first meeting with a Mindless One. And, if she didn’t react quickly, she knew it would be her last meeting with anything. Fortunately there was no one better suited to quick reactions than the heroine named Spitfire…

“If you’ll excuse me, gentlemen,” Jackie declared in her clipped English accent, “I’ll be needing to change into something more comfortable.”

“Oy oy,” said Dave, weakly. Clive was merely screaming soundlessly.

Jackie grabbed the first man and dragged him clear of the bedroom, then returned for the other. She deposited both workmen at the bottom of a wide flight of stairs that connected the hall with the mansion’s grand foyer below, a maneuver that took no more than twenty seconds from start to finish given her superhuman speed, and she then paused to instruct them to beat a retreat. Red-faced through fear – and the very slightest of high-speed friction burns – the men didn’t need telling twice.

Jackie then returned to her bedroom, tore off her dress due to the fact that it was beginning to smolder, and then donned her Spitfire costume from her closet in a blur of motion. Her outfit was a figure-hugging bodysuit of amber-gold trimmed with scarlet gloves, boots, belt and collar, and then completed by a stylish scarlet eye-mask with a brief, trailing cowl. Back in the 1940s, Spitfire had been a media darling and had enjoyed her celebrity, her pin-up posters adorning many a bunker and workstation. These days, with Marvels so commonplace, her distinctive costume would have passed unrecognized by many, especially outside of Britain.

Perhaps it’s finally my day to die, then, Jackie thought, as the monster in her room bore down upon her. Perhaps I’ve outlived my time twice over.

But then her eyes narrowed behind her mask as her survival instinct flared.

Or perhaps it was simply time to remind the world what the sensational Spitfire was capable of…

The Mindless One was deceptively spry for a beast so large, but to Spitfire it remained cumbersome. It lunged for her with one massive arm and then the other but she dodged both attacks without a flicker of concern, shifting her body left and right in a blur. She punctuated each evasion with a flurry of swift strikes of her own, punches to the creature’s abdomen and shoulders and head, but her blows were utterly ineffective and only served to bruise her hands. Her physical resilience was enhanced, yes, but that didn’t mean she could spend her time battering the equivalent of a brick wall and not suffer for it. She paused, her expression thoughtful. Another tack was needed then. But what-

The Mindless One leaned forward and its glowing eye-slit suddenly churned with unearthly energies, releasing a torrent of orange-red power that peppered Spitfire’s body like thousands of tiny needles. She recoiled instinctively and at supernatural speed, but the unexpected attack was devastating enough to slam her backwards into her bedroom wall with enough to force to crack the plaster and brick in all directions. Spitfire gasped, momentarily stunned.

And, in that precious second, the Mindless One lurched forward and engulfed her in its arms, smothering her in a bone-crushing bear hug.

Spitfire screamed, but it was a breathless shriek, her compressed lungs unable to function. The Mindless One squeezed. Colors popped in Spitfire’s head, her eyes wide. No!

She began to move, to wriggle, to twist, no more than a half inch at a time – that was all her attacker’s destructive grip allowed – but at such speed that her entire body seemed to vibrate against the Mindless One’s stone husk. The creature flinched, but kept hold. Tightening still further. Spitfire felt her spine strain to snapping point, but she didn’t relent. Move! Move, move, move!

She was a gold and scarlet blur now in the Mindless One’s arms, and the friction she was generating was causing the beast’s rocky flesh to glow. Unfortunately, so too was its eye slit, its energy pulse building again. At this proximity a second blast would likely melt its victim’s meat on her bones; there was no way Spitfire could survive. But then-

But then…

…Spitfire ignited.

Every inch of her – flesh, costume, hair – was consumed in a heartbeat as the air about her caught fire, engulfing her and the Mindless One alike. And then, with a whoosh, they were airborne, rocketing up through the ceiling of the bedroom and through the rafters and roofing that lay beyond, out from the mansion and up into the skies above England like a firecracker, shedding flames and sparks of scarlet and gold. At the heart of the inferno, Spitfire’s eye lit wide with alarm – but not pain.

The fire wasn’t harming her. She was more than just alive in there, she was completely unaffected – and completely in control.

The Mindless One’s grip loosened, its heavy limbs – now blackened and in some places softening to hot slag – flailing like the wings of a flightless bird. Spitfire glanced down and saw the world below in squares of green: fields and trees, spied from a distance. They were a thousand feet up already. Spitfire smiled.

“Okay, gorgeous,” she breathed. “Let’s see if you’re anywhere near as invulnerable as you look, eh?”

She kicked back then, arcing away from her adversary and leaving it to fall back to earth, smoking and helpless. She banked and swirled in its wake, fire streaming behind her in a golden trail – just like Jim, she realized. Just like the Human Torch, whose synthetic blood has saved her from death all those years ago. It was… thrilling.

The Mindless One slammed into the ground below like a meteor, carving out a wide crater and uprooting a number of surrounding trees. Spitfire shot down to the impact site, and upon landing her flames immediately softened and then died, leaving her flushed but uninjured where she stood. Even her costume, fabricated from unstable molecules to be resistant to windforce when operating at high velocity, was unmarked. She grinned, her emotions wild, her heart hammering. Thrilling and then some. Had it been the friction created by her high-speed vibrating against the Mindless One’s shell that had caused ignition, or simply the last, unconscious act of a woman desperate to survive? And what was it, extant but previously undiscovered in her physiology, that had fueled the fire? Undoubtedly some remnant of that decades-old blood transfusion, but…

It didn’t matter. Not now.

Spitfire knelt by the side of the Mindless One and saw that its eye slit was dark and its body utterly inert. Was it dead? Could such a thing die? If not, how long before it reawakened? And, perhaps most important… if one of these behemoths had entered the world through her mirror, could others follow?

Lady Jacqueline Falsworth stood and squinted up at the sky, her brief high spirits quickly fading as a feeling of trepidation came upon her. She couldn’t help but think that this was no isolated incident, and was instead the beginning of something…

“The third,” Delphi whispered, withdrawing her hand from the oracle and allowing the waters to cloud once more. “A long-lived soul in youthful flesh. The somber conscience. The fire that burns at once bright but fading. This one is the specter, reminding the others of what they stand to lose.”

The watcher in the shadows breathed a sigh.

“A fighter, nonetheless,” came the murmur. “Sorrow is a powerful motivator. She’ll be a true asset, this one.”

“More than the others?” Delphi asked from the side of the oracle, her expression unabashedly curious.

“Life’s fire burns brightest when one’s heart has known death.”

The voice in the darkness echoed with a hollow cadence. The candlelight that illuminated the scrying chamber flickered and in the shadows it cast a strange, iridescent blue when it touched long, black hair, as if that hair was infused with magic.

Delphi glanced away, hoping it hadn’t been obvious that she was looking. The watcher had been kind to her thus far, sometimes impatient yet never threatening, but it didn’t pay to try one’s luck. There was a moment of silence before the voice spoke again.

“The fourth, then,” came the murmur. “Show me the fourth of five.”

Smiling shyly, Delphi reached towards the waters once more.

And then she cried out in fright…

NEXT: She is the princess heir of the Dark Dimension in the Chaos Omninsula – but even the sorceress Clea can be prey to nightmares! Don’t miss HERALDS ORIGINS #4: CLEA. “This One Is The Gatekeeper…”