balked; the Red Baron had always refused to fly during thunderstorms, except when directly ordered to.
His plane shared his reluctance. The stick twisted in Artie’s grip, fighting to change course, but he kept a firm grip on the controls and didn’t let the plane veer away from the clouds. A jagged bolt of lightning, frying the airspace before them, tried to warn them off.
Thunder yelled at the plane to keep away. Artie didn’t take the hint.
Claudia blanched behind him. “You sure you know where you’re going?”
“No choice.” They couldn’t let the thunderbird get away. It was too dangerous. There were other towns in South Dakota besides Univille, and many more potential victims. “Brace yourself. This could get bumpy.” The Fokker flew into the clouds. A cold, wet fog enveloped them. Wind and rain buffeted the fragile aircraft, which rocked from side to side. Artie wiped his goggles with his sleeve. A windshield and wipers would have been useful, but those were hardly standard issue back in the days of the Red Baron, who had known better than to wage a dogfight in these sort of conditions. Artie started to wish he had listened to the plane and followed von Richthofen’s example.
Visibility was practically nonexistent. He craned his neck, searching for the enemy. “Do you see it?” “Are you kidding?” Claudia asked.
“It’s like the frigging Mutara Nebula in here!” He didn’t get the reference. “The what? “Dude, you’ve never seen The Wrath of Khan?”
Utter disbelief infused her voice. “We have got to do something about your video literacy!” “Some other time, maybe.” He had been kind of busy for the last forty years, protecting the world and all that.
“Just keep an eye out for that bird!” Lightning flashed on the right, close enough to leave spots before his eyes. That was a close one, he thought, thinking the bolt had missed them. Then he smelled the smoke.
He turned his head in alarm. Bright orange flames danced across the plane’s right middle wing. The crimson canvas crackled and burned, despite the rain. “Leaping lizards!” Claudia yelped. “We’re hit!” “I know!” He doubted the Fokker could fly without all three wings. “Put it out!” “I’m trying!” She dug around for the fire extinguisher, the cramped cockpit slowing her down. Artie scooted forward to give her a little more room, but there wasn’t much to spare. “Hurry!” he nagged her. “The wing’s on fire!” “You think I don’t know that?” She wrestled the extinguisher from the floor of the cockpit. “Got it!” She had to stand up behind Artie to target the blaze. Foam sprayed from the extinguisher as he tried to keep the plane level in the storm, which was no easy task. “Keep her steady, okay?” She shook her head as she fought to maintain her balance. “Seriously, who takes up an old crate like this without parachutes? That’s all I’m saying…” “Less griping, more spraying!” At least the fire extinguisher did its job without complaining. Vaporous bursts snuffed out the flames eating away at the wing. A gust of wind blew some of the foam into Artie’s face. He sputtered and wiped it away… just in time to glimpse a winged silhouette through the fog. He let loose with a round of conventional ammo mixed with tracers. The Spandau machine guns rattled loudly. Muzzle flashes lit up the murky interior of the cloud. “Whoa there!” Claudia dropped back into her seat. The empty extinguisher clunked against the floor of the cockpit. “A little warning next time, hotshot!” Artie lifted his splattered goggles but didn’t see a flaming thunderbird crashing to earth. No indignant squawks had greeted his latest salvo. “Missed it!” “Uh-oh.” Claudia twisted around. “Don’t look now, but we’ve got a T-bird on our tail!” The vengeful totem swooped down on them from behind. Talons raked across the triplane’s upper wings. Canvas tore noisily. Not good, Artie thought. He needed to save the wings before they were shredded beyond repair. He threw the Fokker into a barrel roll, spinning the wings away from the bird.
Claudia shrieked and held on to Artie hard enough to crush his ribs.
The fire extinguisher spilled from the cockpit. It fell like a missile toward the deserted park below. Good thing Leena had already cleared everybody out! The plane turned upside down. The landing gear smacked the thunderbird in the side, knocking it away with a thunk that shook the cockpit. The creature fell back into the swirling cloud cover. The landing wheels spun in the air. Take that, Artie thought. Next time, leave our wings alone. The impact jolted the triplane, sending it into an uncontrolled spin. They fell out of clouds, corkscrewing headfirst toward the earth. Downtown Univille came rushing up at them. A cold wind whipped past Artie’s face, drowning out Claudia’s screams. He was screaming too. Pulling out of a spin was a challenge even for an experienced pilot, which he most certainly was not. He had no idea what to do next. Maybe the plane did? He let go of the controls. “Over to you,” he ordered the plane. “Do your thing!” The DR-1 took immediate action to save itself, the controls moving on their own. The throttle shifted into idle, cutting the power. The ailerons flattened into neutral, and the opposite rudder was applied to halt the plane’s rotation. The Fokker waited until the spinning stopped before pulling out of the dive at the last minute. The landing gear clipped the top of a kid’s Moon Bounce. Air hissed as the torn ride deflated. “Mother Fokker!” Claudia blurted. “Not so close next time!” “We’re not done yet.” He took the controls again. “Get ready for another go-round.”
“Again?” Glancing back over his shoulder, he spotted the thunderbird chasing after them. “That’s it,” he encouraged the creature. “Keep on coming.” He needed to think like the Red Baron if he wanted to down the bird. A strategy occurred to him, one that should come naturally to the crimson Fokker. “Hold on,” he warned Claudia. “We’re going up.”
Testing the ancient plane’s limits, he climbed sharply at nearly one thousand feet per minute. The Fokker shot through the gathering storm, dodging thunder and lightning, then broke through the cloud cover into the bright blue sunlight above the tempest. Seconds later the thunderbird flapped out of the clouds as well. “It still on our tail?”
Artie asked urgently. “That’s a big 10-4,” the reluctant spotter reported. “We have a plan?” “Working on one.” The Red Baron had always preferred to stay between the sun and his foe, so that he could strike undetected. Taking a page from his playbook, Artie guided the Fokker into a loop. The world turned upside down again, the sky below them, the earth above, before they rolled out of the top of the loop and came diving out of the sun at the confused thunderbird, which was now right in front of them. Artie held his fire, waiting until he was within range. Scorch marks and burnt paint mottled the bird’s chiseled feathers. Traces of purple goo streaked the wood. The wood had been chipped away and gouged by his previous rounds, but the bird was still flying. Not for much longer. He had figured out what to shoot at. “Got you right where I want you!” The artifact was less than a hundred feet away. Ignoring its tempting head and torso, Artie targeted a wing instead. His finger tightened on the trigger. The machine guns blared.
Four hundred rounds a minute tore into the totem’s wing. Wood chips trailed from the wing, bouncing off the Fokker’s spinning propeller.
Sparks ignited where the neutralizer clashed with the artifact’s energies. High-caliber surgery amputated the thunderbird’s right wing, which went flying off into the sky. Squawking in pain or fury, the mutilated totem went into a death spiral. It plunged out of control into the storm below. “Yes!” Claudia hugged Artie. “You really got it this time!” “Maybe.” He still wasn’t going to count his chickens-or a thunderbird-until it was cooked for sure. “We need to verify the kill.” The Fokker dived through the clouds after its victim. Sizzling lightning bolts threatened to set the triplane ablaze again, but for once luck was with them and they managed to get through the tempest relatively unsinged. The plane emerged from the clouds into the rain and hail. “Where?” he asked anxiously. “Where is it?” “Going down.”
Claudia pointed below. “Next stop: Univille Park!” Sure enough, the crippled thunderbird crashed into the park-right on top of Wilhelm Reich’s cloudbuster. In a perverse twist of fate, the totem smashed the rainmaker to smithereens. A blinding flash of light consumed both artifacts as their arcane energies were discharged in a spectacular display. A pillar of golden fire shot into the sky. “Artie!” “I know!”
This wasn’t the first time he’d seen an artifact or two go pyrotechnic. “You don’t need to shout!” He banked hard to the left, evading the towering fountain of flame. The pillar glittered brightly for a moment, then dissolved into drifting sparks. All at once, the rain stopped and the hail ceased falling. The sun broke through the clouds as the storm came apart. So much for the cloudbuster, Artie thought ruefully. Sorry, Wilhelm. Still, the artifact had served its purpose. Univille was safe. He circled over the park once more to be certain. Nothing but a smoking crater remained where the totem had bombed the so-called sculpture. Charred pieces of wood were impaled on lengths of twisted metal. All the water in the reflecting pool had steamed away. Bits of cracked mosaic tile had been fused together by the heat of the explosion. The bottom of the crater had a glassy sheen, like the aftermath of a nuclear blast. “Talk about a waste of time,” Artie grumped. He mourned the loss of the artifacts. It was a shame they’d had to destroy two-thirds of the totem pole, but at least the bear was still intact. He’d have to make sure it was put back in stasis… eventually. First things first, he thought. They still needed to get Clara Barton’s gloves-and cure Pete before it was too late. “You up for a trip to New York?” Claudia contemplated the snazzy red plane. “How
