caught in a trap
Stephen Strange looked at the building, which seemed far too soulless to be an art gallery.
He suspected it was meant to be tasteful. Discreet. Old money.
He'd been rattling around New York long enough to know that meant “let us hide away anything that might make waves.”
He'd run the name past Stark, who apparently frequented this sort of place. The other man had shaken his head.
“Gandalf, no, that place is terrible,” he said, shaking his head. “I mostly buy at charity auctions, some of the private shit, but even I know that place is fucking...” he scrambled for a proper description. “I'd suggest they're a forgery mill, like that place with the Rothkos, but they don't have much that's good. Lot of vanity artists with the money for good supplies but no vision. You should check out the Red Gallery, actually,” he'd said, thoughtfully. “Older pieces, not modern stuff, but it's not like that would be up your alley.”
“You do remember I moved to Greenwich about the same time Stonewall happened?” he rolled his eyes. “Though I liked the performance artists better.”
He may, perhaps, have been persuaded by a young sorceress to help with a Guerrilla Girls protest in memory of an artist he'd known and liked. It had been satisfying to watch in astral form. The sorceress was now running a 'selective camp for troubled teens' that was a front for catching young practitioners and the odd mutant and training them in the basics. Something about assholes spending money to loosen regulations and why shouldn't they take advantage of it.
He opened the door- he'd thrown an illusion over his working clothes, and the Cloak was disguised as a scarf around his neck.
Whitewashed brick, hardwood, a gutted building, a few paintings and what looked like a glass sculpture that was interesting and looked suspiciously like a spell form- and a thud against an employees only door.
He patted the cloak and moved in, gloved hands resting just over the knob to check for any traps. Wong wouldn't let him forget it if he got zapped in a novice's mistake.
There was a fierce scream and a grunt, and he finished his check in time to blast the door off it's hinges.
The Hulk, he reflected, might have a point. That was satisfying.
There was a woman trapped in something meant to mimic the Crimson Bands of Cyttorak, trussed up like a spider's lunch. She'd worked on scorched leg free, and had clearly kicked a man in the face, given his hands covering it and muffled swearing.
“Fucking Maggia snake,” she hissed, flailing again. The spell tried to reclaim her leg.
“I think that might be an insult to snakes, but then again, I'm not terribly fond of the Serpent Society...” Stephen said lightly, trying to feel the shape of the spell.
“Who is that?” came a man with a gun. Delightful. He really didn't want to get shot, Romanoff and Belova would never let him hear the end of it, and Illyana would decide he needed dodging practice. He'd gotten a black eye and various other injuries when she decided to have the students at Xavier's help last time.
The injured man, who looked like the muscle, given his build and scarred knuckles. The man with the gun, who looked like a finance guy dressed up for Halloween. And a third, who was probably the hired sorcerer, given his darting eyes and reaching for a book. Maybe the man who created that sculpture out front.
“Hey Doc,” said the woman, who looked like a murderous, grown Snow White and he couldn't quite place. “I've got this, really.”
He shot her a skeptical look, earning a slightly manic smile.
“I made him bleed,” she said, dark eyes swallowing light as she spat out a phrase that made his ears feel scoured.
The injured man let out a bull-like bellow, before charging at the paid sorcerer, headfirst.
The man with the gun- which was a handgun, discussions with the Avengers and Cable told him how dumb that was in close quarters- swung towards his companions, and Stephen hit him with a sleep spell.
He moved towards the woman, who had gotten a hand stuck half-freed. He hit it with the strongest dispelling charm he had, which made the woman's form shift as well, lengthening and sharpening and hissing to reveal too-sharp teeth.
Interesting.
There was a half-decent fireball aimed at them, one he was able to bat away before a crack of bone suggested that the compelled muscle had gotten in a good hit.
The sorcerer aimed his next spell at his companion, who ignored whatever happened.
“This is embarrassing,” the woman said, smoothing down her oversized sweater. “My mother will never let me hear the end of it.”
He caught the delicate points of her ear under her dark hair, and the pallor of her skin that normally only vampires or other death creatures had. “The compulsion or the kidnapping?”
“Kidnapping,” she sighed, as the muscle managed to take his interlocked hands and strike the sorcerer's head, following it by bouncing him off the wall. She spoke a word that was more honey than the previous... verbal hydrogen peroxide, he supposed, and the compelled man collapsed. “I hate dealing with the ones with more money and ambition than sense.”
“Hmm,” he said, deciding to mention the growing likelihood that the place was a Maggia front to Tony, who'd probably be gleeful at the chance to shut it down.
Then he recognized the smoky voice- “Grace?”
“That's my name,” she said, rubbing her wrists. “I think something went numb.”
“Can I check?” he asked, holding out a hand. At her suspicious look, he added, “I was a doctor first, and I try to keep up with basic emergency care. You might have dislocated it, I think that's the one that got stuck.”
She held out the hand, and even with the tremors in his hand he was able to move the joints around her thumb until she winced.
“There,” he said, frowning. “It doesn't look like spell damage, and...” he managed to pop it into place, earning her a squeak of pain. “It should heal easily enough.”
She took back the hand. “Good to know. Did you need them for anything?”
“SHIELD might want to deal with them,” he said, not relishing the prospect of dealing with them. He'd trained them to a wary sort of respect, at least, but giving them sorcerers might weaken that. “What would you do with them?”
One of the men twitched, and they both waited to see if he'd awaken. “I'm not going to turn them into trees, if that's what you're worried about.”
“Good to know,” he said, wryly. "I was more worried about an oubliette."
“In fact...” she gave him a wicked smile and tapped her foot, the same way as on the island. “I have a perfect punishment.”
There was then silver-and-night-sky light hanging almost like a fog over the Maggia men's throats.
“No lie can leave their lips for a year and a day, and they must answer any question given, except for anything involving me,” she said, nodding to herself in satisfaction. “That seems well enough.”
And would give him time to plan how best to avoid anyone wanting him to look into the spellwork. He'd tell Stark, he'd be useful for that sort of thing.
“May I have your last name, at least?” he asked. “Since you know who I am?”
She laughed at that. “Honestly, Doc, I'd have thought you'd have figured it out by now.” She went around the room, tapping the walls and pulling out a wicked looking knife from somewhere, before stabbing it in the walls.
Which were not the brick of the storefront, but some sort of board with an uncomfortable looking clump of threads coming out where she'd stabbed it.
“Money laundering in the front, murder room in the back,” she mused. “We got lucky, the asshole they hired wanted to pour the power from their victims' suffering into the insulation, like a battery, but it looks like they haven't gotten it up and running yet.”
“Wonderful,” he ran his hand through his hair, looking at the not-insulation, which looked like it was a dingy sort of old-sock white. “I'll put someone on that.”
Well, he'd have Wong put someone on that. They were as bad as each other when it came to figuring out new types of magic.
“You do that,” she said, pulling out a glass mason jar and scraping some of it into it. He assumed that had to be some sort of pocket dimension she was pulling it out of.
Before saying anything else, she vanished again.