During Salamander's night vigilance, she's following a car that's suspect of a hospital robbery. It ends up going into a chop shop, which she breaks in and, using her Chameleon Suit, she overhears four goons talking about getting rid of a body.
After a bit of "small talk" with her fists, the goons go down. The first, smashed against the garage door, the second with a precise nunchaku blow to the chin, the third gets his kneecap crushed and screams in pain without end. The fourth takes a smart choice and surrenders.
Salamander calls the police and goes on to check the body, only to find out it's a woman wearing a party costume of... Salamander herself! And the weirdest of all, the body was frozen solid, way, way cooler than it should've been.
The next day, a co-worker reports that someone was looking for a girl named Victoria Smith, who, for all intents and purposes, worked there. In truth, that was a name used by Francine a few years ago, but due to circumstances, needed to be left for dead.
Two days later, on a hot, summer night, Alaska Banks is going back home from her night shift. While passing in front of an alley, she hers some garbled words and a second voice saying "it's done, let's get outta here". Sneaking her way in the alley, she stops midway, with a grotesque scene at her feet: someone is stretched out on the floor, inside a magic sigil, pentagram and all, candles and all sort of black magic stuff, with some kind of tendril around his neck, and most impressive of all - he is wearing a party suit of the hero Fedora!
She immediately starts flying and goes out on the street, looking for the two people that were talking in the alley. Tailing them to a crappy bar nearby, Friscoe's Bar & Grill, she goes in and blends with the crowd. After a few hours, one of the guys leaves, and she opens up small talk to the other, a black man with golden teeth named Jones Young. A few hours later, after shadowing him to his apartment, a lowly, rundown apartment nearby Friscoe's Bar & Grill, she breaks in while Jones is asleep, dead drunk in his bed. She finds a diary of sorts, with his shady doings, which goes up to the killing of the man in the alley. Besides that, nothing very useful is found, so she decides to come back on the following day.
Next day, in the morning news, Fedora finds out that the dead man is actually Wyatt Carter, a famous cryogenics expert that teaches at Columbia University and lives in Hoboken (New Jersey), and he seemingly died in a satanic ritual of sorts.
The day after that, late at night, she goes back into Young's apartment, threatens him and gets some info: he was hired by an unidentified man to murder Wyatt in a very specific way, using black magic from a charcoal rod. The man doesn't know much beyond that and didn't care to ask as well. He only knows that he was delivered the rod in a box, left at his door.
After a brief chat, and the mood getting icy as hell, Banks threatens him to find out more info, or she'll come to finish the job.
Leaving the building, Fedora is intercepted by Salamander atop a building, where they talk and share info on what is found of both bodies. There they come to realize that the first victim is Rachel Stewart, a former boxing champion that somehow, died of hypothermia. After that, they go back to Jones' building only to see him packing and trying to escape the city. After Salamander blocks his way out, the man spoils out that his "contractor" also asked him to suit the man up in a Fedora costume and that it also came in the very same box as the charcoal rod. After that, they leave the man be (and gently ask him to not leave the city) and agree to keep an eye out the next days.
The following day (October 31st), another body shows up dead, killed in the dead of night: Flint Johnson, who was dumped in a trash can in an alleyway, his face contorted in pain and blood coming out of every possible hole in his head. The authorities claim it was a severe anneurysm that killed him. The weird, and interesting, bits were that he was an occult and parapsychology expert, and was dressed up exactly like Richard Neilman, a locally famous private eye that deals in mystic, occult and otherwise "strange" cases.
Fedora and Salamander agree to meet up and go to Richard's office, only to find nobody there. Rummaging through his stuff, Francine finds an open envelope, addressed to her former identity: Victoria Smith, but with Neilman's office address. The sender was the Royal Theater, but there was nothing inside. Seeing that it appears that this Richard guy was trying to look into this "Victoria Smith" girl, they wait for a while for him, but give up and end up going to the Theater.
There, they find a mess of a scene: people running everywhere, trampling others, trying to get out of the theater as fast as they can. It seems something very bad happened inside...
In there, they find a weird woman Madame Macabre, with shadows flying around her, and dressed like she came out of a b-horror movie. There were also other people there: Nocturnae, Scarlet Bard, Blur, The, along with Silver Scream, a ghost trapped inside a blue beam of light, and a big, mean and red demon on the stage besides Raymond Fox.
Salamander takes the initiative and runs inside the theater, quickly followed by Fedora, who closes in by spraying an Ice Blast on the demon and sending it back to the frozen layers of hell. Nocturnae follows suit and throws a block of the demons' ice on Macabre, only to find it barely grazing the mistress of terror, which, in turn, transforms the whole place in a scene taken directly from Dante's Inferno, with demons butchering people, all sorts of carnage, sodomy and horror included. Fedora is the only one to see through and take it for the illusion it is, and since Salamander is a fearless little bastard, she just ignores the scene. In the meantime, Blur, The tries to weaken her resolve, which Madme responds with an astounding "is that all you got?". And Scarlet Bard, without his weapons and in his secret identity can't do much, specially because he was paralyzed with fear of the scene around him.
Francine charges Madame Macabre, going for a hit to her side, but a shield made out of shadows come out and block her nunchaku's attacks. Turning from the stage, Alaska Banks flies closer to Macabre, softening her up with an ice blast, which connects and hits the mistress' right arm, making it feel bitter and cold. Edythe joins up the fray and tries to bite her left shoulder, which connects and is definitely going to leave a scar. Right after getting bit, the Madame calls forth the fires of hell, which erupt in a pillar of flame at the vampire's feet. Nocturnae manages to bring her blood to the boil and that keeps most of the damage from the fire. Taking his cue, and the Madame's distraction, the professor sends a mighty mental blast right into Macabre's head, which is met with thunderous resolve. In the meantime, Windvoice is trying to recall where did he met Madame before, only to come to the realization that it's Lily Esther, one of the movie stars that was about to get ridiculed that night!
Preparing for another blow, Salamander is quickly met with the mystic shield of shadows, which makes her attacks innefective against the villain. Fedora switches hand and prepares for another blast, which goes off way and freezes a few chairs, which in turn start falling apart from the harsh cold. The blast is soon followed by Nocturnae, who tries to rip the lady's gut apart, but doesnt connect and is met with a blocking path of shadows, parrying her every move. It is then that the tide starts to turn even darker, for the Madame focus her gaze in front of her, trying to hypnotize both Salamander and Nocturnae, but only the first falls to her charm. Blur, The acts quickly on this and tries to mind control Salamander, so she's on the right side, but being the unlucky bastard he is, she aptly resists his mental commands. In all that, Scarlet Bard grabs hold of a piece of wood and throws at Madame Macabre, but it's ineffective as it hits her protective shield of shadows.
Francine, being told to attack her friends, starts rampaging all over Nocturnae, which is taking a beating and won't resist much, even thou she regenerates, the rate of the attacks is way greater than what she can withstand. Fedora pushes on and exherts herself into hitting the mistress with another blast, which connects again and leaves her guts frozen solid and hurting. The vampire soon follows and takes a smashing hit, grabbing Macabre's head and smashing it into the marble ground. Prone and dazed, the madame once again tries to hypnotize the vampire, but this time, she's not so lucky and falls under the hypnotizing gaze of the movie star, which tells her to finish up nunchaku-bearing girl. Our intrepid mindbender, decides to go back to softening Macabre's resolve so that he can finish it up later, which works, and the mistress starts screaming for him to get out of her head. Yet again, the Bard launched an array of wood all over the mistress, which does't do much, and takes the time to ask for Steve Gates, his sidekick, to pack up and head his way.
Back to Salamander, she manages to hit Nocturnae with such a show of force, that sends her flying into the silver screen. Miss Banks, fatigued from pushing, keeps flying and blasting ice all over the place, barely hitting the madame and mostly, just softening her up. The madame changes tactics a bit and directs Francine to stop Fedora, while creating the diversion of shadows rushing around Blur, The, but the latter refocus and sees into it, keeping his mind focused solely on her. That leaves enough time for Scarlet Bard to grab another sliver of wood and, this time, make a bullseye and a solid hit to the madame's forehead, leaving her staggered.
Fedora sees Salamander swing from the ceiling with her nunchaku with legs stretched, and attack that would've hurt if it were to connect. The madame tries once again to fool the mind master into her game of shadows, but this time, it works! He's wastes precious time trying to figure out who's who and what are those shadows, this time following up with a mental blast, which, despite the lowered resolve, still doesn't do much but annoy her.
In the stage, we see Salamander swing back again into Fedora, but this time it connects and she can feel her feet freezing and breaking inside her boots, and thanks to her insane regenerative powers, it heals just as quickly. And just as fast, Nocturnae rushed through the hall and seeks her teeth into Madame Macabre's neck, a precise and definitive hit which makes the mistress go down on her feet again, all groggy.
Next up, the Madame starts to summon various mystical symbols, sigils and pentagrams around her, only for our heroes to see the lady sink into the depths of the earth and vanish, uttering that she'll be back to haunt them!
Once the fight was settled, the very own Richard Neilman shows up, down from "where-the-hell-he-has-been" and goes with Raymond Fox to finish the ritual to banish Silver Scream's ghost once and for all...
In the meantime, Fedora and Salamander explain the whole story, and they see a pattern into it: the victims are kind of experts in the same broad category of the heroes they're suited up, and the method of killing is the next in line to die.
Nocturnae, sick of it all, leaves them and goes on about her life... only to find an elderly man, Unknown inside a costume store who thanks her for saving him and all the people on the Laugh at the Reaper show.
Blur, The takes the next day off to eliminate possible victims. He comes up with a list of four names:
- John Finger, an expert Psychologist
- Bob Byrnes, Mesmerist, widely accused as a charlatan
- Jim Kane, a scientist that's currently studying a way to control machines with the power of the mind
- Bob Aparo, a genius mathematician, who's won many competitions
In the meantime, Scarlet Bard asks Steve Gates to create some magical formulae so they can check on tomorrow's headlines.