BIOGRAPHY - Page 8
She had a similar experience when visiting the Corpo construction on the upper west side. Her reason
for being there was unclear but she was attempting to get to their offices on the 13th floor. The elevator attendant, however, claimed there was no 13th floor due to superstition and never had been. Venus was dumbfounded, as she claimed she had been there only a week prior. She got off at the 14th floor and walked down the stairs to the 13th floor. When she arrived, she found a destroyed office with dead bodies strewn everywhere. While investigating, she was attacked by Gara, king of the Gargoyles of the 13th Floor, for invading his domain. While fleeing, she found a woman hiding under a desk and they both fled from the assaulting Gargoyles. Venus later returned with the authorities but they were unable to access this mysterious floor. She decided to go back herself later, as a goddess. On arrival, she was met by the woman she had saved earlier, who said she was Sylvia Corpo, “Queen of the Gargoyles.” Her father had torn down the building that stood there previously but Sylvia had kept the Gargoyles, somehow bringing them to life. She claimed that Gara had betrayed her, which is why she had now killed her. Quite unhinged, Sylvia attacked Venus but the Gargoyles rebelled against her and attacked her from behind. Sylvia ran from her “subjects” but tripped down the elevator shaft along with the all the Gargoyles, with all apparently perishing. Strangely, in the aftermath, while the authorities found the bodies in the elevator shaft, they were still unable to find the 13th floor.
Despite their ongoing hostilities over Hammond, Della Mason did help out Venus with one of her cases. Relatives of recently deceased people were disappearing after they had left their relatives in a crematorium run by a Mr. Natas. The police had investigated but were unable to link Mr. Natas to these missing persons. Venus had Mason masquerade as her cousin and went to the mortuary with Venus in a casket, having call
ed in a favor from an undertaker she had dealt with during her case with the Underneath men. While speaking to Natas, Mason pretended to faint and Venus jumped out of the coffin and hid. When Mason showed up later to get her “cousin’s” ashes, Natas attempted to drug her (Mason pretended he had succeeded) and tried to burn her alive in one of his coffins. Venus, in her glory, appeared behind him before he could take action and hurt Mason. Pretending to know more than she did, she got Mr. Natas to confess that he was the murderer. Venus noticed that his name was an anagram of “Satan,” though she didn't really believe he was Satan. Mr. Natas challenged that when he jumped into his own furnace while giggling, leaving some question over his true identity. Most notable about this incident was the shift in the relationship between Venus and Mason. While not necessarily friends there did seem to be some respect between the two at this time given the collaboration.
Venus would become involved in another co-worker's dilemma. Betty, a friend of Venus from the magazine, told her that in the past year her mother had married her stepfather, Stan Williams, and the two moved to the country. Her mother was not happy in her new home, which she believed was haunted. Venus traveled with Betty to her mother's home. Betty's mother was now quite unbalanced, though her husband was adamant that the house was not actually haunted. Venus and Betty both pretended to leave but secretly stayed in the house overnight. During the night, they both experienced hallucinations that resulted in headaches. Venus figured out Betty's stepfather was gassing the house. Turning the tables, she gassed the basement, where he was. He ran up the stairs, claiming that they had unleashed ghosts out of his control, only to trip and fall to his death. The damage had still been done to Betty's mother, however, and Venus suggested that they had to take her to a sanitarium. [Venus #16]
Venus' expertise in the supernatural was starting to garner her a reputation. Lord Ethingwell reached out to her for help. His stepdaughter Cathy had died in 1941 and there was blue light emanating from her old room. It was a sealed room in a castle tower in the moorlands of England. Further, he was seeing her around the castle and believed that she was haunting him. Venus agreed to help him but all was not what it seemed. First of all, Ethingwell had killed his wife. He believed he had killed his stepdaughter Cathy as well by entombing her in the tower after she had witnessed the murder of her mother. Cathy had in fact survived and was hiding from him, occasionally torturing him from afar. He also killed the two workmen, Hans and Paul, who had unknowingly entombed Cathy. When Venus found out the truth, she decided to punish Ethingwell but the plan went too well. When Cathy appeared behind him, he panicked, running to the tower himself only to seemingly have a heart attack. Strangely, it appeared that the two workmen he had killed had attempted to entomb him as revenge. The method of this was never explained, as both men were very much dead, but when their corpses were found, they had fresh cement on them. In the aftermath, Venus explained she was able to tell that Cathy was not a ghost, as she had clearly aged in the past ten years. She offered to take Cathy back to the United States with her to start a new life, which she accepted.
Back in New York, Venus dealt with another issue with the magazine. Jimmy Rogers the resident cartoonist had been behaving very strangely. When he didn't turn up for work, Hammond asked Venus to go check on him. Venus found him passed out, surrounded by strange creatures. When a disoriented Rogers awoke, he claimed his cartoon creatures had somehow come to life and were torturing him. Venus tried to motivate Rogers to draw a hero into his comic strip to fight the creatures but he was exhausted, so Venus had to start by drawing the hero herself and get Rogers to ink him. His hero quickly defeated the creatures and was left alone. The hero wanted a new instruction from his creator but Rogers opted to draw him back into a bottle of ink. All the creations were now gone. At the end, Rogers questioned his sanity and swore never to draw again. However, Venus told him that he had merely let his imagination get away with him. [Note: the source of Rogers powers are not explained, possibly he was a latent mutant given his surprise at his powers.]
While walking in the park, Venus encountered a large statue. It had a male physique but the face was distorted. Initially thinking it an art piece, Venus was disturbed when it was reported that these figures had mysteriously appeared in most of the major cities around the world with no explanation. As a reporter, Venus was very curious and went to the docks to do some research. While there, she got into an argument with Mason, who demanded to know when she would agree to marry him. Venus told him she could not agree to marriage, as they were from two entirely different worlds. Upset, Hammond stormed off. A creature then appeared behind her and identified himself as being from the undersea race of titans from the kingdom of Aquaria. Members of his race had gone to the surface to investigate the humans, as their bodies had fallen into their kingdom, but no one returned. As they spoke, the creature turned to stone. Venus published an article explaining that the creatures were in fact alive. While the public were skeptical, the armed forces agreed with her. Fear
ful that the creatures might attack the surface world, the army started to destroy them. During a rainstorm, however, the creatures started to reanimate, distraught and furious at the murder of their people. One of the tribesmen found Venus and threatened/begged her to call off the planes blowing up his people. Venus was not sympathetic and told him and the rest of his ogres to return to the sea, lest they be destroyed. Seeing no other option, they fled, promising revenge on the surface world once they figured out a way to survive on land without being petrified. [Venus #17]