"Are you sure about this, boss?" Snowflake asked over the radio. The question had come out of the blue, the uplifted panda's voice on the earpiece jolting Gato Loco out of his reverie.

The leather clad superhero had parked his bike, Shadow, a few blocks away and approached the crumbling old mansion on foot. The snow was coming down hard, leaving Gato Loco wishing he'd asked the Tesla twins to put some heating into the suit. His bike seemed very far away, and he wasn't certain he could still feel his one functional testicle.

Snowflake was supposed to be parked in his truck nearby as backup. Gato Loco wasn't sure what Snowflake would do if something really bad happened. At the very least, someone could call and let people know that it was time for a funeral.

"No," replied Gato Loco.

"We can back out any time you want," Snowflake suggested. "There's a great little Chinese place I passed on the way in. It's Christmas Eve, but they should still be open."

"This was a one-time invitation," Gato Loco answered. "I'm too curious to let it just slide."

"You know what they say about curiosity, boss…"

A few days prior, Manuel de la Vega had received an anonymous package containing a map. At a glance, it appeared to lead to a Cobalt City mansion in the decaying Karlsburg neighborhood and an invitation to receive his Christmas present. It caught Manuel's attention because it specifically linked him with his cowled alter-ego, Gato Loco. It sounded like a trap, but he couldn't ignore it.

Research had dug up ownership by a family named "Carlton." It had been in the family since the 19th century, but no one had lived in it for at least twenty years. The current owner and last surviving member of the Carlton clan, Julie Carlton, was a recluse who spent most of her time in Manhattan. She was a noted philanthropist that no one ever saw. ("It's a perfect formula for a super-villain," Snowflake had insisted.) Rumor claimed the mansion was haunted, and urban legends of people meeting their doom in this building dotted the Internet.

The wrought iron gates that barred the driveway were left hanging open, an ominous invitation for the vigilante. Sticking to the shadows cast by the few street lights working nearby, Gato Loco slunk closer to the building. As he skirted around the overgrown shrubbery, his police training and nightvision filters showed incongruous details about the derelict mansion: advanced security devices hidden in the overgrown foliage, the very superficial nature of the "disrepair" on the manor, paths worn through the grass marking out the patrol path of security.

Following his instructions, Gato Loco circled to the back. The door to the kitchen entrance had been left ajar, as promised. As he approached the entrance, he noticed that a wheelchair ramp had been installed in this part of the house. There hadn't been an analogous ramp in the front of the building. The door also featured contacts for alarm trip switches. At first glance, the kitchen looked to be covered in a thick layer of dust. Looking at it more closely, he suspected it was flour that had been spread liberally around, with streaks of splatter where it had been thrown about.

Through the doorway leading out of the kitchen, Gato Loco could see that someone had left a light on. Switching his nightvision off, he cautiously walked through the door and down the hall until he found the elevator his instructions had told him to seek out. Inside the elevator was the source of the light. The elevator was another recent renovation. The detective suspected that the doors to the elevator would be indistinguishable from the rest of the wall once they were closed.

"Doesn't it worry you that we're so close to where Louis Malenfant lives?" Snowflake commented abruptly, startling Gato Loco. "I mean, especially since we had that whole run in with another aspect of the King in Yellow?"

"If the King in Yellow shows up, ten feet tall and breathing fire, we'll call Stardust and have him nuke the site from orbit," Gato Loco responded. He didn't want to go into the elevator until his heart slowed down. "It's the only way to be sure."

Snowflake chuckled and said, "Heh, that's a good one."

Bracing himself, Gato Loco got onto the elevator. There were no controls that he could see inside. The doors automatically closed and carried him downward.

"You were joking about nuking the site from orbit, right, Boss?" Snowflake asked with thin bravado.

Gato Loco gasped as the doors opened.

"What? What is it?" Snowflake asked in a panic. "Do I need to call Stardust?"

"Cállate," Gato Loco commanded, belatedly realizing he'd switched to Spanish.

He knew what he was looking at, but even after all the buildup he could still hardly believe that he had found this here. He'd been in several similar spaces over the years, but none quite like this.

It was a superhero lair.

Most of the room was appointed like an old fashioned study, paneled in teak with expensive looking rugs laid out over hardwood flooring. The revisions to the rest of the building applied here as well, security systems discreetly hidden in the furnishings, inset lighting providing a warm cream illumination to everything.

To one side was a glassed off area. Part of it looked like it held a laboratory, though the equipment looked thirty years old. Gato Loco half expected to see Lee Majors in a jump suit working in there.

The other part held a garage where a few cars were parked. The oldest was a 1930s model Alfa Romeo 8C. The newest was a 1975 convertible Corvette. Each of the cars was painted black with subtle use of blood red to make them look like sinister feline predators.

Beyond the cars, Gato Loco could make out a tunnel that carved its way through the Karlsburg neighborhood. He half wondered where the tunnel let out.

The sound of whirring caught the crimefighter's attention. He wheeled around and fired off a kinetic blast from his suit's Boom Point system before entirely looking at where he shot. Dust exploded from the small robot caught in the blast while a spindle brush flew in one direction and a feather duster bounced off in another.

"What was that?" Snowflake asked.

"I think I killed their Roomba," Gato Loco admitted.

Snowflake paused significantly before asking, "Was it an evil Roomba?"

Gato Loco didn't bother to answer.

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