by C. T. Phipps
I stared at her. “I think you know that any side who does is the one that should be pitied.”
Spellbinder looked down. “P.H.A.N.T.O.M is working for the U.S. government.”
“I’d say with a faction of it,” I said. “I’m a little past my angry anarchist days.”
“Really?”
“Emphasis on the ‘little’,” I said. “Tom Terror is the immediate threat here. Eliminate him and take his base then we can deal with all the other problems.”
“That may harder than you think. He has the Eye of Odin.”
“I have a Primal Orb,” I said, confident.
“So does he. The Eye of Odin is the Orb of Chaos. It’s what’s going to allow him to control all of the world’s superpowers.”
Ah, crap.
I processed what she was saying. “So, you’re telling me there’s an honest-to-God tomb to raid beneath my feet?”
I tried not to be excited. Tried and failed. You see, if you’ve been following my adventures for the past few years then you’ll understand that I am enormously immature. Things like going into a trap-filled maze, possibly carrying a torch, is the sort of thing I dream of.
“Yes,” Spellbinder said. “I figured I needed the world’s greatest crook to crack this case and you are he.”
I stared at her. “So, just how many people have you sent in there before me?”
“Sixteen,” Spellbinder said without hesitation. “Mr. Inventor got closest but even he had to turn back.”
I nodded. “There’s only one problem: I’m not sure why, exactly, I am supposed to go in there. If Tom Terror has already made off with the loot, then it’s just an exercise in bragging rights. It’s kind of like the old Tomb of Horror module. It’s the most dangerous Dungeons and Dragons adventure of all time. The best way to beat it is when you are about to enter, steal the huge solid gold doors and run the other way.”
“Gary, has it ever occurred to you the best way to get people to respect you would be to lose your habit of random, meaningless digressions? Maybe make pop culture references past 1989.”
“I’d rather die,” I said, all too truthfully. “I mean, it helps that I know there’s an afterlife and I’m best friends with the Devil, but the sentiment is still there.”
“The temple still contains the Spear of Odin,” Spellbinder said. “It’s an Ultranian artifact that allows the manipulation of the Inner Sun as the ley lines that give people superpowers. It can also be used to temporarily suppress the Primal Orbs and allow their retrieval without killing their host.”
“Versus just killing Tom and ripping it out of his eye,” I suggested.
Yeah, Spellbinder was lying to me. I’d been manipulated by the best over the years and could tell when someone was trying to play me. As much as Spellbinder was trying to say she’d only known she wasn’t Mandy for a few months, this was just another layer of deception. That just made me feel more inclined to go along with her, though. I was going to turn the tables on her at some point and get my revenge.
“Yes,” Spellbinder said. “There is also a grove of Golden Apples. Items that could give you, Cindy, and Diabloman immortality.”
This seemed to be way too good of an offer. “So, it’s directly beneath us? Right?”
“Yes, in the heart of the temple,” Spellbinder said. “I’ll give you the—”
I grabbed her wrist and turned us insubstantial as the two of us fell through the top of the temple.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
GARY KARKOFSKY AND THE UNCHARTED TOMB WITH A MUMMY
This may surprise you. Shock you even. However, it is true.
I am not a very good planner.
I know, I know, it’s crazy. One look at me and you think that this devastatingly handsome sex machine is also a brilliant Machiavellian schemer. That such intricate social and mental planning is the only way he could survive so many dangerous archvillains, get Luke Skywalker back for his own trilogy, and steal the Crown Jewels three times in a month. Yes, that was all on me. But the truth is I suck at coming up with actual schemes.
So, big surprise, I don’t plan my actions ahead of time. The Nightwalker had a hundred plans for every possible contingency from Ultragod going rogue to an attack by giant mole people. Utragod was a swift thinker but made sure to make calm, deliberate, and well-thought-out decisions. Mister Chaos was known to spend months imprisoned in New Bedlam Asylum, just so he could plan his next move.
Me? I just sort of play it by ear.
In this case, I chose to grab Spellbinder and pull her into the Temple of the Aesir. I thought I was being clever by using my insubstantiality powers to skip past all the traps, monsters, and other things inside your typical dungeon to get right to the loot. Basically, the best way to solve an open-air maze is to climb to the top of the wall and skip to the center. I should have realized that if it was that easy then Spellbinder would have done that herself.
Instead of us landing in the middle of a pile of treasure, which I imagined would be a Smaug-like horde that would replace all the wealth I’d lost to the U.S. government, we instead fell for a long time down a seemingly infinite black void.
“Ahhhhhhhhh!” I shouted.
“Gary, what have you done!?” Spellbinder shouted back.
“Ahhhhhhhh!” I shouted some more.
“This isn’t helping,” Spellbinder said, significantly more subdued.
“Ahhhhhhhh!”
“In another moment down went Alice after it, never once considering how in the world she was to get out again,” a deep booming male voice spoke in the void. We weren’t alone here and whatever was with us wasn’t corporeal.
“Now you’re just copying Alice in Wonderland,” Spellbinder said as we continued to fall.
My response? “Ahhhhhhhh!”
“Shut up, Gary!” Spellbinder shouted.
The two of us then landed in the middle of a long labyrinthine corridor that looked like a stereotypical fantasy dungeon. There were manacles on the wall, a couple of skeletons on the ground, and everything was made of ancient Medieval masonry. Light was provided by strategically placed torches that would have taken an entire team of people to light every day but were probably just magical.
I got up and looked around. I saw a heavy rock on the ground. Lifting it up, I sent it skipping down the hallway and watched darts fly through the air, a couple of swinging pendulums with battle axes attached to the bottom, and a section of wall that opened up before shooting spikes out to impale the opposite wall.
“Huh,” I said, blinking. “I guess this is a less racist Temple of Doom.”
“Goddammit, Gary!” Spellbinder said, standing up. “I cannot believe you.”
“No, seriously, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom was really racist,” I said, shrugging. “I mean, I love the action scenes but there’s nothing but slander against Hinduism in that film. Kali isn’t Satan and no one eats baby snakes. That’s in addition to the fact Kate Capshaw is no Karen Allen. Oddly enough, I didn’t have a problem with Short Round. Everyone wanted to be Indy’s adopted kid. Where did he go anyway? Did he get killed in the next adventure or did Indy ditch him?”
Spellbinder got up and felt her face. “You’ve transported us both into the pocket dimension of the Aesir temple.”
“Pocket dimension?” I asked.
“Yes,” Spellbinder said. “The Chaos Orb was put in one when the temple was constructed six months ago.”
“Only six months?” I asked, looking around. “Damn, I was hoping this was an ancient temple, but I suppose the Chaos Orb was on Hell Island a year ago. Continuity nod!”
“Argh!” Spellbinder said, shaking with rage. “You are such a fucking child. No wonder Mandy thought you were going to abandon her for this goofy supervillain B.S.”
All amusement left my face. “You don’t get to tell me that, Spellbinder.”
I was trying to be polite here. I’d been summoned to the center of the Earth by Spellbinder to fight Nazis, which was the kind of thing
you put aside personal issues for. However, I really wanted to just blast her again with my fire powers and hoped they worked in incinerating her. I felt soiled around her and the fact people seemed to be missing we didn’t have an affair was pissing me off. I wasn’t seduced into being in a relationship with Spellbinder, I’d been tricked. Emotionally and physically violated.
“Call me Maria,” Maria said. “I left behind Spellbinder when I died saving the world and went to an empty void.”
Well boo freaking hoo. I’d died like twice myself and it was no picnic for me either. Friends with Death or not.
“Yeah, that’s not going to happen,” I said. “I’m barely avoiding blasting you.”
“Says the man who treated his wife like crap and preferred to hang around a bunch of homicidal psychopaths,” Maria replied, somehow putting me on the defensive. Wasn’t she aware she was the bad guy here? Not the fun kind either.
“Listen, I love being in the center of the Earth fighting Nazis and riding dinosaurs,” I said, my voice low and cold. “However, I would give it all up to be with my wife again.”
“Would you?” Maria asked. “Because from where I’m standing it’s your pathological need to be a supervillain that got her killed.”
Mandy had wanted to be a superhero. She’d refused to evacuate Falconcrest City during a frigging zombie apocalypse, but I wasn’t going to argue that with Maria. She didn’t deserve to speak about my wife—having her memories or not.
I decided to let her have it. Figuratively, at least. “You know what? Screw this. We’re done. I’m going to abandon you here and go get the Chaos Stone for myself. Good luck figuring a way out. Hopefully there’s a minotaur in here you can drain for his blood.”
I turned insubstantial and levitated up to leave but found myself blocked by the ceiling. Apparently, I couldn’t pass through the magical barriers around me. That made a perfectly dramatic exit look silly. After almost a minute of banging up against the ceiling and walls, I levitated back down.
“Are you finished?” Maria asked.
“Okay, but I’m still not helping you,” I said, deciding we were stuck together. “We’re officially the Gaullist and Communist Resistance of France against the Nazis. Same enemy. Different goals. No friendship.”
“You sound like a really lazy genius,” Maria muttered. “Either that or the world’s most educated idiot.”
“Thank you,” I said. “But save your compliments. They’re not going to help you.”
“Please, Gary, you owe me,” Maria said. She put her hands on her hips and smiled at me in a condescending way.
I did a double take. “Owe you? What the hell do I owe you?”
Stretching out with my powers, I blasted each of the mechanisms along the wall one after another. I froze over the dart cannons, destroyed the swinging pendulums, and filled up the pit trap with ice. I felt like an old-school Rogue searching for traps. Well, Wizard-Rogue hybrid. Man, I was a geek. Like, to “I am unhealthily obsessed and need therapy” levels.
“I tolerated your antics better than your real wife would have while we were married,” Maria said, making air quotes. “Mandy never would have encouraged your worst and most selfish impulses the way I did or ignored your adultery.”
“Mandy was dead when I hooked up with Cindy.”
“And Gabrielle?” Maria asked. “I encouraged you to be with her to increase your position in the superhero community.”
“You’re sick.”
“If Mandy had her way, your little menagerie of weirdos and lost toys would have all gone away and you would have gone back to your normal life. A life you hated.”
I somehow resisted incinerating her. At this point, I wasn’t even sure why since we were in the perfect place for a murder. “Mandy died for Cindy.”
“Because she was a hero, Gary,” Maria said, her voice dripping with contempt. “But one ill-suited for you. She never wanted children and I let you have those, too. Cindy and Gabrielle were just all too willing to provide. Not that you’re anything resembling a father to either. Pathetic.”
I turned around and glowed with an aura of barely suppressed magical power. “I remind you this is coming from a woman who made a pact with my evil(er) doppelgänger to spy on me, stuck with me through prison, and stayed with me for years after the guy who hired her was dead. You’re not really much of a superheroine yourself.”
Maria looked down. “I tried to be a heroine before, Gary. To do the right thing and fight against my demonic parentage, the cult that raised me, and my insane brother. Do you know what it got me?”
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Killed,” Maria said, the bitterness in her voice audible. “Worse, I was damned by whatever gods ruled the afterlife since I didn’t move on but just had to wait to be resurrected like so many other heroes or villains. When I was returned, it was as a bloodsucking creature from hell. One you created because you couldn’t live a normal life for your wife, so you made her a monster.”
I took a deep breath. She was coming at me with all my insecurities, but the simple fact was I didn’t believe any of it. “And yet you still stuck around. Pretended to love me, Cindy, and our child. So how pathetic are you?”
“Don’t hide behind your kids, Gary. Its contemptible. As for why I stayed with you and your mistress—well, where else was I supposed to go?” Maria asked. “I’d been poor, hated, and unloved before. I prefer being rich.”
“You know, I could argue with you or point out I know the answers to a lot of those questions, but I think we’re past the point of words now.” I conjured the Primal Orb. Then I whispered a short spell. “skcus msiripmav.”
That was vampirism sucks spelled backwards, by the way. A lot of wizard incantations are just gobbledygook like Pig Latin or twin speak. The magic was in the man not the words. That was one of the things I was really annoyed about learning after studying Enochian for six months.
Maria chuckled and said, “You were always a crap wizard, Gary. I knew more magic when I was four than you’ll ever—”
That was when Maria started throwing up blood. I don’t mean little spurts of it either. I’m talking a massive, disgusting gusher of it that sprayed the walls, sprayed me, and kept coming long after it would have emptied the contents of a normal person’s stomach. Maria thrashed on the ground for several minutes until I saw her stop.
I checked my cellphone and took a picture of her covered in blood for my InstaPic page. “Wow, that took a while. I sure hope no monsters are attracted by blood.”
It was a small vengeance but one I was glad I took. Somehow, I couldn’t bring myself to attack her again, but this felt good.
“What…what did you do?” Maria said, coughing.
“Just a reminder that my magic is explicitly control of death and dead things like vampires. Antagonizing me is not a good idea. I’m cutting you a lot of slack because I’m insane enough to believe there’s something worth saving in Diabloman’s sister.”
“He murdered me!” Maria snarled. “He murdered my lover, Rico.”
Oddly, the more Maria lashed out, the less angry I was at her. I hated her for what she’d done but the personal anger was diminishing. I could tell she hated herself for what she’d done. Slinking into someone else’s life and pretending to be Mandy was the only way she’d been able to find some sort of happiness. The fact we’d been forced to be together by Merciful for years while imprisoned by him had also probably induced a kind of mutual Stockholm Syndrome. Or maybe I was just trying to cut her some slack because she looked identical to my wife. It was easier to believe she was a victim, too, rather than trying to maintain my outrage.
“Yeah, Rico Chavez, a.k.a. the Guitarist. Diabloman killed him and then he killed you. You were left alone and abandoned by people who mourned your death but didn’t realize you were all dead. Other Gary took advantage of that. Then you sought people who could love you. Now that you’ve been rejected, you’re lashing out in order to feel like you have
some control over your life. That includes trying to get me to hate you.”
“Which is more believable than I hated you but stayed with you because it was easier.”
“Well, I know that’s not true.”
“Why’s that?” I said, squeezing my cloak to get the blood out of it.
I looked at her and raised an eyebrow. “Do either of our lives look particularly easy right now?”
Maria shrugged. “Well, I’m an underground queen and you’re a former billionaire in a relationship with the world’s greatest superheroine.”
Okay, maybe not my best argument. “Listen, let’s just clear the air. I don’t like you; you don’t like me. However, we’re both stuck in this temple right now.”
“Because of you,” Maria said.
“Let’s not quibble over details. The fact is you planned to send me here to get some magic doohickeys and then steal them from me.”
“You don’t know that,” Maria said.
I snorted. “Lady, please, I knew your game the moment I saw you. Does Diabloman know you’re eventually going to kill him?”
Maria looked away. “He believes he can atone for what he’s done.”
“He’s tried for years,” I said. “That’s why he joined my organization. What he did to you destroyed him emotionally and physically. He never recovered.”
“World’s smallest violin playing.”
I shrugged. “Maybe we’ve all done unforgivable things.”
I was thinking about the fact I’d let Mandy die.
“That’s the thing about unforgivable actions, Gary,” Maria said, softening her voice for the first time since we came here. “They can’t be forgiven. I’ll use Diabloman until I have no use for him and then turn on him. I hope you’re there to help him pick up the pieces.”
I shrugged. “D and I are best friends. Nothing could break us up.”
Maria shook her head. “It’s a shame we didn’t meet under any other circumstances.”
“Let’s not go that far,” I said, cutting her off. “I was a mark and I can respect you conning me. I just can’t forgive you using my wife’s identity to do it.”