Shadow of the Knight

by Susan Lee

  "Vicki," Mickey said just above a whisper, startling the woman.

  "Who's there?" Vicki asked shakily, moving toward the back door. She relaxed only a tiny bit when she saw Mickey. "You. What are you doing here?"

  "I saw you on the news," Mickey admitted, "and wanted to see how you were doing." Mickey saw the waitress' eyes move over the alley, puzzled.

  "What are you doing out here? Why didn't you come inside?"

  Mickey lied a little too easily. "I've been in trouble before, like you said, and I didn't want to run into any police. They can misunderstand things so quickly." For a moment, Mickey thought her lie wasn't going to be believed, but she saw that it was accepted. "I'm sorry about your friend."

  Vicki caught the sob before it escaped this time. "Thank you," she whispered. "Ben was... a good friend."

  "What do the police say?" Mickey tried to keep her voice even but she felt the tension in it. "Do they have any leads?"

  "Not really," Vicki replied, a bit of anger showing through. "I don't think they're taking it very seriously because he was homeless. If he had been living anywhere but the streets, they might have reason to actually do something."

  Mickey was relieved to hear that not much was going on. She knew she should feel bad for Vicki but she was too focused on herself to let that in. She realized she had stopped listening to Vicki when the woman stared at her a moment longer than she should have.

  "What?"

  "I just said I was thinking about that night," Vicki repeated, her eyes giving Mickey a once-over. "You were here that night."

  Crap. She was going where Mickey didn't want her to go. "Yeah, I was." Mickey couldn't see any reason to lie. "Why?"

  "You left right around the time of his murder," Vicki continued, her eyes suddenly cold and unreadable. Mickey drew in a deep breath, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

  "Did you see anything?" That's when Mickey saw the pain resurface in Vicki's eyes. She wasn't hiding anything from Mickey, she was struggling to hold on to her emotions. Mickey could relate.

  "No. Sorry."

  But that didn't satisfy the waitress. Her eyes narrowed, pieces sort of falling into place. "You said you'd been in trouble before. Would you even go to the police if you did know anything?"

  Choice one - say the thing Vicki needed to hear and walk away unscathed. Kind of boring. Choice two - smack the shit out of the woman and drag her off somewhere deep and dark and hold her until her hero showed up. Choice three - help her join Ben.

  The last choice seemed a little drastic but it did have a certain appeal. She would never be able to put the pieces together if she were dead. Would it draw him out, that was the question. It wasn't worth it if she didn't think it would bring him to her.

  "I said I didn't see anything," Mickey repeated harshly. "I'm sorry your friend died but..."

  "Maybe you should talk to the police anyway," Vicki insisted, pulling her cell phone out of her pocket. "Maybe there's something little you saw that you don't remember. I mean, they just don't know what to do..."

  The phone shattered on impact, as did Vicki's jaw. Shit. Mickey hadn't meant to do that, but there was no turning back now.

  She listening carefully to see if they had drawn any attention, but the only sound was Vicki's mewling as she held her face together. The back door was firmly closed, so the sound probably didn't leak into the diner.

  Choices. Vicki had talked about choices. Maybe she would understand that Mickey stood silently, contemplating her choices. Maybe she would even understand and accept it once Mickey made her choice. Although perhaps Vicki already was regretting her choice to confront Mickey as she lay prone on the ground, her own blood starting to pool as it leaked out of her mouth.

  • • • • • • • • • • •

  In the end, Mickey's toughest choice was where to hide the body.

  SEVEN

  The television droned on about the disappearance of the waitress as though it was important. It brought the homeless man's death back to the forefront, which only annoyed Mickey. She hadn’t thought about that when she had made her choice about Vicki. But since the media had proven itself in the past, she counted on the short attention span of the American people to once again take care of things.

  She studied the leather mask held in her hands, trying to decide what to do with it. She had purchased it at a convention from a leather vendor who made the most beautiful corsets and other accoutrements. The mask itself wasn't terribly elaborate, just dark, rich leather carved with the finest lines, creating a barely discernible steampunk pattern. Mickey had bought it because she loved the beauty and the simplicity of the pattern. It had lived on her wall ever since. But now, she was trying to decide if it would make a good villain mask. After all, superheroes weren't the only ones who needed a mask. If she were going to continue down this line, she would need to start hiding her face. The mask seemed a perfectly logical solution to this problem.

  Logic, however, had no place in her life anymore. What was left of logic was a twisted, perverted essence that only surfaced to justify her choices. Mickey couldn't see that, of course. She was too focused on getting the hero to appear, by whatever means necessary.

  It was no longer a love story struggling to find its ending. This was quickly becoming a Tarantino film or a Shakespearean epic that could end in either death or madness - or both.

  Mickey stood in front of the mirror for a long moment, still turning the mask over and over again in her hand. Choices. This was a choice. Hide her face, hide her life, hide who she is. Hide from the world. Hide from herself.

  She tied the mask on, adjusting it so that her soulless eyes stared back at her from the mirror. She barely recognized the woman in the reflection. It wasn't just the mask that did it.

  Always a slender woman, she was now boarding on emaciated. She couldn't remember the last time she ate something more than a slice of pie or doughnut with her coffee on her nightly prowlings. Her jet hair was now dingy and stringy, so she began wearing it in a perpetual ponytail so she could ignore its unhealthy matte look. Even her lips, which were never particularly full, had almost completely disappeared.

  She didn’t need the mask to hide her identity. She no longer looked like Mickey Lenz. She didn’t know who she looked like.

  The mask fit perfectly. She had never realized that. Perhaps because she had never worn it. It had always been a decoration. But it slipped on and felt natural, comfortable. She wondered if he felt like that when he out the cowl on. Perfection. Like adding the last piece of himself. That's what she felt like. Putting on the last piece of herself.

  The newscaster blathered on in the background about the increased attention being paid to the death of the homeless man, now that the waitress had vanished.

  The police had stepped up their investigation, concerned for the owner and other employees of the diner, wondering if someone had targeted the diner.

  That caught Mickey's attention. Increased attention from the police and the news media. Concern that this was part of a bigger, more frightening plan. Perhaps something a super villain would come up with, she considered as she stared into her own empty eyes. Would that serve as a bat signal? Doing something huge and planned and epic and terrifying? Hmmm. Something she would have to consider.

  Somewhere deep inside, her sanity screamed to be heard.

  • • • • • • • • • • •

  The view from the rooftop was beautiful, even if Mickey couldn't process that. She had perched just above the diner, knowing he would be able to find her there.

  Her eyes peered out through the mask, scanning the horizon, seeking, searching, frustrated. He should have noticed. He should have been drawn to her. He should be here. She had been holding vigil for hours and there was no sign of him.

  She caught a glimpse of herself reflected in the steel of an exhaust port. The mask worked. It was kind of sexy, in a creepy sort of way, and it really did hide her face. If you didn't know it was her, s
he didn't think you would be able to recognize her with this on.

  Of course, that wasn't exactly true, but she needed to believe it was. Because she was starting to not recognize herself. Behind the mask, she was impenetrable.

  She stared up into the sky, squinting for something she knew did not exist. She had never liked the idea of the bat signal until now. She would give anything to have it appear in the sky to guide her to him. But the only thing in the sky was haze.

  She paced on the roof, trying to figure out what to do next. She created elaborate patterns into the dust, the meandering echoing the chaos in her head. A sliver of logic kept trying to creep through, trying to get her to get off the roof, go home, call Patty or Jerry or somebody, and just put this all away. Logic, unfortunately, no longer had a voice.

  The longer she wore it, the more the mask chafed her delicate areas on her face. She had gotten so thin that her cheekbones now pushed against the leather of the mask.

  She yanked it off, disappointed that she wasn't able to wear it all night without having some discomfort. How would she be able to wear it for days on end if she had to? She figured villains had to cowboy up sometimes. But nobody had ever mentioned how uncomfortable costuming could be.

  What to do? What to do? She twirled the mask in her hand, realizing she was still lacking some control of her left arm since she was stabbed. It was mostly healed, although there were occasional hiccups when she had to do delicate things. And things were about to get delicate.

  She had never thought like a villain, someone who only did bad things. However, she was beginning to understand that villains never see themselves as the bad guy.

  There is always a reason for what they do and they often think they're doing the right thing, in whatever twisted way.

  She replaced the mask, more to hide her emotions than anything else. She was trying to get to the love of her life, the man who was destined to rescue her from all of this. So, therefore, she was doing the right thing.

  But teetering on the edge, staring down at the traffic below, she had a moment of doubt.

  "The right thing," she whispered to the wind, just to see how it sounded. "The right thing." Her toes balanced precariously on the edge of nothing, dangling over the teeny tiny people down below. "The right thing," she repeated. Another inch forward. "The right thing." Half her foot now clung desperately to the concrete. "The right thing." She thought about the fall. She thought about the splat. She thought about wiping out all the horrible things she had done in the recent past.

  "The right thing," she echoed again. One foot swung out into the wind. She stretched her toes and twisted, feeling her balance wander and quiver. Her other foot began to complain about the extra weight this caused, demanding that she bring things back into balance. "The right thing." Her foot hovered a moment longer, daring to dip a bit farther out. She almost let it go, almost let it lead her down. Almost let it force her to do the right thing.

  As she teetered in both literal and metaphorical ways, something way down below caught her eye. A car. A car she could recognize a million miles away. That car. His car. He was there.

  Mickey dropped to her knees, not realizing how close she was to tipping over the edge. The mask was casting weird shadows on her vision, so she ripped it off and threw it behind her.

  She ran her hands over her eyes to clear her vision and looked again.

  Blue. Mustang. That particular blue. That particular Mustang. She would know it anywhere. Sure enough, Rick stepped out of the car. She knew his stance. She knew his presence. She knew it was him.

  He was here. Holy shit. He was here! He must have sensed her. He must have come to find her. He must know that she was here. It was going to happen just like she had wanted it to. Tonight would be the beginning. Tonight would be the night.

  She slipped off the ledge back on to the roof. Her heart was pounding so loudly that she was sure he would hear it all the way down on the street. She couldn't catch her breath. He was here. He was surely heading up this way.

  She only had moments before he would come through the door and discover her, here, crouched, waiting. He would see her. He would see how powerful she had become, that she had truly become something unique. Then he would fall for her and they would begin something wild and weird and intangible. Something epic. Something legendary.

  Mickey panicked when she realized that her mask was lost amongst the shadows on the roof. She couldn't let him see her without it. He had to see her this way. He had to see her in her secret identity so that he would reveal his secret identity.

  Her fingers finally discovered the leather and she could breath again. She settled it on her face and tidied her hair. She suddenly wished she had a mirror because this was the most important moment of her life.

  A noise made her scamper into the hollows of the darkness, hovering across from the door, where she could see everything without being seen. The lights from the nearby buildings slashed the shadows into graphic novel shapes.

  She adjusted the mask, wanting it to be perfect, make her eyes perfect, make her perfect. She wished she had thought through an entire outfit instead of just the black jeans and black shirt she was wearing. Dammit, she cursed at herself. You really didn't think this through.

  She took a couple of deep breaths, waiting to be calm and collected and in control when she finally saw him. He had to see her as her true self. Her nerves began to settle as she listened to the wind chatter around the roof. She thought she heard a footfall beyond the door. She waited. And waited. And waited. And waited.

  And waited.

  And waited.

  And waited.

  Time lost meaning as Mickey's anticipation grew, almost bordering on rage, as her Batman did not appear. She didn't want to admit that she was disappointed. She didn't want to admit that she was heartbroken. She didn't want to admit that she knew that this whole thing was ridiculous and bordering on psychotic.

  She was almost panting as she extricated herself from the corner of the shadows. She slowly made her way across the roof, not sure if she was hoping he was on the other side of the door, or hoping that he was not there. She couldn't decide which was the best option. But she did feel deep inside that whatever happened in the next few minutes would decide her fate irrevocably.

  Her hand trembled when it touched the doorknob. It shook even harder as she turned the metal knob. It caught for a moment, causing her to both hope and fear that maybe he was really there. But then it swung free and a stab of light showed her that the hallway was completely empty.

  He wasn't there. He didn't come. He didn't find her. He wasn't even looking for her. He just wasn't there. He had never been there. And he was never going to be there.

  And then she broke.

  • • • • • • • • • • •

  Mickey cut a path of destruction all the way home. Nothing major. Just a step above vandalism but a tad below devastation. Not enough for the police to pay attention to but enough for a few insurance companies to be busy for a couple of days.

  She didn't stop when she entered her own home. Things shattered and exploded as she took her anger out on everything in sight. She destroyed the life she had built after THAT MAN. She destroyed the life that she had hoped to build for herself. She destroyed everything that was left of a sane life.

  After a while, her own strength gave out and she collapsed to the floor in the middle of the detritus. The only thing left standing was her Batman maquette. He taunted her from a high shelf, one that was not easily reached, which is probably why he survived. His dark stare studied her and found her wanting.

  Slowly, she got up, reaching up to get him down. As she brought the hero to her eye level, an inkling of a plan that started on the roof grew three sizes bigger. She'd need a new place. No, not a place. A lair. That's what she'd need - a lair.

  "Lair," she said to Batman, waiting for a response. He only continued to glower at her. "Laaaaiiir." Not lay-er, she thought, like a cake. "Lai
r. Lair. Lairlairlairlairlair." She said it over and over again until the word became gibberish. She chose to ignore the weird, choked giggle that came out of her as the word began to have no meaning

  Mickey went into the bedroom and dug through the mess to find a couple of bags. She tossed whatever essentials she thought she'd need for her adventure inside, packing lightly, leaving the rest of her life behind.

  • • • • • • • • • • •

  Mickey didn't consider it squatting since the building was vacant and falling into ruins. It was far enough from anything resembling civilization that she wasn't worried about screams and things like that. Close enough if she needed supplies. Or to get away from the screams and things like that.

  Plans and plots and all kinds of things began to form in her head as she cleared away the squalor left behind by hordes of homeless, and began to build her home base.

  She was suddenly grateful that her lack of a social life and her side life as an artist had built a decent little savings account, which came in handy now.

  She was careful to spread her purchase amongst various home improvement stores, just in case. She wanted to make sure she couldn't be found, just in case.

  Mickey kept one eye on the news as the days went by. Nothing new in the investigation. Vicki was still considered missing, her body still undiscovered. Friends theorized that she had left town due to her grief over Ben. Others figured she had headed back home (wherever the hell Moose Jaw was) and got into trouble along the way. Only Mickey knew the truth. And she wasn't ready to tell.

  As always, the news eventually found something much more interesting and much more gruesome, pushing the broke and unimportant into the background.

  Mickey strolled around the space, examining what she had begun. She suddenly felt nervous, uncertain. Was this right? Would this work? What if it didn’t? What would she do then? She had to take one more trip to her target, make sure it was right.