The guard handed his paperwork back to him. “You’re clear to pass, sir. Wish you all the best.” He mumbled the last part, “You crazy fuck. Why anyone would want to go there is beyond me.”
Victor walked through the solid wall that was nothing more than a bit of magic, serving as a sound and sight dampening agent to keep the trauma of the adjoining district away from more fragile minds.
And he stepped into the more modern part of the city. Where traffic congestion was the order of the day. Down to taxi drivers hammering on their car horns and shouting at the people in front of them, “Get a move on!” The bright neon lights and illuminated billboards against the darkness, the harsh sounds, were a bit overwhelming after spending more than a few hours in Victorian England. So, he passed his hand over his face, the gesture enough to issue forth the needed magic to filter the noises and the lights and to allow him to dial up his senses more gradually, before both gave him a migraine.
He tipped his top hat to a couple of the greenies who smiled at him amicably under the city sidewalk streetlamps as he walked by. They were two of the many who had opted for “The Hulk” package to end up with only the green skin and the moodiness. Whatever bastard had made a financial killing off of that gene cocktail had scampered out of town before the word was out on how genuinely useless it was. Victor had no reason to be anything but gracious to the greenies; they were of no threat to him. Only the ones who were any kind of test for his abilities saw the darker side of his nature. Sure, the succubus he’d encountered earlier had posed no real danger, but she was developing a reputation about town for being the scariest creature in the land, and, well now—that was an affront to his sensitive disposition.
Victor hadn’t promenaded too far past the greenies before he turned back to see what all the shouting and smashing sounds were about. Apparently, the two greenies that had just smiled at him so pleasantly but seconds ago were giving a produce vender their thoughts on his prices. Between the shouting and cursing in mandarin coming from the elderly husband and the little-old-lady wife, and their lobbing coconuts through the store’s windows behind the carts of produce that had been put out on the sidewalk, they were making quite the scene. It was taking four cops, quick to arrive on the scene—they’d come to be known affectionately as the Greeny Goon Squad; their sleeves even sported the GGS badges—to drag them into the backs of the cop cars. There, the greenies couple would get their first taste of living caged, staring into the face of the grating separating them from the cops in the front seats. That wasn’t supernatural strength Victor was looking at earlier with all the produce tossing and cart overturning; that was pure adrenaline and rage. He chuckled thinking of octogenarians with teenage hormones raging through them that were meant to grant superpowers, but instead gave only acne and one hell of a roller coaster ride of emotions.
A rider on a motorbike was speeding toward Victor on the sidewalk. The way he was parting pedestrians like the Red Sea, you’d think he had magic of his own, but that could be explained by old-fashioned reflexes and a distinct thirst for life. As soon as he was within arm’s reach of Victor he grabbed the amulet off his chest and sped off with it. The amulet was of an Aztec calendar, carved out of solid gold, about the size of an old fashioned—that is to say, large—silver dollar. The various dials within dials all moved; it was far more than a mere replica.
Victor extended his arm and recalled the amulet—with the rider’s neck still attached. He could hear the choking sounds from here. The levitation trick of him being pulled back off the ground by an invisible rope was turning heads. A small matter of collapsing the atoms in the air separating his body from his thief’s with such force that she was sucked back to him in the resulting vacuum.
Once Victor got his hands on the amulet’s formidable gold chain, he held on to it, applying more tension to his victim’s neck. He ripped the helmet off—it was a girl, a teenager, to be exact. With giant, all-too-alluring, upward-sloping, almond-shaped, yellow eyes. Her long straight black hair was so lustrous it looked synthetic. The edges of the hair follicles explored his face like the tips of a sea anemone feeding on the salts in his sweat. The hair was caught in the magnetic field of his magic. “What say we let you go with a warning this time?”
“I’m down with that,” she gasped out.
“I admire your spirit, kid. But I’m afraid you’re no serious threat to me, so you get to live. One day, who knows, maybe you’ll warrant getting on my radar.” He released her. Her body, formerly parallel to the ground, suspended in his psi field, fell hard. She cursed in Lebanese. Ah, big cities, Victor thought, have to love them. The concept of “a local” tended to take on new meaning.
“You could have let me down more gently,” she said, rubbing her neck with one hand, and her sore hip with the other.
He slipped the amulet about his neck and was on his way; he had no more time to waste on banter with a teenager; God only knows that never let up if you were determined to encourage it.
It was with his back turned to her that he noticed her eyes glow briefly; the girl who had tried to steal his amulet. He saw it with the aid of his second sight. If the person’s mind lit up enough with excitement to expose the fractal geometries of the neural webs conveying the thoughts…. So, the girl was after the magic in the amulet. She had magic of her own she was looking to augment. And he’d underestimated her. She was good at playing possum. He smiled, thinking, maybe she wasn’t as irrelevant as all that. But that mystery for another time. His work was calling him, and he needed the fix. He’d become like an addict when it came to augmenting his own powers.
There was another like him in the city. A real contender. He’d felt him in the sewers when pursuing the girl, Naomi; nothing more than a presence. The boy Soren was following the girl, too—in out-of-body form; an astral projection. He’d sensed the kindred spirit. Soren would become a serious threat to him in time. He could sense that too. But for right now, they needed one another. If only the waif knew how much. Every Sherlock Holmes needs his Moriarty, after all, and vice versa. And so long as Victor remained the cannier of the two, that meant Soren could be played, his ends turned to serving Victor’s.
Victor wasn’t too far from his live/work space now; he’d crossed over into his sector. He stared up at the high-rise. The swankiest building in the swankiest district, suitably named Swank Town. Nothing but big money players lived here, la crème de la crème of society. Power brokers and money lenders one and all. He loved hobnobbing at their parties, listening to their stories, like kings of old boasting about their kingdoms and what a pleasure it was to rule over them; they never tired of flaunting their almighty powers at one another.
Little did they know they had no real power anymore. That lay with the lowly people on the streets, just like him, busy turning themselves into the next genetic abomination, the next freak with abilities no one could comprehend. Now, that was real power. There was no stopping what you couldn’t even understand. Those greenies Victor had passed a few blocks back, with their aborted genetic makeover kit—even they were closer to real power than these peacocks on Primrose Avenue, for all their flashiness, would ever get. The greenies’ last attempts to transcend their limitations might have been thwarted, but their next attempts may not be.
But like Batman, Victor did benefit from his alter ego. Passing as one of the city’s more upstanding citizens gave him no shortage of amusement. Perhaps that was because the darker his soul grew, the brighter the light he chose to shine on the world. He’d become quite the philanthropist of late, supporting all the worthwhile causes. Was he trying to undo karma? No. Every good wizard knew that nature abhorred a vacuum. For the kind of evil he was about to unleash on the world, there had to be an equal amount of good—and if he didn’t provide it, he’d invite the universe to conjure someone who could. And then he’d have a real nemesis to worry about. No, his system was far better. He welcomed worthy nemeses, only at a time and place of his choosing.
Victor s
tepped into the lobby of his building, The Excelsior. The dinging elevators brought a promenade of well-to-do citizens his way, all too eager to kiss the ring, as it were. If there was one thing wealthy socialites loved, it was to ingratiate themselves to even wealthier types like him in hopes of catching some tidbit of advice that might help enrich their fortunes further.
Victor smiled and flirted with the couples, one after the other, taking the hands of the ladies, kissing them. To the first to broach his personal space, he said, “She’s far too beautiful for you, Reignor. When you tire of this old sod, look me up, will you?” The elderly couple laughed obligingly as the woman, who hadn’t heard a compliment like that probably for thirty years or more, blushed.
“We’re off to the opera,” she said. “Shall we save a seat for you?”
“So gracious of you, my lady, but I’m afraid work beckons. No rest for the wicked, as they say.”
The woman giggled, “and you are a bad one, aren’t you?” She squeezed his cheeks.
“Our misfortune,” the husband said, as the two bowed to him.
“Enjoy your evening, then,” Victor said as they took their leave of him.
Even as Victor debated how to dispense with the next couple quickly, he was noticing another elevator descending, watching the numbers count down. Christ, if I don’t move fast, I’ll spend half the night in the lobby.
“Gertrude, Vera, how are you two charmers, this evening?” Victor asked. The lesbian couple seldom captured the gracious welcomes they felt they deserved. Sadly for them, for their generation, such open-mindedness about sexual relations was a lot to ask; there were some things even wealth couldn’t smooth over. They both smiled at him, delighted for the attention.
“Better now after chancing upon you,” Vera said.
“Care to make us ‘acceptable’ by escorting us to the opera?” Gertrude chimed in.
“Would love to, but afraid work beckons. It’s when others go out to party and still others to bed that I make my real fortune.”
“You’re such a predator,” Vera said, giggling.
“One day you’ll have to show us how to climb the food chain of these vicious socialites so we can look down on them for a change,” Gertrude echoed.
“Would love to. The Neanderthals deserve to go extinct; it’s what they do, isn’t it?”
The girls giggled, waved “ta-ta” to him and brushed by, concerned now more by being late for the opera. A good thing. The latest moving elevator was no more than a couple seconds from dinging.
He made it to his private elevator and sighed relief as his doors were closing on him again, as the doors in the elevator across the hall were opening.
***
Victor’s penthouse suite overlooked the city, granting a perspective only the ultra-rich could afford. And at night, like this, the only time he permitted himself to glimpse the outside world from inside his flat, the metropolis sparkled like a diamond tiara. By day it was sordid and ugly—as with all cities. The skyline was every bit as two-faced as him. If he needed a break from his work, he preferred to go out at night. Nighttime was when the most dangerous creatures came out to play. For that reason, and that reason alone, he let his alter ego have the daytime. As much as he loathed mediocrity, he might well soon split off that persona altogether, hide it from his conscious mind; a regular Jekyll and Hyde. The thought elicited a chuckle.
In truth, the elevator had stopped one floor down, at the actual penthouse, a place he maintained only for public appearances and in case someone should come a knocking. To get the elevator to ascend another floor required his magic, and his way of playing with dimensions and space-time. Thus his actual abode was only accessible by him; to anyone else, this was nothing more than the skyscraper’s flat roof. And it was that penthouse suite which he entered now.
He waved his hand left to right and the floor-to-ceiling windows became nothing more than a mirage that it was easy enough to step through. That meant walking on air, of course, though he supposed he could just as easily have manifested a balcony. Instead, he stood on a floating plate of energy formed by intersecting mandalas, like a hoverboard. He walked a bit further so he could appreciate the gusting winds against him, their massaging fingers. It blew his top hat to kingdom come.
“No reason you should be the only one to have some fun tonight, Victor.” He extended his hand and a beam shot out of his upturned palm—a thick shaft of illuminated energy strong enough to open a portal in the night sky. It only stayed open a short while.
Long enough for the entity he’d summoned to jump through the cavity.
Then Victor killed the beam and sealed the portal.
When it came to identifying his most powerful rivals, there was nothing like a creature only they could put down. It was irresistible bait. He was psychically connected to the creatures he summoned, could see through their eyes; he didn’t have to be on site to gather the intel he needed from them. That was fortuitous, as he had a lot of work to do tonight.
He laughed as he turned around and headed back to his true penthouse. His hat flew back to him before he stepped inside and the permeable membrane to the city became a solid wall of framed-glass again. A hawk had flown straight into it and hit its head. The thwack caused him to turn around in time to see the bird plunge to its death. But they were rather high up; it might well regain its senses before it hit the ground. Freefall—much like walking on quicksand—had that effect on the mind. It was why he rather liked living in it.
FOUR
In a bit of déjà vu and role reversal at the same time, Soren found himself staring from a ‘safe’ distance at Naomi fighting off one hell of a supernatural bad-ass, banished from oblivion for just being plain too nasty. If even hell won’t have you….
Much as before, it was the dead of night. Though, no night was ever this alive. The air stung with cold, but even more with charged energy. And it was the same end of town, a seedy, rundown section not yet formed into a clear role-playing district.
She wasn’t fighting this creature alone, or Soren would have already stepped in. She had her posse with her. It was a chance to see what they could do; get a sense of the players and their powers—and that included their personalities, likely best revealed in battle, under that kind of sustained pressure.
Naomi was out in front, the head of the phalanx, the tip of the arrow. Was she the most powerful? Or just the bravest of the lot?
There was a late arrival to the party. A chick on a motorcycle. She tossed the helmet, jumped off the bike, and didn’t waste a second throwing herself into the mix. Actually, let him describe that more accurately. She launched the bike off a ramp—which she materialized out of thin air—at the being, leaping off the motorcycle just in time to get the distance on the creature she needed. And while still hovering in mid-air, she conjured fire in the palm of her left hand—did he mention he had a thing for lefties—sent off a bolus of fire aimed at the bike, like one of those proton torpedoes he hadn’t seen fired since getting hooked on Star Trek reruns on the TV-land channel. The bolus of fire—ball lightning; whatever you wanted to call it—exploded the bike’s gas tank.
Dr. Dark, let’s call him—standing in the trench coat and a cowboy-like felt hat, though Soren could think of no cowboys who wore felt hats right off the top; showing nothing but shadow underneath, except when he was firing bolts of lightning out his hands—making the ones Soren had shot off earlier look like child’s play by comparison; forgive Soren for taking offense at that—got treated to the exploding bike in the face.
Dr. Dark’s own energy shield—which up until now surrounded him like a protective soap bubble, phosphorescing at the edges and keeping the vicinity clear about him for several meters back—trapped the energy from the exploding bike, leaving it nowhere to go but all over his person. Having taken many exploding gas tanks to the face before himself—not to brag—Soren could attest to the fact that there was more erupting inside that energy sphere than just gas, oil, rubber, and met
al parts.
Whoever this Lebanese chick was—don’t call him racist because she had the look of a Lebanese chick and the aroma of Lebanese food that he’d caught when she zipped by on the bike, and, well, he’d dated one before; she was truly hot in bed, so call him if anything, anti-racist, and a bit of a fan on the subject—she was a full blown wizard. That was the only explanation for magic fire and her ability to penetrate Dr. Dark’s energy shield with not one, but multiple ploys at once.
When the flames finally settled down, all that was left was the trench coat and the hat, seemingly levitating in the position they’d been in before, minus Dr. Dark. But Dr. Dark quickly re-materialized. And he resumed his lightning strikes against the Fab Five.
Their elemental wizard and prankster, Player, was busting some moves of his own. He was calling lightning down from the sky, far more powerful than anything Dr. Dark was firing out of his hands. But so far, none of those strikes had penetrated the energy shield Dr. Dark kept about him, like an embryonic sac he wasn’t quite ready to hatch out of yet.
Tired of feeling impotent on the matter, Player used his power with air to gust the wind so forcefully that empty parked cars and semi-trucks came flying at Dr. Dark next. The rest of the posse had to duck and retreat just to escape getting their own heads taken off.
If things weren’t crazy enough on the ground, there was a full-fledged vamp batting its wings in the sky from a distance, keeping an eye on what was going on, looking for an opportunity. But so far, he’d seen nothing that his powers could do a damn thing against. Still he refused to fly off, biding his time. Soren didn’t get a sense he was part of Naomi’s posse, just another interested player who wasn’t used to getting bested, accustomed to being one of the baddest in the land.
Reborn (Frankenstein Book 1) Page 3