by C. T. Phipps
That was when a glop of green ice cream passed through my intangible head. The stuff hit a desk behind me and melted it into a pile of sizzling goop within seconds. With that, the goons panicked and made a break for it, tossing their guns to the ground and screaming as they ran.
I turned around, looking at the Ice Cream Man. “Did you fire acid ice cream at my head?”
“I agree, that is tacky. Of course, it’s not the first time I’ve had acid ice cream shot at me. I remember when Master Warren and I—”
“Shut up!” I snapped at my cape, looking very strange to the dozen or so terrified bank employees watching my altercation with the Ice Cream Man. “Ahem, I mean tell me the story later. I’m working on my ambiance.”
The Ice Cream Man was holding a brown cone-shaped weapon, looking quite irritated with me. “Listen pal, I don’t know how you got the Nightwalker’s outfit, but I knew the Nightwalker. I tried to kill the Nightwalker and you sir, are not the Nightwalker.”
The henchgirl jumped up and down, pointing her futuristic gun in my direction. “Yeah, you’re just a cheap knock-off superhero!”
I raised a finger to correct her. “I’d like to point out I’m not a superhero either.”
That was when the Ice Cream Man swung his weapon around, slamming me across the face with it and sending me spiraling backwards into a loan officer’s desk.
“What the hell?! I thought I was intangible!” I coughed.
“You can only maintain intangibility for a limited time. Additionally, using your other abilities shortens that time by a considerable amount.”
“Now you tell me!” I struggled to get up.
“Maybe next time you should familiarize yourself with your powers before trying to thwart a bank robbery?”
I didn’t have time to argue further with the garment because the Ice Cream Man was already lifting a triple chocolate fudge covered stick of dynamite to stuff down my pants. I’d seen him do it on CrimeTube. The results... weren’t pretty. Funny, but not pretty.
Pulling my fist back, I spun around and clocked the insane confectioner across the chin. It spun his head around, giving me hope he was stunned.
The Ice Cream Man turned his face back to me, a terrifying grin on his face. “Was that supposed to hurt?”
I remembered super-strength wasn’t amongst my powers. “No, but this is.”
I grabbed the loan officer’s chair behind me and struck the Ice Cream Man across the face. I had to hand it to myself—that was a pretty good comeback.
I wasn’t the sort of guy to miss an opportunity, and beat the Ice Cream Man with the chair until he was on the ground unconscious… or dead. I wasn’t sure and didn’t care. I then hit him again across the head for good measure.
“Was that necessary?”
“Necessary? No. Fun? Yes.” I smiled before something started bugging me. “There’s something I’m forgetting. What is it?”
“The girl,” Cloak reminded me. “You still haven’t subdued her.”
“Oh, right.”
Looking up, I saw the terrified looking figure of the henchgirl with the futuristic gun. I had the suspicion she was the one responsible for all the ice filling the bank, plus the dead bank President. She could have just blasted me and taken off running. I got the impression she wasn’t the mad dog killer type, though. Either that or she wasn’t sure whether her gun could harm me since I could turn intangible at will.
Smart woman.
Really, she was very familiar. Her Eskimo parka was wrapped around her head so I couldn’t make out her features but there was something about her that made me feel like I was next to someone I knew very well. It helped that her hands and neck were as pale as a vampire’s, which just a few people I knew had. I was ready to walk up to her and pull down her hood so I could get a good look.
In an accent I recognized as coming from the South Side, the woman hesitated then asked, “Um, am I next?”
I finally realized why she was so familiar. “Cindy? Cindy Wakowski?”
“Gary?”
“Shhh!” I made a shush gesture. “Don’t advertise it to the world!”
Cindy and I had gone to school together, South Falconcrest High. We’d shared glee club, a love of supervillainy, and the joys of sex in the backseat of my father’s car. Hell, we’d even gone to prom together. Last I’d heard she’d been studying to be a doctor.
“You know this woman?”
“Don’t act so surprised. I grew up in South Falconcrest. Half of my class went on to become henchmen or supervillains.”
To understand Southies, you had to take the bad part of town then put it next to a part of town its residents didn’t want to go into late at night.
That was South Falconcrest.
“You’re a superhero?” Cindy asked, disbelieving. “Your parents would be so ashamed!”
“Not quite,” I said. “How did you end up a henchwench?”
Cindy huffed, lifting her gun. “That’s an offensive slur. The proper term is henchperson. In any case, it started small. I needed to pay off my student loans and there was an ad on Crimeslist. It spiraled from there. I’ve worked for six different supervillains in the past month, there’s not much demand for a permanent sexy underling.”
“I understand, I do.” I nodded, giving her a once over. “By the way, that’s not a flattering look for you.”
Cindy pulled down her parka and revealed her long bright red hair and cute round ears. “Well, excuse me all to hell. It’s not like I’m going to start taking fashion tips from a guy dressed up like the Nightwalker.”
“I prefer to think I look like an evil sorcerer or necromancer. In any case, you’re free to go. Try not to hook up with guys like the Malt Shop Gang again, though. Those guys are crazy.”
“Tell me about it,” Cindy said, lifting up her futuristic gun. “You want the freeze ray?” She got a dreamy look in her eye. “I miss working for the Mad Baker. He made the most delicious cookies. They’re made with ingredients from the future.”
“What IS it about this town? I never thought I’d long for the good old days of Nazi robots and dragons.”
“I’d love the freeze ray!” I said, ignoring Cloak’s mutterings before taking the bulky weapon in hand. “Oomph. Heavy. I can make it my first trophy, though.”
“You’re letting her go?” One of the bank employees, a middle aged black woman, interrupted us. She was still kneeling on the ground with her hands on her neck like half the bank personnel.
“You’re welcome!” I snapped back at her.
“You realize she killed the bank president, right?”
I gave a dismissive shrug. “Last time I came here for a loan, the Bank President had a pregnant mother of two thrown out by security. Somehow, I think God will forgive her. If not, eh, Hell has better parties anyway.”
Taking a look back at the frozen form of the bank president, I saw he was still standing there hands in air. It looked like he was trying to wave off whatever blast had covered him in a thick layer of frost. Standing next to the block of ice was a figure identical to the frozen man, only lacking in the thin-white covering. The identical figure looked lost and disorientated, which made sense since he was standing next to his own dead body.
“Is that one of the restless dead?” I asked my cape.
“I’m afraid so.”
Walking over to the man, I hefted up the freeze ray in my arms. “Uh, sorry. I wish I could have saved you. Well, sort of. In fact, I’m glad you’re dead. Still, it sucks for you and I suppose that’s all that matters.”
“That was horrible.”
“I’m a beginner at this!” I said, throwing my hands out.
The bank president, a balding middle-aged Caucasian man with glasses, looked up. “I don’t understand. What’s going on?”
“You’re dead. Finito. Kaput. You’ve kicked the bucket. You’re now a ghost,” I shook the freeze ray in my arms for emphasis. “Take a look beside you at your corpse.”
&n
bsp; The man shook his head and turned around, jumping with a start at his dead, frozen, body. “Oh, my God! No! I was just fifty-two!”
“Yeah.” I gestured to the sky with the gun. “Well, you should let go of your earthly confines or whatever. Go into the light, or given the way you’ve behaved, the big burning pit.”
“Master Warren handled these little heart-to-hearts with the recently deceased better than you.”
“Well, we all can’t be billionaire philanthropists.”
“Hmm? No, Arthur Warren merely funded the Nightwalker’s crusade against crime. I was referring Lancel Warren, the ex-police officer and Arthur’s brother. He was the Nightwalker.”
“Oh.” I was a little disappointed. “I just figured Arthur Warren would be the Nightwalker because he was independently wealthy and would have a lot of free time on his hands.”
“That was cliché when the Scarlet Pimpernel was published.”
“Uh?” the bank president started to ask. “Which light? There’s—”
“Shoo! Shoo!” I gestured with the freeze ray, causing the ghost to back away and disappear. Hopefully, he went on to whatever afterlife awaited him. It occurred to me to ask Cloak what cosmological and religious system was true but I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. I’d hate to find out the Ultraologists were right.
Cindy grabbed a sack of money on the way out, and I helped myself to the other sacks. None of the bank employees made any attempt to stop me. Either they were too grateful at being rescued to care, or they were too terrified of the crazy set of superpowers I’d displayed.
Maybe both.
The woman from earlier, the one who objected to my letting Cindy go, shouted, “Wait a second! Who are you?”
I was tempted to say I was the Nightwalker. He was the coolest superhero ever. It’s a pity the world would never again see his equal.
Or so I thought.
Walking out the door and levitating away, I, instead, shouted back, “I’m Merciless! The Supervillain without Mercy!”
“You realize, of course, that’s redundant.”
“Eh, it’s a work in progress. Like me.”
“God help us all.”
Chapter Two
Where I Tell the Wife
Informing the wife about my new career went about as well as could be expected.
Better, even.
“Are you out of your mind?”
Mandy was wearing tight blue jeans and a GladiatorFest XXXI t-shirt, her gorgeous brown hair hungover her shoulders. Her skin was pale, albeit less so than Cindy’s. Mandy was a bit on the short side, five-foot-four to my five-foot-eight, but I liked petite girls. Mandy was Eurasian with a Korean mother and Caucasian father, favoring neither completely.
Mandy and I had met when I was studying Unusual Criminology at Falconcrest City University. She was the lead in the all-girl band known as the Black Furies, captain of the track team, a martial arts master, and capable of out-drinking a demigod. We’d dated some of the same people and decided to hook up after a concert. We hadn’t looked back since. My conservative Jewish parents had, of course, had a hissy fit but they’d overlooked their first son being a supervillain and I eventually won them over.
“I...” I tried to think of a way to respond to her accusation. “Kind of?”
“You’re out of your mind and you’re an idiot to boot.”
“I thought you’d be happy.” That was a lie, of course. I’d been pretty sure she’d be pissed off.
“You robbed a bank!” Mandy gestured to the television set in the living room, which was tuned to the local news. They were covering my earlier escapade with the Malt Shop Gang. Well, that and a dog which had learned how to dance. The reporters in Falconcrest City were just slightly more competent than the police.
“Eyewitnesses report a terrifying masked man interrupted a robbery by the Malt Shop Gang,” Sally Sutler said. She was a pretty Chinese American in her thirties and on-site at the bank. Rumors were she was dating the Prismatic Commando. Reporters loved raising their profile that way. “It has been suggested he may have been using some form of magic.”
“Which is true.” A block of ice appeared in one hand while a bit of flame shot out from the other. “I’m all sorts of magical now.”
“Don’t do that in the house,” Mandy snapped before turning back to the TV. “You’re scaring the dogs.”
Our snow-white bull terriers, Arwen and Galadriel, were hiding underneath the kitchen table. They hated when we fought.
“Fine, fine.” I used my flame powers to evaporate the ice in my hand.
“I thought we’d agreed you wouldn’t be a criminal. That was one of the conditions of my marrying you.” Mandy was right, of course. I’d given up my college career of hacktivism and petty sabotage upon graduation.
It was the worst mistake of my life.
“Being an unemployed bank teller isn’t working out for me. Opportunity knocked and I couldn’t help but let her in.”
Mandy tried to calm down but it was difficult for her. We didn’t fight often she was a very passionate woman. “We don’t know where this costume came from.”
“Obviously, it came from the Nightwalker.”
“He had nothing to do with it.”
Sally’s report on the television was less than flattering. “Alternately described as the ‘most terrifying man they’d ever seen’ and ‘somewhat goofy’, the supervillain calling himself Merciless beat escaped serial killer Charles Creamley a.k.a the Ice Cream Man to death before helping himself to fifty-five thousand dollars in cash. Spokesmen for the Malt Shop Gang have called for vengeance against this newly-debuted figure in the city’s underworld.”
“He died? Huh. I guess it is a reign of terror.”
It was strange how little the revelation of my killing the Ice Cream Man affected me. He wasn’t the first person I’d killed, there had been... one other. That time, I’d been an emotional wreck for almost two years. The Ice Cream Man, by contrast, felt like I’d done the world a public service. Maybe that first murder had drained anything objectionable about the act from me, at least with fellow killers.
Mandy put her hands over her face. “Goddess, Gary! You’re guilty of murder now!”
My wife is a Wiccan, by the way. Sadly, that didn’t come with supernatural powers, unlike some witches I knew.
“Hey, killing people doesn’t count if they’re bad! Hollywood taught us that.”
Mandy glared at me.
I grimaced. “Okay, that sounded psychotic even to me.”
“I was thinking stupid.” Mandy sighed, gesturing to the bags of money sitting in a corner. “You can’t keep this money, we have to return it.”
“I can’t return it!” I choked out, horrified. “That would ruin my rep!”
“You’re not a supervillain!” Mandy shook her hands in frustration. “You’re Gary Karkofsky.”
“Why can’t I be both Gary and Merciless?” I asked, spreading out my arms. “Didn’t you once date a supervillain?”
I shouldn’t have done that, as that was a game I couldn’t win. While Mandy had dated the Black Witch, I’d been involved with Cindy and one other woman my wife often wondered if I’d rather have been with. Mandy and I had fallen in love after we’d broken up with our former fiancés and there was always the unspoken agreement we shouldn’t talk too much about our romantic pasts.
“The Black Witch just spoke to me with her words about the bleak poetry of the human condition.” Mandy frowned before looking away. “Selena hadn’t started her whole, ‘world domination through dark magic’ thing.”
I tried not to think of my wife dating one of the world’s sexiest supervillains. The last thing this conversation needed was me getting turned on. We could save that for later.
“I could have gone all day not hearing that particular thought.”
“Cloak, back me up here.”
“Leave me out of this. I had enough problems with Master Warren’s love-interests,” Cloak replied
. “Besides, no one other than you can hear me, as long as we’re joined.”
Mandy looked at me. “What are you doing?”
“The cloak talks,” I explained.
“Only to you?” Mandy asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Yes.”
“Okay, Gary. That explains it. You’ve had a psychotic break. We’re taking you to see a doctor tomorrow.”
Instead of rising to her bait, I replied, “Good idea. If you can prove you’re insane to a court of law, they’ll pretty much let you get away with anything in this town.”
“Argh!” Mandy looked ready to strangle me.
I took a deep breath, trying to articulate how I felt. “This is important to me. It’s something that has meaning.”
“Meaning? Do you want to be remembered for robbing banks and fighting superheroes?”
“Yes?”
I was spared her rebuttal by the sound of a telephone ringing. Not the ring of a modern phone, but the kind belonging to one from the 1960s or 70s. The last time I’d heard one was when I was at my grandmother’s house as a child. It was coming from one of the cardboard boxes still in our living room. Not the one the Nightwalker’s cloak was from but another which came with it.
“Excuse me.” I seized the opportunity to take a break from the conversation. Picking up the kitchen knife from earlier, I sliced open the box the sound was coming from. Inside, I found a glowing midnight black phone resting on a pile of journals. It had no chords or dial, despite looking like an antique. I’d seen similar devices, though, at the Nightwalker Museum.
Picking up the receiver, I held it to my ear. “Hello?”
“Is this one of Nightwalker’s associates?” A voice spoke on the other end of the line. “It’s Chief Watkins. We need your help.”
“Wow,” I said. “I thought the Nightwalker’s hotline to the police chief’s office was an urban legend.”
“Who is this?” Chief Watkins asked, offended.
“Uh, that’s not important.” I considered hanging up. I didn’t want anyone tracing the phone call back to my home. Still, I was curious. “Is something wrong?”
Chief Watkins cleared his throat. “I was hoping someone was going to be sent by the Nightwalker’s associates in the Society of Superheroes to replace him. We’ve had a kidnapping and we need someone with his expertise to solve it.”