by C. T. Phipps
“Or you could set him on fire.”
“Because that worked out so well earlier.”
“Point taken.”
Diabloman was over by my side in an instant, once more lifting me up by the cape and hoisting me in the air. “If you are lying about the payment, I will break you.”
“Nope, it’s real,” I said. I was about to say something else when Diabloman doubled over, clutching his chest. Concerned, I placed my hand on his shoulder. “Are you okay?”
“No!” Diabloman swatted away my hand. “I… I am sorry. I do not like people to see me like this.”
The Typewriter started to get up behind me, reaching for his golden cane to beat me over the head. I snapped my fingers and he caught fire. The flamboyant supervillain screamed, making terrible sounds as he burned.
“Is this why you’re no longer an A-list supervillain?” I asked, ignoring the Typewriter’s plight.
Diabloman did the same, giving a short nod. “The demonic cult which raised me covered me in black magic tattoos as part of my training. The tattoos allow me to take more punishment than a normal human being and give me the strength of ten men but such power comes at a price. Once I could battle my opponents for hours but now I cannot fight for more than a few minutes before crippling pain sets in. The human body withers when exposed to such evil power.”
“Geez, that’s rough,” I was sympathetic to the mass murderer and evil mystic. “No wonder your supervillain career tanked.”
“Indeed,” Diabloman said. His voice was resigned, heavy with the burden he was carrying. “The drugs were expensive enough, wiping out my personal fortune. The treatments to keep me alive afterward? Those were even worse. Now, I am forced to trudge along as a shadow of my former self. I need to take ten pills an hour to feel anything close to normal.”
“I’m sorry.” I meant it too.
“You may want to put the Typewriter out before the apartment catches fire,” Diabloman suggested.
“Sorry,” I said, turning around and freezing the villain’s body. Walking over to Diabloman, I gave him a pat on the back. “Listen, I’m just starting out this whole supervillain thing—”
“Obviously,” Diabloman replied.
I ignored that. “I could use someone to show me the ropes. How about I throw in an extra ten thousand to your forty-thousand dollar fee as a retainer? You could be my number two and mentor!”
“Please tell me you did not suggest to a seasoned supervillain you want to hire him as a career counselor.”
“He’s Diabloman! The Monster from Mexico! The Genius Bruiser who can speak forty languages while throwing you just as many feet! He deserves respect!” I said to Cloak, revealing my habit of talking to him. Looking at Diabloman, I said, “There’s an explanation for why I’m talking to myself.”
I just needed to think of one.
“Your cloak is magical and sentient,” Diabloman said. “You haven’t learned to talk to it with your thoughts. Therefore, you speak to it aloud and look like a lunatic.”
“Fair enough,” I replied, giving a triumphant shake of my fist. “Glad to know we’re on the same page. So, what do you think?”
“I think you have some very strange ideas about how supervillains work,” Diabloman said. “However, it is the best offer I have heard in some time. I will share what little wisdom I’ve gained.”
“Hell, yes!” I gave a fist pump. “Where’s Miss Douglas?”
Diabloman gestured over to the bathroom, grunting as he got up from the floor. “She’s in there, with the last remaining member of the Typewriter’s gang.”
I shouted to the bathroom. “Hey! Come on out! We’re not going to kill you... probably!”
Seconds later, Cindy Wakowski walked out in a new outfit. This time she was wearing a woman’s pin-striped suit, a cute beret with a tiny typewriter on top, and a flame thrower pack.
Cindy was escorting a twenty-something, almond-eyed girl with shining black hair I presumed to be Amanda Douglas. The latter was wearing clubbing attire which was way too short and way too low for a girl her age, or maybe I was just getting old.
Amanda Douglas wasn’t beautiful but was pretty. She was also athletic-looking, being more substantial than the stick figures which passed for attractive nowadays. I suspected she either worked out or played heavy sports, not something you expected from a billionaire’s daughter.
Amanda took one look at the corpses and said, “I see that the criminals here show their usual amount of loyalty. Just so you know, when I get out of here, I’m going to hire some people to train me in how to hunt your ass down.”
“Charming,” I said, turning to Cindy. “What the hell are you doing here? Don’t you have tests to study for? I mean, I just saw you a few hours ago! In another supercrook’s employ!”
“I was double booked for tonight.” Cindy sniffed the air. “Anyway, I’m done with medical school. I’m shopping around for a good residency program. These jobs help pay off my enormous student loans.”
“I take it you know this woman?” Diabloman asked.
“You could say that. I let her go after killing her last employer.”
“He’s killed two in a row!” Cindy kicked the Typewriter’s still frame. “I haven’t even been paid yet!”
“Are you sure he’s dead?” I asked, looking between Cindy and the Typewriter.
Cindy responded by blasting the Typewriter’s corpse with her flame thrower. There was no movement from the figure burning on the ground. “Yep.”
I laughed.
“That was abominable.”
I stopped laughing, still smiling. “It was, wasn’t it?”
Diabloman looked at me, a strange expression on his mask-covered face. “Did you feel anything after killing these two people?”
I thought about it, gauging how I felt about killing two people. After a few seconds, I came to terms with how I felt. “No. Is that bad?”
“It means you might have a chance of becoming a supervillain.” Diabloman pointed at my chest. “Conscience is the enemy of our profession.”
“Oh good. Your praise fills my Grinch-sized heart with spiteful glee.”
“Yay for sociopathy!” Cindy shouted, smiling like a lunatic.
I thought about that before saying, “Am I a sociopath if I only kill bad people?”
“It depends on your definition, I suppose,” Diabloman said. “Sociopath is clinically meaningless, unlike psychopath.”
“Well, that’s reassuring,” I said, not at all concerned. If I was a sociopath, I’d been one for my entire life. Besides, whatever it was that allowed me to kill with impunity didn’t keep me from loving Mandy.
Amanda started to look afraid. “Oh Christ, this is bad. I’m in the hands of actual supervillains now.”
“You’re darn tooting. However, I’m not here to do you harm. Yet.”
“You’re not?” Amanda asked.
“Nope, sorry. I’m here to return you to your father in exchange for an insignificant part of his fortune, but a not-so insignificant amount of money to me. Cindy, you work for me now.”
“I do?” Cindy looked confused. She was doing a very good impression of a bubble-headed blonde, despite being a redhead. Of course, it was just an act to manipulate people. I spent most of my senior year wrapped around her finger before I figured that one out.
“Yes,” I said. “You’re getting ten thousand dollars for your services.”
“Spiffy!” Cindy said. “Wait, this isn’t one of those ‘sexual favors for cash’ things? I get a lot of those as a henchperson.”
“No!” I said, repulsed. “I’m a married man!”
“Oh, good!” Cindy looked relieved. “Because those cost extra.”
Diabloman snorted in amusement.
“So, you’re here to rescue me?” Amanda said. “Dad didn’t send any of his evil cultist henchmen?”
“What?” I asked, looking for both a fire extinguisher and a phone book.
“Nothing,�
�� Amanda said. “Forget I mentioned it.”
“O-kay.” I found a fire extinguisher in the bathroom behind the toilet and started putting the Typewriter out. I could have used my freeze powers but I wasn’t going to overuse my powers if they had a finite amount of power every night.
The phone book was much easier to find. Looking up Chief Watkins’ number, his wife was kind enough to give me his cellphone number. Of course, unlike in movies, I still got a busy signal despite the important nature of the call. So I ended up texting him.
“Come in with the money. The situation is resolved,” I said as I used my thumbs on my cellphone.
I got texted back within seconds. “I’m coming.”
Ten minutes later, the elevator to the penthouse was coming up with what I presumed to Chief Watkins and Dudley Douglas with my money. Either that or a group of cops interested in shooting us to death for being, well, criminals attempting to profit from another criminal’s crime.
I’d gotten Diabloman some bottled water from the penthouse fridge and he was taking his pills while Cindy sat beside him, watching HBO. Amanda Douglas was sitting beside me on a finely appointed couch, looking positively mystified at the insane situation she’d found herself in.
“So, let me get this straight. You’re supervillains my father hired to rescue me from other supervillains?” Amanda asked, sipping her diet soda.
“That’s about the size of it,” I said.
“That’s cool,” Amanda Douglas said. “My dad is kinda supervillain-ish. He holds the black masses to his dark god on weekends. I never get to see them.”
“You should ask about that,” Cloak suggested.
“Someone else’s problem,” I muttered then clasped my hands together and spoke in a normal voice. “I hope you don’t blame me for any trauma you may have suffered being surrounded by a half-dozen dead hoods.” I gestured to the carnage around us. “I wanted to do this without violence.”
“Oh, don’t worry about it,” Amanda said. “It gives me something to talk to my therapist about.”
“This situation has gone so far past the point of insanity it’s come around and become mundane again,” Cloak observed.
“You noticed that too, huh?” I smiled. “I think she has an excellent career in supervillainy ahead of her…or corporate finance.”
Seconds later, Chief Watkins and Dudley Douglas arrived with a trio of police officers behind them.
Chief of Police Watkins was a gray-haired man in his sixties who resembled Sean Connery. He was wearing a beige trench coat over a pair of brown pants and a white shirt with a brown tie. Chief Watkins looked a lot more dashing than he was, given the city was suffering its worst crime rate in eighty years.
Dudley, on the other hand, looked very much a Japanese man trying to look like a Texas oil baron. He wore a ten gallon hat, a ten thousand dollar suit, and a smile which looked like it came from a plastic surgeon. Dudley was carrying a duffel bag over his left shoulder, which I hoped contained half a million dollars.
“You do realize they’re going to try and arrest you, right?”
“Don’t worry. I have a plan.” I raised my hands into the air as if surrendering. I had no intention of doing so, though.
“How reassuring.”
I stood up, pointing my fingers at both of them. “I know what you’re going to say, Chief. I didn’t mention I robbed a bank earlier this morning and sort-of, kind-of, killed someone. Then, of course, you walk into this hotel room and you discover about a half-dozen more bodies and you think you’re dealing with a homicidal lunatic. Well, I’ll have you know, you’re incorrect. Homicidal lunatics kill for no reason, I kill people for money.”
Thank you, John Cusack.
Before they had a chance to respond, I continued, “The important thing to understand is everyone here who died... had it coming. I know; who are we to play judge, jury, and executioner—but the answer is: the people who have to deal with these psychos. The Nightwalker did a great job; I’m starting to understand what the man went through, having a magical cape talking to him day-in and day-out. However, let’s face facts, he’s not coming back. You’re now two supervillains down at the cost of a mere five-hundred-fifty-thousand or so dollars. How many supervillains are active in Falconcrest City, thirty? Forty? One hundred?”
“Four hundred and eighty-nine,” Chief Watkins said before looking down at the corpse of the Typewriter and giving it a light kick. “Four hundred and eighty-eight.”
“What do you people even do at police headquarters? Keep tally of the dead?” I asked, looking at him sideways.
“Now see here—” Chief Watkins’ eyes narrowed.
“Never mind, my wife loves you. We here on Team Villain ™ wouldn’t have you any other way.”
And yes, I said the trade-mark initials.
“Go Team Villain!” Cindy jumped up and down while clapping. It was an impressive feat given she had a flame thrower on her back.
I continued, ignoring her, “Now let me paint you a picture: one supervillain in Falconcrest City, with maybe a half dozen or so supervillain henchman. The Society of Superheroes is too busy fighting alien invasions and extra-dimensional tentacle monsters to help with the crime here. I don’t like supervillains any more than you do, they cut into my business. Ponder the cost effectiveness of having someone willing to beat the psycho-killers of the city to death with a pipe.”
“This is never going to work.”
Chief Watkins stared at me for a long moment then narrowed his eyes. “Take your money and go, Merciless. Take your henchmen with you, too.”
Dudley Douglas tossed me the duffel bag, which I grabbed in mid-air. His daughter then ran up to him and gave him a hug.
“Thank you,” I said, almost disappointed. “Let’s go guys.”
Chief Watkins added under his breath, “We’ll talk later.”
Chapter Five
Where I Learn the Basics of Effective Supervillainy
Diabloman stared at my getaway vehicle. “You have to be joking.”
“I confess; it’s not traditional...” I trailed off.
“You drove a minivan here,” Cindy said, putting her hands on her hips. “A minivan, Gary.”
“Merciless, please,” I corrected. “And there’s nothing wrong with minivans.”
Okay, that was a big fat lie. My white minivan was anything but an appropriate transport for a supervillain. However, it’s not like I’d purchased it as a getaway vehicle. Mandy and I had once planned on having children and nothing said family car quite like minivan.
“Minivan, Gary.” Cindy shook her head, tying her red hair into girlish bunches. “Minivan.”
“Hush up,” I said. “A half-million dollar payday should be enough to warrant me a little respect.”
Diabloman snorted, hot air blowing out of the nostril slits of his mask. “I confess, it is nice to have an operation go off without a hitch. A year ago, this would be where the Nightwalker would show up to ruin our escape. Still, do not grow cocky. Once, I would not have been satisfied with anything less than a million dollars per heist.”
“Yeah, well, I just started this gig. I’m willing to work my way up to the Devil of Durango standards.” I unlocked the car. “I’m happy to drop you off anywhere you want before I return to my villainous lair.”
“You mean your house in the suburbs?” Cindy asked, sliding on in. “I was at the after-wedding party, remember.”
I winced before correcting her. “Yes, my villainous lair.”
Diabloman gave a hearty chuckle before climbing in and strapping on his seatbelt. “Many an insidious and cruel villain has begun his career in the microcosm of suburbia.”
“Thanks, Diablo,” I said. Stepping into the driver’s seat, I started up the car. “So where do you want me to drop you guys off?”
“Kane and Morrison,” Diabloman said.
“Timm Blvd,” Cindy said.
Both named obscure parts of town, I didn’t at all mind driving to.
It would add about an hour to my travel time but I didn’t feel right asking them to take a cab, there were people crazy enough to mug a supervillain in this town.
As we drove along the city streets, I asked Diabloman, “So, could you give me a little advice to start off our mentor-student relationship?”
“Don’t eat yellow snow,” Diabloman said, gruffly.
“I hired you to be my evil Obi-Wan. The least you could do is take your job seriously.”
“Your first mistake was letting two known supervillains into your car while carrying half a million dollars. How do you know we’re not going to steal it?” Cindy asked, crossing her arms.
I paused, thinking. “Well, first off, I have superpowers. You don’t. Second, I’d take it personally.”
Cindy bit her lip, looking deep in thought. “Right. Never mind.”
“You have nothing to fear from me. It would be dishonorable to turn upon an employer before they have betrayed me.”
Cindy looked annoyed more than anything. “I never understood the whole ‘honorable supervillain’ shtick. Wouldn’t the fact alone that you’re a thief make you dishonorable?”
“No,” Diabloman said. “It would not.”
“It’s important for evil to have standards. Otherwise, nothing separates you from the common rabble,” I explained, using my great knowledge of evil derived from comic books and movies.
“You have already learned the first two lessons I would impart,” Diabloman said. “Show no fear to your enemies and never compromise whatever principles you choose to live by. These will make it so even your enemies respect you.”
“Were you serious about killing every other supervillain in Falconcrest City?” Cindy asked, just now realizing she wasn’t dealing with the harmless man she’d dated.
“If they get in my way, yeah,” I said, watching the various foreboding buildings of downtown pass by. “There can be just one king of the hill, after all. Plus, I don’t mind killing bad people. Is that a problem, Diablo?”