by C. T. Phipps
I’d trained myself through trial and error in the rudiments of sorcery. I’d learned to use the Reaper’s Cloak as a focus to compensate for the fact I had the magical potential of a newt. All of that had failed until I’d been informed by Adonis that my best chance had been in Falconcrest City the whole time.
And now Mandy had destroyed it.
Goddammit!
Why?
Cindy picked up a piece of the shattered stone. “Wow, J.R.R. Tolkien really overstated the durability of magical artifacts.”
“This is no time for jokes!” I snapped at her.
Cindy looked down at him. “It’s always time for jokes, Gary. That’s the only thing you can do when you’re too sad to cry.”
I opened my mouth, then closed it.
She was right.
“I like what I am,” Mandy said, shaking her head. “The sooner you realize that, the better. Mandy Anne Karkofsky was a weakling and a loser. She never got the chance to be the secret agent she was born to be so she settled for being a housewife. It wasn’t until you were locked up in prison that she got the chance to explore what she wanted to be—a superhero. Even then, she could never be the kind she wanted to be as long as you were around playing villain. Face it, Gary—you were holding her back.”
“You’re lying to Cindy to make her feel better, aren’t you?” Cloak said.
“You’re damn right I am. This is the third worst day of my life. Cindy is the most important in the world left to me, outside of immediate family, though.”
“Then maybe you should let her know that.”
“Shut up, Cloak.”
Cindy picked up her fire axe where she’d left it. “So, you want to go blow up something to make ourselves feel better?”
“We should probably check on Diabloman first.”
As if on cue, which was happening a lot tonight, a hole in the East wall of the cathedral exploded outward and Diabloman stepped through. He was a huge man, almost seven-feet-tall, with a body built like the bricks he’d just bashed through.
Diabloman was dressed in a crimson luchador wrestler’s attire with a demon-themed mask, having traded away his usual business suit for something more practical. On his chest and arms were hundreds of tattoos that wiggled and writhed with magical power.
In the late eighties to the early nineties, Diabloman had been one of the greatest supervillains in the world. He’d killed the Guitarist and, by accident, his sister Spellbinder. Time and guilt hadn’t been kind to him, and now he worked for me. I’d paid for his daughter’s medical school as well as gotten jobs for his entire extended family in the Merciless Media Franchise. He was still an incredibly dangerous man but probably needed a rest after going for more than ten minutes of fighting.
“I am here, Boss!” Diabloman shouted, shaking off the skeletal arm of a zombie which had wrapped itself around his ankle.
“You’re a bit late,” I said, staring at my second-in-command. “A for effort, though.”
“Could you smash through the wall again and go ‘Oh yeah!’?”
“Oh yeah?” Diabloman asked.
“Louder and with a pitcher of Kool-Aid in hand,” Cindy suggested.
Diabloman glared.
I tried not to snigger and failed. It was an empty gesture but one born from a desire to feel something other than utter desolation at this disaster. One more attempt to make up for my wife’s death and unholy resurrection and all it had resulted in were more senseless deaths.
“I take it the meeting did not go well?” Diabloman said, walking through the battlefield’s aftermath.
“Yeah, you could take it that way. You could also take it as things turning into a complete clusterfuck.”
“Vamp-Mandy arrived to show the Bokor her particular brand of justice,” Cindy said, kicking Sister Christian’s corpse. “Someone is also offering twenty-million dollars to kill Gary.”
“Si,” Diabloman said. “I heard of that.”
“You didn’t think to mention that?”
“If I mentioned everyone who wanted to kill you, Boss, we’d never leave the house.”
I trembled with rage. “You are the antithesis of everything my wife stood for. You are a hollow mockery of a woman you are unworthy of speaking the name of. She was the heir to the Nightwalker and you are a mistake made from my grief. I correct my mistakes.”
Mandy’s expression then changed and for a moment I saw something pass her face that I didn’t expect to see—shame and guilt. I couldn’t help but wonder how much of the taunting she’d done was an act. That was when she drove it from her face and growled at me. “I don’t think you have the stones for it, especially since I broke yours. A pity—if you did, we might be able to have some fun. I could make you and Cindy like me. You two could finally have that perverted little threesome you’ve always wanted.”
I summoned every bit of my fury and created a fireball in my hand.
“Gary, I don’t think—” Cindy started to say.
I threw it at Mandy. It sailed over her shoulder. I’d deliberately chosen to miss. I couldn’t kill her. I slumped over.
Dammit.
Mandy looked behind her to the car that had been incinerated across the street. For a moment, she looked unsettled, then returned back to her contemptuous look. “See? I told you. Face it, Gary, we’re bound together. Perhaps it—”
That was when Cindy shot her in the chest with a wooden crossbow bolt. The bolt missed her heart but came perilously close.
Mandy’s mouth began to drip black fluid. “You...bitch.”
“The alpha bitchiest.” Cindy proceeded to pull out an old-fashioned Super-Soaker water pistol from her picnic basket and started spraying Mandy with its contents. “I had my rabbi bless this. I was told they don’t usually do this sort of thing, but they were willing to make an exception once I told them it was for one of the Children of Lilith.”
The water burned the vampire’s face like acid. Mandy screamed and smoked, transforming herself into a bat before flying out the shattered window she’d come in through. It left us alone in the ruined cathedral, surrounded by corpses.
“Thank you,” I said, watching her depart.
“No sweat,” Cindy said, reloading her super-soaker.
“Where’s Buffy when you need her?” I said, sighing.
“I kind of look like Sarah Michelle Gellar and Alyson Hannigan’s lesbian science baby.”
I gave her a sideways look.
“Or not.” Cindy put away her super-soaker. “You realize she was trying to get in your head, right?”
“Yeah. She succeeded too. Whatever the case, I think I’ve finally accepted there’s nothing left of Mandy in that thing. She’s the ex-wife now.”
Cindy paused. “Does this mean you’re giving up?”
I stared down at the broken crystal. “No, I’m a fucking supervillain who is the chosen champion of Death. I live in a world where people are cloned, resurrected, reincarnated, and brought from alternate timelines all the time. If it takes another year, if it takes ten or a hundred years, I’m going to get Mandy back.”
“Good,” Cindy said, her voice determined. “I’ll be with you every step of the way.”
I looked over at her. “I’m going to start living my life like it’s not going to happen tomorrow, though. I have other people counting on me and you’ve shown me the best way to honor my wife is to do good in her name.”
Cindy brightened considerably. “I think that’s a very healthy attitude. Your wife wouldn’t want you to be miserable forever.”
“I agree.”
He had a point there. “Know who is making the offer?”
“No,” Diabloman said, “which is part of the reason why very few of the professionals are interested in taking up the offer. No wants to deal with an open contract that doesn’t go through channels that can be verified. It is just one of many contracts which have been forwarded, though, on important supervillains and key figures in the underworld.”
/> “So why are they interested in Gary?” Cindy said, unintentionally insulting me.
“That is a very good question,” Diabloman said. “Tom Terror’s bounty is and has always remained a hundred million dollars dead or alive. Gary having one at a fifth of that is bizarre, especially since Falconcrest City considers him a hero.”
“You shut your mouth,” I said, pointing at him. “They do not.”
Diabloman let out an audible sigh. “I will keep my ear to the ground, though. I suspect the parties responsible have ties to the government.”
That made sense. Ever since President Charles Omega had taken office seven years ago, he’d done his absolute best to make life a living hell for supers in general and supervillains in particular. While being anti-supervillain wasn’t a platform anyone could really object to, even amongst supervillains, he’d made a lot of questionable decisions which had gotten a lot of people killed. Omega’s worst had been sealing off Falconcrest City and preventing superheroes from intervening during the Fall, almost like he’d wanted to get everyone killed. Worse, he’d managed to spin the whole thing so he’d become even more popular, blaming the Society of Superheroes for not intervening sooner. The bigger the lie, the more people were willing to believe it. Well, except if it was something stupid like the honesty of politicians or the moon being made of cheese. There were limits.
“So, I repeat, do you want to go blow up something to make us all feel better?” Cindy said.
“Not tonight. I’m all blowing up stuff-ed out. It’s back to the drawing board on Mandy’s resurrection. I also need to figure out if I should proof my house for black ops teams breaking in through the windows.”
“Our organization’s psychics haven’t reported anything of that sort yet,” Diabloman said.
“Because they did such a bang-up job here,” I said.
“They said there was a forty-percent chance he’d betray you,” Diabloman replied. “Precognition is not an exact science.”
“Fine, fine. I still want to call it a night. Tomorrow, we can figure out if President Omega’s people are behind this and what to do about it.”
“I could seduce him and incriminate him by forcing him to lie about the affair under oath!” Cindy said.
“It’s been done.”
“We can replace him with a clone!”
“Even more done.”
“Donate lots and lots of money to his opponent?”
“He’s not up for re-election.”
Cindy crossed her arms. “Let’s see you come up with something suitably mayhem-ish involving the president.”
I thought about my answer, then shrugged. “I’ll think of something. Even by our standards, bringing down the President of the United States should be a Level-1 project.”
“You really are archvillain material,” Diabloman said.
The Fruitbat, meanwhile, moaned and slowly climbed to his feet. The seven-foot-tall batman spread out his wings and looked ready to pounce before he noticed all of his confederates were dead.
Cindy pulled out her fire axe. “Ready for round two?”
I raised my hand. “I don’t think that will be necessary.”
“Oh?” Cindy said, looking disappointed.
Doing my best Al Pacino impression, I said, “You want a job, Fruitbat?”
The Fruitbat nodded vigorously. It spoke in a hissing slavish tone. “Yessssssssssss, master, I would love job.”
I pulled out my business card with the address of my villainous lair and handed it over. “Report here on Monday. The Cool Crew of Crooks offers medical coverage, a 401K, and legal fees, but we have a strict non-compete clause as well as rules against certain behaviors. Do not, I repeat do not, work on Saturdays or eat pork. It offends our more orthodox members.”
The Fruitbat looked confused.
“Just take the card,” I said.
The Fruitbat did so and flew out the window.
“Fewer and fewer supervillains understand my jokes these days,” I muttered, watching him fly away.
“That was a joke? If so, I’ve been losing a lot of Saturday business,” Cindy deadpanned.
“I’m sorry about what happened tonight,” Cloak said, sounding genuinely concerned. “I know it must have hurt to see Mandy that way.”
“You have no idea,” I whispered.
“What do you want to do about the diamonds?” Diabloman said.
I looked at the Bokor’s magical trinkets. “Gather them up, I guess. I’ll work some magic over them and send their souls on their way to Death. She’ll sort them into their various afterlives as appropriate.”
“No, I meant the ten million dollars in diamonds you brought to buy the stone.”
“Oh.” I looked over at the briefcase, discarded in a corner.
You knew you’d made it as a supervillain when you ceased to worry about money. Once you were really good at your job, you could always steal more than you could ever hope to spend. Once money had been my chief motivation and why I’d become a supervillain, that and honoring my brother Keith. Now? Now I really didn’t give a shit about it, despite events making me richer than God. I’d give away everything for one more moment with Mandy.
Not that money wasn’t good.
Very good.
“Do you want it?” I asked my henchmen. I didn’t want to look like I still cared about that sort of thing with my henchmen.
Diabloman shrugged. “You have been generous to me beyond belief.”
“Cindy?”
Cindy grimaced at the prospect of turning down wealth, then said through the fakest smile possible, “The hospital is paid up through the year. I also live with you and use your credit cards.”
She was trying to be good. Trying to be a hero. She was just terrible at it.
I shrugged. “I dunno, we’ll give it to charity or something then.”
“Great!” Cindy said, looking in positive agony.
I decided I’d tell her she didn’t have to be charitable as well as heroic.
Someday.
Chapter Four
Awkward Confessions
Falconcrest City was a different place now. Once it had been a crime-ridden hellhole full of freaks, weirdoes, and murderers. It still was, but it once had included a thriving nightlife, prosperous businesses, and a populace unafraid to travel the streets even when they probably shouldn’t have been. Those things were gone. The streets were now empty at night and many of the local businesses were now boarded up.
I’d ended up buying much of Downtown Falconcrest with the money I’d stolen from the Brotherhood of Infamy and was doing my best to rebuild the place. Ironically, it meant I was probably the richest asshole in town and the target of plenty of attempted thefts by supervillains. There were some benefits, though, of being the absolute biggest dog in a now much-smaller pond. I’d managed to pick up the Old Warren Estate for a song, and it was now my stately country home.
“I can’t believe what you did to my family home,” Cloak grumbled as the Mercilessmobile (formerly known as the Nightcar) pulled up in front of the mansion gates.
The Warren Estate was a three-hundred room, three-building mansion that resembled a palace with over a mile of gardens surrounding it. A single large hill was directly behind the main house with its own observatory and a secret entrance to the massive bunker Arthur Warren had commissioned as the first headquarters for the Society of Superheroes. The site now sported a gigantic flashing set of neon letters that spelled out “Mercilessland.” The house had also been painted in a rather garish shade of red with a huge statue of me in marble adorning the driveway fountain. There were similar statues of all my henchmen and colleagues spread throughout the garden now.
“Oh, come on,” I said, turning the car keys off. “I think it’s an improvement in several ways.”
“You’ve ruined a place of great historical significance.”
“Ruined or made better?”
“Ruined.”
The roof of the Mercil
ess Mobile slid open in lieu of a car door opening and I stepped out alongside Cindy. Diabloman was in the backseat, still holding the handle for the briefcase of diamonds.
“Have you considered your additions to the house might be dangerous?” Diabloman asked.
I looked over my shoulder at Diabloman. “Dangerous? How?”
“I’d say it was a big neon sign pointing out where your hideout is but that’s kind of redundant,” Cindy said.
It was logical thinking that had no place in my world. “Au contraire, real-estate developer and supervillain rap mogul Gary Karkofsky is the only man who absolutely cannot be Merciless.”
Cindy crossed her arms. “This I’ve gotta hear.”
“You’ll be very pleased at my astoundingly genius method of preserving my secret identity.”
Cloak sighed in my head.
“Android, time-travel, or body doubles?” Diabloman asked.
“You’ve started wearing glasses as Gary?” Cindy suggested.
I shook my head. “I pay taxes as both Gary and Merciless. No one who does any investigation will believe I would give up an extra-portion of my loot to the government.”
They both stared at me.
I paused. “Okay, that sounded better in my head. Seriously, though, no one in town suspects I’m anything more than a collector of Falconcrest City’s signature supervillain memorabilia.”
A black and white police car pulled up beside the Mercilessmobile. The black police officer inside the driver’s seat rolled down his window and waved at the three of us. “Hey, Mister Karkofsky! Enjoyable night supervillain-ing?”
Okay, maybe some people suspected my identity. “Uhm, yes. I went to a costume party with my friends here, as the Cool Crooks Crew.”
“So you went as yourselves? Awesome.” The cop gave a friendly wave then pulled off.
A moment passed in silence.
“All right, it’s entirely possible my identity has been compromised,” I said, giving a dismissive wave. “The house is still protected by the best magic and mad science money can buy. What’s the worst that could happen?”