by C. T. Phipps
I almost said “Thanks for nothing” but decided to bite my tongue. “Is there anything else?”
“A nexus has died.”
“A what now?”
Cloak explained. “A nexus is an individual who, by some quirk of their nature or events, is one of the single most important individuals in the history of everything.”
“I, generally, don’t hold with the ‘one great man of history’ thing,” I said, shrugging. “Individuals don’t make history, people.”
“And you would be wrong,” Death explained. “This individual has saved the universe on numerous occasions, rescued countless worlds, inspired billions, and done more good than the collected histories of several civilizations.”
I blinked. “So, one of the big players in the superhero world.”
“Yes,” Death said.
“Someone I know?”
“Yeah.”
I tried to think of the various people it could be. The Nightwalker was at the top of the list but he’d died and became Cloak. Then there’s Ultragod but I couldn’t believe that would ever happen. He was the symbol of everything good in the world, not to mention the father of my ex-girlfriend Gabrielle.
I couldn’t see him dying.
Ever.
“That is a poor way to view the world. As great as Moses Anders is, at the end of the day, he is only human. Eventually, someday, he will go out into one of those many million-to-one odd fights and never return. It is the fate of all superheroes and one we have to accept if we are to face the sort of enemies we do.”
“Is it Ultragod?” I was afraid of the answer. I was surprised how little I cared about losing my protection. Instead, all I could think about was how his loss would devastate the superhero world and Gabrielle in particular. He’d been a symbol of hope and freedom for the entirety of the world.
No, it couldn’t be him.
Impossible.
“That is not my place to tell.”
“Just give vague, somewhat annoying clues to, huh?”
“That is the prerogative of gods, yes.”
I rolled my eyes. “So what exactly is it you want with his death? Assuming it’s already happened.”
“I want you to help solve it.”
I raised an eyebrow. “This seems a little out of your wheel-house. Since when has Death ever cared about justice?”
“Not justice, pride.”
“Eh?”
“The man who died had an appointed hour of death far from now, at a moment of epic cosmological importance. I am taking steps to rectify the situation so the destiny of the universe is not disrupted but this is against the rules. People are not supposed to go off-script.”
“I thought you said we had free-will and accord.”
“You do, but only within the lines.”
Of course. One thing I’d found to be true in this reality and every other one was there was never pure freedom. No matter where you went, there were the haves and the have nots. The haves were always trying to make sure the have nots didn’t become the gotta-gets too.
“So, someone broke destiny and you want me to whack em?”
“Essentially, yes.”
“What do I get in return?”
“My continued good will.”
“Keep going.”
Storm clouds slowly moved over the horizon and the sun disappeared. I conjured a beach umbrella made of ice above both me and Death, letting it catch the dark drizzle that poured down.
I wasn’t fazed in the slightest. “Looks like rain.”
Death narrowed her eyes and I guessed she was debating obliterating me or torturing me for a thousand years. Instead, she said. “I’ll owe you a favor.”
“What sort of favor?” I decided to continue to risk her disfavor. After all, I had nothing to live for and Mandy worshiped different gods so what did it matter? If I couldn’t have her, it didn’t matter what happened to me.
Death’s offer, though, changed my mind. “You can ask me for anything within my power to grant once this occasion is over.”
It was too good to be true.
“Of course it is.”
I couldn’t say no, though. “Including Mandy’s return?”
“Yes.”
I struggled to control my emotions, trying not to freak out. “No funny business?”
“No funny business.”
This was going to end badly, I just knew it. “Alright, I’ll be your hitman. Who do you want me to kill?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Where is he?”
“I can’t tell you that either.”
“Can you give me any clues, whatsoever?”
“You will have all you need to find them.”
I paused. “Are you just fucking me with now?”
“To answer that would cancel the favor.”
“So, yes.”
Death laughed. It was not a pleasant sounding chuckle but a full-on belly laugh. “This is the reason I keep you around, Gary. You are an endless source of amusement to a truly jaded soul. In any case, that is all I wanted to talk with you about.”
I wasn’t quite done yet. “One more thing. My powers have been acting up lately. I’ll need them in tip-top shape to do this mission, assuming it’s not just some random guy on the street I have to shiv.”
“It’s not and yes, your powers have been affected by recent events,” Death said, nodding.
“You tainted yourself with Zul-Barbas’ magic when you tried to resurrect Mandy and used the majority of your reserves destroying him. Since that time, you’ve also been training yourself with foreign magical sources in hopes of finding ways to restore your wife. These diminish your capacity to serve as my avatar.”
“Speak English, Doc.”
“You fucked up and aren’t as powerful as you used to be.”
“Ah.”
“No more teleporting with the Reaper’s scythe or killing gods. You also have a limited supply of necromantic energy again.”
“That’s definitely going to hurt my ability to take out your target.” I paused. “Hint, hint, drops a suggestion, hint, hint.”
“Fine. Take this,” Death said, conjuring a forty-thousand-dollar Louis Vuitton purse. Opening it up, she produced an ivory-handled hair brush and presented it to me.
I took the brush and stared at it. “A brush with Death, ha-ha. Funny.”
“Take out the scythe with your other hand.”
Confused, I produced the tiny pen which could transform into the Reaper’s scythe. I was now holding a pen and brush in my hands. “Okay.”
Death waved her hand over both and they became a pair of silver-plated Desert Eagle pistols. The two pistols seemed to connect with the magical energy inside me and then disappeared into the folds of my cloak.
“They’re made from swords wielded by Greek soldiers during the Maccabean revolt. They will channel your power through them and shoot out bullets made of hellfire. It will compensate, a little, for your reduced power.”
“Will they also allow me to shoot like Chow Yun Fat?”
“No, you will probably miss everything you shoot at if you fire them at the same time.”
“Figures.”
Beggars couldn’t be choosers, though, and if I was going to find and kill someone Death wanted dead, then I needed every advantage I could get. I knew enough magicians I could also probably get the weapons blessed so they could fire themselves. Which was good since I wasn’t exactly trained in how to use firearms.
At all.
“I hate guns. The superhero that uses them has shown he is incapable of fighting in a non-lethal manner and thus does not deserve the title.”
“Thankfully, I’m not a superhero. So, anything else, Death?”
Death looked honestly concerned for a moment. It was an expression that didn’t sit well on her face. “Good luck, Gary. If it’s any consolation, your wife would want you to be happy.”
I stared down at the guns in my hand. “That�
�s not really her decision to make.”
I woke up seconds later.
Chapter Six
Where I Meet with the Family
I woke up from my dream with a pounding headache. The encounter with Death was fresh in my mind and I had mixed emotions about the whole thing. If anyone in the world could bring Mandy back, it was Death, but I’d been burned before dealing with such a being.
I had to believe this would be the secret to my salvation.
But if it cost me Cindy, I didn’t know what to think.
“You should go speak to her,” Cloak said. “Try to resolve this before it is unfixable.”
“Why do you care?”
“I could say it is because I pushed away my own family and loved ones. Because I know what it is like to die alone because an obsession dominated my life. But, in truth, it is because I care for you both. You are like the son and daughter I never had.”
“Who you’re trying to set up together.”
“...alright, that metaphor went in an odd direction.”
“I’ll go talk to her after I’m decent.”
“So, never?”
“Ha-ha.”
“Honesty is the best policy,” Cloak suggested.
“I’ve never found that to be the case.”
“How do you feel about her?”
I was silent. “I’m not sure that matters.”
“I can’t imagine that’s the case.”
I slipped out of bed, took a shower, and got dressed in a pair of shorts and a Hawaiian shirt with a pair of sandals. A reminder to do the laundry since I was down to vacation apparel. Taking a look in the mirror, I gave myself an appreciative glance. I was a handsome man, a quality that separated me from many of my fellow geeks. My body had seemingly gotten more and more buff the longer I wore the Reaper’s cloak.
I kept my head shaved since becoming a supervillain, a quality that just seemed right. Also, it concealed the fact I had hair as golden as Jaime Lannister. No one took a blond supervillain seriously. Putting on a pair of sunglasses, I headed down the hallway to Cindy’s room, trying to figure out what I wanted to say to her.
“Do you know how I met Cindy?”
“You met her in a seedy hotel serving as a makeshift brothel. There, she was an underaged prostitute and was witness to your murdering the anti-hero Shoot-Em-Up. She recognized you from school and agreed to keep your secret. You were both fourteen. Later, you befriended her to keep her quiet and became partners-in-crime until your college years when she went on to study medicine while you became a history major.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I’ve been manipulating Cindy since the first time we met. Even if I did love her, how would I know it wasn’t just to keep someone useful by my side?”
“I think you’d know.”
“Well, I don’t.”
The door to Cindy’s room was slightly ajar and heading on in, I saw it had been cleaned out. Gone were weapons, explosives, her stuffed animal collection, and her collection of sexy theme costumes. The only thing left was a framed selfie of me, Mandy, Diabloman, and herself. It had been taken during the night of the Fall with all of us in costume. The picture was lying on the bed.
“Well, shit.”
“So what now?” Cloak asked.
“If you love something, set it free. If it comes back, it’s yours. If it doesn’t come back, it was never yours.”
“I’ve always found that an immensely stupid saying.”
“I’ll bear that in mind. In the meantime, I’m going to work on solving Death’s case.”
“I’ll lend my aid to you. I was, at one point, the world’s second greatest detective.”
“Who was the first?”
“Detective Duck.”
I shook my head. “Only in this world.”
Heading downstairs, I was struck how lonely the mansion was. Truly, it should have been populated with a horde of servants waiting at my beck and call but I wasn’t comfortable with that sort of life. I had no interest in the Downton Abbey existence and preferred to look after myself. Still, right now, being in a gigantic house with only my immediate family wasn’t improving my mood.
Seeing a couple of ghosts hanging around my kitchen, I decided to go speak with my sister. The mansion kitchen was larger than my first apartment with a checkerboard floor, a walk-in freezer we barely used, and a table in the center where both my sister and my niece sat. Sunlight was streaming through the windows and it looked to be about seven or eight in the morning.
Kerri wore a black bath-robe with a little spider-motif on her label. My niece, Lisa, was a pink-haired girl with pigtails wearing a pair of hot pants and an Ultragoddess T-shirt. They were having breakfast and coffee with a trio of newspapers on the table.
Kerri was my younger sister by a few years and had been the baby of the family. As a result, she’d never really gotten to know my brother Keith the way I did and had been immunized to his supervillainous influences. Lisa, by contrast, was his daughter, and had the same level of hero worship for me I’d once had for her father.
After Lisa’s mother had abandoned her, marrying the publisher of her book I Was a Supervillain’s Sex Slave, Lisa had come to live with Kerri instead. Now both of them had decided living in my mansion was better than trying to scrape out a living in New Angeles. It had its downsides, though, like the fact ghosts followed my sister faster than I could dispel them.
There were also a half-dozen ghosts present right now, in fact, the most recognizable one being an overweight middle-aged man in a sequin jumpsuit with a cape. He had an epic pair of sideburns and was wearing a pair of mirrored sunglasses that did nothing to disguise his identity.
“Shouldn’t he be in Graceland?” I asked, pointing to the King.
“Tourists were bad enough when they were alive,” the King said. “They’ve gotten worse after death.”
“Ah,” I said.
“I noticed Cindy left,” Kerri said, buttering some toast for me. “What happened last night?”
“Stuff,” I said, wondering just how badly I’d screwed up. “How serious did she look?”
“In my experience, women do not move out on a whim.”
“Cindy sang a variation of ‘Do You Want To Build a Snowman’ called ‘Do You Want To Rob a Jewelry Store’ outside your door before you woke up,” Kerri said. “When you didn’t answer, she took the Ferrari and drove off in a funk.”
I blinked. “She went Disney on our break-up? That is serious.”
“Are you breaking up?”
“Are you even dating?” Lisa said, looking at me sideways. “I thought you were a supervillain-henchwoman, shared lunacy sort of thing.”
“It’s complicated.”
Kerri buttered some toast for the King. “Cindy loves Gary, Gary is in mourning for his dead wife, but he kind of likes her as well.”
“Okay, perhaps not so complicated.”
“What’s the problem then?” Lisa asked.
“Gary resurrected Mandy badly with necromancy and is trying to fix his mistake so she’s not zombie Mandy anymore,” Kerri said, handing the toast to the King.
“Thank ya, thank ya very much,” the King said, taking it.
“Vampire Mandy, not zombie Mandy,” I corrected, “albeit not the sexy kind of vampire. Less Anne Rice and more Near Dark.”
“It’s all very tragic and Dark Shadows,” Kerri said.
“I’m sorry I asked,” Lisa said, watching the toast free-float to her eyes. “No, seriously, I really am sorry I did.”
I sat down at the table and picked up my copy of the Falconcrest City Herald. “Yeah, well, it’s my problem and I’ll deal with it.”
“Like you’ve been dealing with everything else since Mandy’s death?” Kerri asked.
I glared at my sister. “Like you have so much to complain about.”
“The city is finally starting to recover,” Kerri said. “I think you should focus on helping with that. Don’t let obsession cloud your judgmen
t and just let time work things out. Maybe Mandy’s spook will show up sometime.”
“Death said she’s at peace.” I ignored the rest of her statement.
“Oh, how is she?”
“Fine,” I said, checking the newspaper headlines one by one. “Did any major heroes or villains die last night?”
“No,” Kerri said. “Not that’s been reported, why?”
“Just a feeling,” I said, putting the reports down. “Listen, things may be getting hairy in the next few days because of a bounty on my head. As a result, there are going to be some safety precautions—”
“You’re finally going to train me to be Mercilass?” Lisa said, suddenly paying attention.
I frowned at her. “No.”
“I don’t have to be Mercilass. I could be Dangergirl, Lil’ Lisa, the Pink-Haired Killer, The Bubblegum Bandit—”
“The Bubblegum Bandit, really?” I asked.
Lisa shrugged her shoulders. “I saw this great deal on Crime Bay for a glue gun. I figured I could use hot pink ammo.”
“While not a bad idea, I have to ask: Don’t you have superpowers?” Lisa was every bit the Natural Super as Kerri.
“Little light sparks. That barely qualifies.”
“Any superpower is better than none at all. Be that as it may, you’re not going to be a supervillain.”
“Is this one of those ‘do as I say, not as I do’ things?” Lisa asked, crossing her arms and leaning back in her chair.
“No, it’s me telling you you’re not going to be a supervillain because I say so. One of the benefits of actually being a supervillain is I don’t have to worry about hypocrisy.”
During the Fall, I’d found out from Keith’s ghost he’d never wanted me to follow in his footsteps as a supervillain. I’d idolized my brother the same way Lisa now idolized me, and it had been a sobering revelation to discover that Keith was not only horrified by my life choices but also genuinely remorseful for his actions committed as Stingray.
It was too late for me, and by too late I meant I liked being a supervillain and had no intention of stopping, but I wasn’t about to let Lisa go down the same road. I’d explained to Lisa about Keith’s desires, that crime didn’t pay, and both the mental and physical consequences of the supervillain lifestyle. Unfortunately, my living in a gigantic mansion with a sexy supervillainess had given her mixed signals.