Please Don't Tell My Parents I'm a Supervillain

by Richard Roberts

  We, on the other hand, were getting out of here as fast as possible. But behind us a boy screamed, “Wait! Help!” He climbed up over the tombstone he’d been hiding behind, waving his arm. Behind him a man in a ragged robe climbed over the next tombstone and raised a bloody shovel.

  I’d been starting to run anyway. As I set my foot down, I blinked behind the boy. Flicking the switch from shell to knife, I swung my wand and chopped off both of the evil gravedigger’s arms at the elbow. Wrapping an arm around the boy, I teleported us back to the group and felt very grateful as Ray grabbed the boy and Claire put her arm around me to help me run. A teleport carrying someone else was a bad way to start a sprint for my life.

  Nothing else jumped out at us as we ran for the gate. The cemetery pretended to be quiet and peaceful. The wrought iron gate was locked, of course. Ray didn’t need ordering. It was solid, but with two tugs and a lot of screeching metal, he pulled it out of its frame and threw it away.

  The five of us charged out of the graveyard, off the sidewalk, and onto a deserted city street. Actually, a deserted small town street. Every window was dark.

  I really did not want to call attention to myself here, but if there were more survivors we could not leave them in the Horror section. Trying to watch every direction at once, I yelled, “If anybody here is still alive, this is your rescue!”

  I gripped my wand tightly as movement happened everywhere, but it wasn’t monsters. I’d made the right decision. Five people crawled out of dark doorways and garbage cans and parked cars, sobbing with relief as they crowded around us. We might be thirteen, but we were dressed like superheroes and looked confident.

  Nothing else moved. Claire put it unpleasantly well. “It’s too quiet. We’re not going to like it when we find out why.”

  “Mystery has to be here somewhere. Horror isn’t a big section,” I insisted.

  Ray’s head turned back and forth. Then he pointed. “There. That building. It’s not run down; it’s just old fashioned.”

  It was. We stampeded over to it in a crowd. It looked plain, mostly cement blocks, with a big window on the first floor looking into a darkened restaurant. No, a diner. More importantly, the colors were wrong.

  The whole building was sepia tone. Ray had called it right, and I wanted to kiss him. More than usual.

  The building had a side door, and light peeked through behind a rolled down blind. Ray pulled on the door handle, which opened normally. We headed down the beige hallway, grateful for working light bulbs and trying not to stare at our own sepia toned selves.

  The hallway let into a little atrium with an empty night desk, an elevator, and stairs. The elevator looked rickety and old fashioned. We ignored it and climbed up the stairs.

  The second floor was just a hallway with doors, plain and uninteresting. The third was the same, except one of the doors had a light behind the frosted window.

  We made our way, superheroes and refugees, down the hall toward the door. Just before we reached it the door opened, and a sour-looking man in a loose-fitting suit wearing a fedora growled, “Quiet down. It’s a bad night out there. You kids should be home in your beds.”

  “Are you a gumshoe?” I asked. He had to be.

  “Assuming anyone on Earth ever uses that word, yeah,” he snapped back.

  Sweet Tesla’s Resonating Bells, yes. A 1930s mystery novel detective. Exactly what I needed. I jerked a thumb over my shoulder at the seven miserable Horror escapees. “I’ve got a job for you. Guard these people while we fix this mess.”

  His lip curled up in disgust as he looked over the crowd, then back down at me. His voice sharp with suspicion, he asked, “What does it pay?”

  I flipped up my visor and looked him straight in the eyes. “Nothing.”

  He glared for nearly one whole second before sagging in a huge, put-upon sigh. “I thought as much. Come on in, folks.”

  The refugees obeyed. They sat in chairs, on the desk, and against the walls, sagging with absolute relief as they watched the detective prop his own wooden chair in the doorway and pull out a revolver.

  “Is there a catwalk around here anywhere?” Ray asked the detective as I lowered my visor and turned away.

  “Fire escape. Bathroom at the end of the hall,” the man growled.

  Smart boy, Ray. Innocents saved, The Inscrutable Machine walked down to the end of the hall and turned the corner. Sure enough, at the end was a door with “Washroom” printed on it, and on the wall next to it another door labeled “Fire Escape.”

  We had wasted too much time trying to navigate the altered library. We had to get to the Orb of the Heavens and hope the remaining villains had been just as delayed. I knew Ray felt my impatience, because he pushed the Fire Escape door off its hinges without testing the lock. We all stepped out eagerly into a world of color and sunshine again.

  The catwalk had changed, but we had definitely found it. We stood next to a small area of sepia colored cement blocks discoloring a vast, stone castle wall. A white stone bridge stretched across a gap to another identical castle, a goliath of turrets and parapets and hundred-foot high walls that merged into the rock they sat on. Way down below us, the library’s idiosyncratic pit had been transformed into a bowl-shaped primeval valley, thick with greenery and a brightly feathered T-Rex that stomped lazily around its kingdom. A fiery star gleamed in the very center. That would be the Orb of the Heavens. We just had to get down there and guard it, as soon as we dealt with one little problem.

  The Librarian and She Who Wots dueled in the very center of the bridge. I might have been guessing about the others, but this plain teenage girl in her slovenly schoolgirl outfit could only be She Who Wots. She didn’t fight. She stood slumped forward, arms hanging, staring at the floor of the bridge. As I watched, a line of drool fell onto the flagstones. Ew.

  Her companion did the fighting. Even in bright sunlight, it was sunk so deeply in shadows I couldn’t make out the exact shape. Bipedal, with horns and smaller, twitching tendrils, it looked demonic. It held its arms out to either side, and from a probably open mouth flew a swarm of words. More words flew from the open book the Librarian held in front of her. Lines of text fought between them like a cloud of razors, slicing and smashing each other apart.

  On the one hand, I didn’t want to get near that cloud of literary death. On the other hand, I absolutely did not want She Who Wots to win, leaving us to face that alone.

  Which raised a question. “I can’t tell who’s winning.”

  I’d meant to ask Ray and Claire. Instead, the Librarian spoke up. She sounded decidedly cross. “I am. I will attend to you delinquents in a moment. She only knows the forbidden words. I know all the words.”

  Oh, boy. I’d really wanted the Librarian on our side.

  The shadow thing laughed, in the rough voice of a half-asleep teenage girl. “I know your weakness. It is written on the underside of your tongue, old woman. You fear fire, the fire of Alexandria, the fire you couldn’t stop.”

  Flopping clumsily, the teenage girl’s hand crawled into her book bag and pulled out an old, yellowed scroll. Mostly yellow. The end had burned off, leaving black char and orange embers. She tossed it out to drop pathetically onto the bridge in between her and the Librarian.

  Three orange sparks floated up off the scroll as it hit. One of the swirling, violent words struck the first spark, and the whole cloud went up in flames. The Librarian shrieked, and burning words closed around her in a ball of flame. Worse for us, walls of fire sprung up on either side of the bridge, sealing us in.

  The Librarian might think we were bad guys, but she had to win this fight, and, as a superheroine, I had to help her. Oh, criminy.

  I took a step forward, ignoring the wave of ache and tiredness and my desire to wheeze as I teleported down the bridge behind She Who Wots. A few words circled around us, but not many and they weren’t on fire.

  I had to act fast. A frontal assault had been impossible. Instead, I clonked She Who Wots on the back
of her head with my wrist, with The Machine wrapped around it. If she was under a curse that should break it. Or maybe it would just knock her out.

  Instead, the shadow demon whined, “Ow.”

  Words whipped out of the cloud, wrapping around me like snakes. The first sentence grabbed my ankles, preventing me from teleporting. Increasingly painful heat around my waist told me some of the words were on fire, but the word “paraceratherium” held my head still. I couldn’t look down, only across at Ray and Claire behind the globe of fire, helpless to rescue me. I also got an unpleasantly close-up look at a shadowy face that squirmed like maggots as it turned to examine me.

  I didn’t have time to panic. At that moment, the fiery dome exploded, and the Librarian walked out through it. Ashes and sparks of flame clung to her clothing and her hair, but she’d escaped. She’d left behind the giant book. Instead, she held a small book with a blackened cover in both hands.

  The old woman could glare, and her voice squeaked and grated with anger. “I know your weakness as well, Abigail Tinsley.” She flipped open the book, and read, “April 12. I had so much homework to do today. It took me three hours. Mom made me sit at the kitchen table until every problem was done, even the book report—”

  “No! NO!” yelled the shadow demon, staggering back. The cloud of words disappeared, including the ones on fire. Including the ones holding me. I was free.

  “—that isn’t due until Monday. I yelled at her a lot, and now I don’t know how to tell her I’m grateful. I’d still be flunking everything if she didn’t nag me this way. Now I’m getting As.”

  “Noooooooooooo!” shrieked She Who Wots herself. The teenage girl fell to her knees, bloodstained hands cupping her face as she sobbed. Then she fell again onto her side, and the shadowy monster disappeared, leaving a messy and helplessly bawling girl all alone in front of me.

  The fires on either side of the bridge hadn’t gone out. I beckoned desperately to Ray and Claire, and they ran past The Librarian, past She Who Wots, and we left them reading the next diary entry as we fled down the bridge and through the door there.

  I’d more than half expected something horrible and deadly, like the Horror section. Instead, this room hadn’t changed at all. Books lined shelves marked with Dewey Decimal numbers. We wandered down them past the Reference desk. That made sense to me. Enchant a library all you like, the Reference section would stay the Reference section.

  Except all three librarians stationed at the desk were the same woman. The one in front snapped her book shut and growled, “I told you children you’re next.”

  “But we’re here to help you!” Claire squeaked back. Her blue eyes stared fearfully at the Librarian as she rocked from side to side, both arms clenched around a pillow sized blue and red rag doll.

  Even the Librarian wasn’t immune to Claire’s power. She looked flustered, then scowled again in exasperation rather than fury. “You belong in the children’s section until your parents come to get you.”

  That was definitely better than having to fight her directly, but we couldn’t let her trap us until a hero arrested us, either. The card catalog next to her rattled, drawers jiggling until one slid open, a card floated out, and expanded into a doorway. On the other side the talking animals of the children’s section tended their wounds.

  I turned around and ran through the regular door that led from Reference out onto the top floor balcony. The window was still there, as were the barnacles. If we had time I’d have chanced them, but behind us the Librarian growled, “You belong in the children’s section!” and stalked out from behind the desk, orbited by dictionaries and encyclopedias and almanacs.

  Way down at the bottom of the stairs, Lucyfar shouted, “You kids are here? This rocks! Down here, hurry!”

  “The Librarian is right behind us!” I yelled back as I pushed Ray and Claire toward the frozen escalator.

  “Then hurry twice as fast!” Smart alec.

  We ran down the escalator, then the clouds, and as I jumped down the last few clouds they slid together. I looked back over my shoulder and watched the stairs compress, dragging the Librarian to us as she hobbled down the steps. A book whipped past right behind me. Then a black knife whipped past the other way, burying itself in the Librarian’s chest with an audible thump. Only sawdust leaked out, and the next knife hit a book instead.

  Ray’s arms grabbed hold of me, and the world went light as he jumped all the way down the rest of the stairs. Claire slid down the banister and landed next to us. Lucyfar had bought us a few seconds, but, as we reached her, she yelled, “I wouldn’t stop running!” and took off herself.

  I pushed out of Ray’s arms and we ran, following Lucyfar automatically. She led us into the History hallways, shouting, “If this doesn’t work, we’ll make our stand together!”

  “If what doesn’t work?” I asked, stumbling to a halt at a T intersection where Chimera and Cybermancer lurking on either side.

  The Librarian stalked down the hallway, books flapping. She wasn’t that far behind us. Cybermancer leaned out into the intersection and threw a tube of blue liquid at her. She swatted it with a book, and a blue wall burst out. On the other side, rows of beer bottles along either wall shattered one by one. Through the distorting blue, I saw colored light flash discordantly.

  The blue veil fell. The Librarian stood where she’d been, frozen and gray, a stone statue. Her books hung eerily in the air where they’d been, also turned to stone.

  I took a step forward, but my super power showed me what would happen if I touched her. I held onto the information I could. “Whatever you do, don’t touch her. She’s caught, but one touch and she’ll escape.”

  Everyone let out a collective sigh. Almost everyone. I walked over and leaned against the wall by Ray, but Lucyfar gave Chimera a high five and cheered, “Yes! Now we grab the Orb of the Heavens and get out of here! I suggest the roof. Very stylish, lightly defended.”

  All right. I’d gotten all the breath back I was going to get. I stood up straight and told Lucyfar, “No, we don’t.”

  Lucyfar wasn’t stupid, and she wasn’t confused. Crazy, maybe. Surprised, yes. She still knew exactly what I meant. “Wait, are you betraying us? I thought we were cool!”

  “We are,” I answered. “We’re betraying Spider and going hero.”

  Lucyfar, Chimera, and Cybermancer looked at each other. Then Lucyfar looked back at me. “I believe I speak for all of us when I say that you kids are awesome, and we’re behind you one hundred percent, except for the part where you’ll have to climb over our bruised and beaten bodies to do it.” Criminy, that grin. She looked like I’d announced Christmas would come twice this year.

  “I was expecting that,” I answered, as playfully as I could make myself sound. I had been. We all had been. Ray massaged his fists, Claire hugged her rag doll tighter with both arms, her own fists squeezed shut, and I put my hand on my sugar wand again.

  Behind Lucyfar, Chimera’s body swelled up another foot, scales running up his neck as his head grew serpentine, then added quills. “You ready to do this, Reviled?”

  “Oh, Reviled’s not your opponent,” I corrected him cheerfully, and, since I had absolutely no intention to fight fair, I dug into my pocket with my free hand for my cursed pennies.

  As my fingers closed around them, a gleaming black knife popped into existence in front of me and stabbed right at my face.

  Too fast. I pulled my foot off the floor, but that took too long. I wasn’t ready to teleport.

  Instead, a painfully sharp grip grabbed my upper arm and yanked me against the wall. The knife flew past without touching my helmet.

  I staggered back upright as Lucyfar flicked her hand, blades flashing into existence as she mimed tossing them up. One, two, three, four, five. Grinning more madly than ever, she took a step forward and explained, “Take this as a compliment. You kids are way too good to fight fair.”

  It took her a couple of seconds to say that, and I leaned forward. A kni
fe moved, but I could see just far enough around the corner. The hallway flashed into a new position as I teleported behind the Librarian and her floating, fossilized books. I just needed a second to make a new plan.

  I didn’t get it. A knife appeared in front of me, and another, stabbing down to stick in the floor as I staggered backwards. Lucy looked past the Librarian and waggled a finger. “Uh-uh.”

  Blast, I’d used this trick on her in our first fight, hadn’t I?

  Ray had a much better trick. He snapped the brass door handle off the nearest door and threw it at Lucy’s head while she looked at me. It would have taken a hand the size of a catcher’s mitt to stop it—a hand like Chimera’s, bloated and hairy and clawed. He reached past Lucyfar and caught the door handle in his paw.

  So, obviously, I teleported right behind him. I still had my wand out. A candy shell wouldn’t slow him down much, so, Tesla help me, I would carve his back open with the knife. If I got his spine, that would end the fight. He’d heal. I knew he’d heal.

  All that guilt earned me nothing. I dropped into place right behind him, and, unlike Lucy, he hadn’t learned to look around when I disappeared. He didn’t have to. He had a snake tail. Not a tail like a snake’s, a snake growing out of his backside, long fangs extended as it struck at me.

  I squealed. I swung my arm. I already had the wand out and set to knife, and I cut the head right off the snake. Some blood sprayed out, not much, but Chimera’s roar of pain came as he was already turning to swing an arm back at me.

  I fell back, dropping a foot behind me, looked past Chimera and Lucy and teleported into a spot behind Ray. Then I wheezed. Too many teleports, too fast!

  Ray’s slim, black body twisted, and he yanked open the door next to him. Three knives slammed into it, thump-thump-thump, their tips showing through the wood. He pulled the door right off its frame, swung it, and I heard more clattering of knives.