by Al Ewing
And this dream seemed especially potent and vivid.
A dream of murder.
Murder, and a man in a mask the colour of blood.
She shook her head, brow furrowed. Did the mask cover his whole face, or just his eyes? She frowned, marring her beauty with her frustration for a single instant. Trying to catch a dream and remember it was like trying to hold smoke in your hands. This one was gone.
She dismissed the remnants of it from her mind for the moment and stretched idly, enjoying the emptiness of the bed. There was something rather decadent about having it all to herself, lounging in that vast, warm space, with the scents of the linen and the bodies that had lain there mixing as she breathed in. It made her almost feel like a goddess again. Maya wondered occasionally about going back to that life, to the forbidden kingdom of Zor-Ek-Narr and the half-human, half-leopard men who'd been her concubines and worshippers. It had been luxurious in a way that the townhouse in New York could never be, even on a morning like this. But it had been so very dull, at the end.
That's why she'd gone with the Doc, when he'd come bursting into her serene existence. The excitement, and the thought of a new world to explore.
She purred, remembering the first thing he'd ever said to her. He'd been chained to the wall of the Temple Of Serpents, and she had just drawn the tip of a red-hot iron across his bare chest - the scar had long vanished, as scars did with him, but occasionally she traced her finger along where it had been. She remembered that she'd paused, admiring the way he endured without flinching, and then he'd looked at her with those icy blue eyes.
"I never knew evil could be so beautiful." he'd said.
That was the English translation, of course. It wasn't quite so impressive unless you knew that in the secret tongue of the Leopard Men of Zor-Ek-Narr a particular synonym for 'evil' and the most common word for 'beautiful' sounded almost exactly alike, depending on how you rolled your tongue around the 'r'.
So in that one single moment, he'd shown how little pain or fear meant to him; he'd paid her a compliment, albeit a backhanded one; and, most importantly, he'd made a pun in a language he'd first heard spoken perhaps forty hours previously.
After that, Maya had to admit, she'd been intrigued. She'd allowed him to escape, had him recaptured and ordered him to fight in her personal arena against a cadre of Jaguar Warriors armed with poisoned spears, and all the time the flirting had continued. Once he'd saved her from the giant roc her treacherous high priest had attempted to feed her to, they'd both known exactly where things were leading.
It wasn't forever. He'd age, over the centuries, and she wouldn't. Eventually, he'd die, or she'd simply grow tired of him and walk away, and she knew herself well enough to realise that it was going to be the latter. Lately, she'd found herself thinking more and more about home, feeling an ache that was partly homesickness and partly a feeling of being stifled, of playing a role instead of living a life.
But for now, she was here and it was now and it was more exciting to spend her limitless time this way, in this wonderful city, in this wonderful life of science and adventure and danger, than any other way she could think of. Perhaps in a hundred days or a hundred years she'd think differently, and return to the forgotten temples and palaces of Zor-Ek-Narr to reclaim her queendom and become once again embroiled in the endless intrigues of her people. Or perhaps she wouldn't.
Right now, she decided, it was time to get up and have Marcel prepare her a strong coffee and a croissant. Opening the spacious walk-in closet, she combed through her wardrobe, settling on a simple light blue kimono, and then padded down the stairs to greet the rest of the household.
Passing the gym on the second floor, she heard the soft creak of the chain supporting the heavy bag as it swung. If Monk was doing his morning workout, that made it a little after ten - earlier than she was used to. It was the dream that had woken her so early, the killer in the red mask. In the dream, was he standing over a body?
Yes. Someone she cared for, dead or about to be.
Worth noting.
She swung open the door to the gym and looked upwards. As usual, Monk was hanging by his toes from the ceiling rings, aiming fists big as hams into the big leather punch bag, his grotesque, simian face twisted in familiar effort.
Monk Olsen could best be described as a curiosity.
At the age of six months, he had been found on the doorstep of the Clark Olsen Orphanage in New Jersey, where presumably his parents had been unable to bear the thought of caring for such a monstrous child. Even at that tender age, his face bore the simian cast that would mark him for the rest of his life, while his arms were elongated, with a light coating of fur and already some muscular development, and his toes were large and long, bending and clutching instinctively at the end of his too-big feet. A doctor, called to minister to the baby, suggested that he be put down on the spot; Clark Olsen politely showed him the door.
Clark named him Eustace, after an uncle, but the child never did take to that, choosing instead to repurpose the cruel nickname the other boys taunted him with - Monk.
"If folks shout a word at you in the street, that's an insult. If they shout your name, it's like they're cheerin'. That's the way I figure it, anyhow."
He was five years old when he came up with that little bit of homespun wisdom, but Monk was far ahead of the curve as far as intelligence went. He had a keen eye and an analytical mind to go with his ape-like strength and gait, and on leaving the orphanage found himself a job as a photojournalist with a great metropolitan newspaper, where he showed a penchant for investigating the unusual. The paper touted him as the Gorilla Reporter, a nickname he accepted with a graceful shrug of his sloped shoulders.
Monk found himself used by the paper as a sort of in-house freak, a news story in his own right, and he allowed the editors to exploit him in that manner purely because it gave him access to the strangest, most bizarre stories in the city - impossible crimes, unbelievable inventions, crazed geniuses and the occasional dash of sexual oddity to add spice to the broth. With such a mandate it was only a matter of time before his path crossed with Doc Thunder's, and the outwardly unlikely friendship between the City Of Tomorrow's greatest hero and its ugliest citizen continued to fill untold column inches until Monk finally got bored of the daily grind and went freelance, mailing in the occasional story as Doc's assistant and sidekick.
Together, Maya and Monk were Doc's most trusted associates; 'the beauty and the beast', according to the papers. Rumour had it that the three of them formed a polyamorous triangle. Like all the best gossip, it was both difficult to believe and completely true.
"Hey, Princess!" grinned Monk, waving to Maya from his high perch, before swinging off the rings and somersaulting down to the floor, landing on the pads of his feet. "What happened, did the bed burn down? When have you ever been up so early?"
Maya laughed, kissing him and enjoying the feel of those strong simian arms thrown about her slim waist. "I think around 1647, by the Roman calendar. What can I say? It's a beautiful day and for some reason I didn't feel like wasting it." She kept the dream to herself, for the moment. She had hardly any clear details beyond that blood-red mask and the smell of death, and it didn't seem worth troubling Monk with it - not until she had some clear sign of what it meant. "Have you seen the Doc?"
"Doc?" Monk nodded, scratching his chin. "Down in the lab, last I saw. Looking over some forensic work. You remember Easton West over in Japantown?" Without pausing, Monk did a standing jump, leaping up in a backflip and stretching his thick legs so the long toes could grasp the ring, all with as much forethought as another man would spend in stepping onto a kerb. "He sent some paperwork and a little physical evidence over this morning from some vigilante killing - that spider guy, the one Doc doesn't like much..." Monk let the sentence trail off as he aimed a combination of punches at the heavy bag. Visitors to the brownstone often wondered why Monk Olsen might need a gym at all. He could break a man's skull like another man c
ould crack open a fortune cookie, and there'd been times when he'd done exactly that. When asked about this, he would gently change the subject, not letting these curious souls know that the reason for his continuous training wasn't to practice throwing punches, but rather pulling them.
"I might be a monster," he'd say, "but I'm not a murderer. Not by choice."
The rain of blows landed on the bag with soft, agreeable thuds, sending it swinging back and forth on the sturdy chain but not bursting it asunder as he once had. These blows might break a man's neck, or flatten his nose, or crack his jaw down the middle. But they wouldn't kill. That was the important thing.
"I'll see you later," Maya called, and then left him to his work.
"Oh, and check The Bugle. I've not read it yet, but there's a howler of a headline on the front page." yelled Monk, and then unleashed another volley of restrained punches against the leather.
When Marcel Benoit looked in the mirror, the Devil looked back.
The Devil used to smile, or laugh, or wink, but these days he assumed a contrite expression, looking over the top of his glasses as if to say - mea culpa. It seemed like a fun idea at the time, but let's face it, it's starting to get a little tired.
The Devil, according to Marcel, was a man of certain iron habits. He liked games of chance and chess, he liked a good trade and a better haggle and he liked to tell an incomplete truth, which is easier than a lie and a good deal more fun. He was easily reached, if you knew your way around a chalk circle, and always willing to let a fool bargain something precious away for a trinket he thought he wanted. Marcel was one such fool.
His tragedy had been a simple one. He would never be anything in the kitchen, not even a dishwasher. He could not use a knife without slicing open a finger or thumb, his palette could not distinguish a jalapeno pepper from a clump of mud, and his nose, constantly thick with cold, dripped regularly into any pan or open container he happened to lean over. He was mal carne, bad meat. And yet he wanted nothing more, in this life or any other, than to be one of the great chefs.
Of course, he could not sell his soul. What is a great chef without his soul?
Instead, he sold his reflection.
Nobody else could see it. Just him. But slowly, his deteriorating appearance, his lack of grooming and his hissed arguments with mirrors made him persona non grata in the restaurants of Paris. He was indeed a great chef, one of the greatest in the world. But when your best chef starts to have a blazing row with his own meat cleaver, he has to go, no matter how good the terrine is.
Marcel drifted, passing through the great culinary meccas of the world as he went, landing work as a line cook, or a pastry-chef, or a saucier, or any one of a hundred jobs far beneath his true talent. The cycle was always the same - he would come into a new kitchen and dazzle his fellow workers and the customers with his incredible culinary skills, and the bosses would look on him with favour. They would sample his fresh-baked bread or his reductions and state that they were never letting him go, that they would be fools to dismiss this wonderful man as so many others had. And then, one day, the Devil would say just the right thing from a mirror or a shiny piece of cookware or the back of a spoon, and Marcel would snap and rage against him at the top of his lungs, and it would all come out.
Who wants to employ an obvious madman in a place with knives? Marcel had to go.
Over time, his hair turned white, and the word spread, and even the smallest doors were closed to him. He ended up sprawled under a sheet of flat cardboard in a filthy alley, drinking bathtub gin and bursting into tears whenever the rain left enough of a puddle to see the Devil's face.
That was where Doc Thunder found him.
The circumstances were complicated.
Lars Lomax, the most dangerous man in the world, had attempted to use him as a guinea pig, understanding that he would not be missed. In the aftermath of the whole affair, as the emergency crews attempted to clear away the wreckage of Lomax's gigantic steam-powered Robo-Thunder, Doc had turned to him, laid one large hand on his shoulder, and asked what he could do to help.
"Let me cook for you," said Marcel. And Doc Thunder did. It was the best meal he had ever tasted.
Marcel had told Doc his story, and - rather than laughing or shaking his head in disgust or simply making a quiet call to the local sanatorium - Doc had done what he could. He'd had a new kitchen built, without reflective surfaces, and stocked it with cookware that would, likewise, not reflect, much of which he designed himself. And Marcel cooked, at first for the Doc, and then as time went by for Monk and Maya as well, and slowly he began to mend.
Occasionally, he would still catch sight of the Devil in a shop window or a puddle, and the Devil would only shrug. What was there to say? He had other games, and Marcel just wasn't that much fun anymore.
Maya had met the Devil herself, of course. You didn't get as old as she had without running into him sooner or later. She'd found him rather boring, and made her excuses. They'd not met since.
As she entered the kitchen, she breathed in the smell, as she did every morning; the powerful, sweet scent of the bacon fat, the subtle spice of cinnamon, the warm comforting aroma of the fresh bread, and under it all, as always, the dark, rich tint of her favourite coffee, waiting in a cup for her. "How do you always predict just when I'll want my coffee, Marcel?"
The Frenchman blushed and looked at his shoes. "I paid quite a price for the ability, Mademoiselle. But your smile is worth it all." He reached for the tray which he'd left on the side of the counter - a sumptuous Italian espresso, a perfectly cooked croissant and the morning paper. Even the paper was folded just so.
Maya cast her eye quickly over the paper, and frowned slightly. There was the headline Monk had spoken of: DEAD MAN FOUND MURDERED IN PENTHOUSE.
She could see Monk's point. It was a clumsy headline. If the man had been murdered, to say he was dead was a tautology. Still, something made her look more closely.
Heinrich Donner, the wealthy industrialist and German expatriate, had been found in a penthouse apartment across town, stabbed through the heart. The police believed a sword had been used. The title was referring to the fact that Donner had been missing for decades and was believed dead.
Maya frowned. A sword... had the masked man in her dream carried a sword? Or a gun?
She smiled sweetly at Marcel, finished her coffee and croissant, and then took the paper downstairs to the lab. Doc would want to know.
The man in the lab coat stood six foot seven, and his body seemed to be carved from bronze, a massive sculpture of hard muscle and sinew.
If he put his mind to it, the man could use that muscle to bend steel three inches thick, or jump an eighth of a mile. The bronze skin looked as tough as leather, and if put to the test it could shrug off bullets and leave only small bruises to mark their passing. An exploding shell might penetrate his skin, if applied directly, but it would not do much more than that.
The man needed to sleep no more than one hour out of every forty-eight, and during emergencies he had been known to stay awake a full week or more. He was more than seventy years old, but he barely looked half that age. If you shaved off the thick beard he wore, he could be mistaken for a man in his late twenties. His blue eyes could see further than an eagle, while his ears could hear frequencies normally reserved for the bat. He had bested three of the world's grandmasters at chess - he preferred speed chess to other varieties, as he often found himself predicting the exact move his opponent would make if they were left too long to think, which ruined the element of surprise.
He also painted, on occasion.
In fact, there was very little the man could not do. Except fully understand what it was to be a normal human being.
Occasionally, that troubled him.
His name was Doc Thunder, and he was widely recognised to be America's Greatest Hero. Occasionally, that troubled him more.
He'd talked to John about it, once, late at night, after that ugly business with Profess
or Zeppelin and his terror gas attack on Washington DC. He'd sat in the darkness of the Oval Office, nursing a scotch that he knew couldn't do a damned thing to him, letting the words tumble out of him one by one.
"Bullets bounce off my skin. I can stop a traction engine with my hands. I can be killed, but I honestly don't know if I'm going to die, John." There'd been something close to dread in his voice, as if the gas had affected him after all. "There are people who fought just as hard as I did against the Hidden Empire, and they died doing it. They knew they'd die and they fought anyway, because it was right. There are firemen and police officers and soldiers who risk their lives every day, without any of my advantages. Because it's the right thing to do. And I wonder if I'd do the same, if I wasn't... this." He'd sighed, shaking his head. "And I wonder what'll happen if I ever make the wrong decision. What the consequences would be."
John had just laughed and poured him another whisky. "You're a symbol, Doc. It's not an easy job."
Doc had smiled, then made his excuses and got up to leave. John had given him a strong handshake on the way out, and a last piece of advice: "Keep wearing that shirt, Doc. People like the shirt."
It was the last time they'd spoken. Two months later, in November, John had gone to Dallas and N.I.G.H.T.M.A.R.E. had shot him in the head to announce themselves on the world stage. Forty years later, Doc had only just managed to put them down for good, breaking their organisation until no stone was left on another stone. Even Silken Dragon, still beautiful, still deadly, still quite mad, had died in those final moments in Milan, despite all Doc Thunder's efforts to save her and bring her, at last, to trial - although they never did find the body, as so often happened with so many of these people, and a part of Doc knew that nothing ever stayed buried.