The Night's Legacy

by P. T. Dilloway

  Not long after that, Tony Domingo dropped off the radar. He had stopped going to classes at Caltech; like her he had missed his degree by just a few classes. Tony Donato showed up in Ren City about the same time, applying to work at the gift shop. Mom’s signature was on the hiring paperwork, next to that of the HR director.

  Lois closed the browser and then pushed back her chair. She remembered what one of the mob goons Sam had questioned had said about Set: he wanted to bring down the US government. He wasn’t interested solely in creating terror or making a political statement; he wanted to sow chaos on such a scale that America would collapse. Tony wanted to destroy the government that had sent his younger brother to die in the desert.

  She left Mom’s office, Lorna stopping her on the way out. “Are you all right, dear?”

  “I’m fine,” she lied. “Try not to work too hard.”

  “You too.”

  Lois went back downstairs, where she found Melanie flipping through some of the magazines she had bought. She tried to hide these as Lois came in. “Hi! How’s your mom?”

  “She’s doing fine. How’s business?”

  “Slow. Tony said you could go see your mom if you want.”

  “I think I’ll do that.”

  * * *

  When she got to Mom’s room, she risked jostling her mother a bit, not hard enough to shake the tubes and wires loose. Mom woke with a snort and then a smile came to her face. “Hi, sweetheart. Was I snoring?”

  “No more than usual.”

  “Oh. What’s wrong? Is it something about your father? Or the will?”

  “No. It’s Tony. The boy who works at the gift shop. You hired him about five years ago?”

  “I remember. He was just a summer employee and he wound up sticking around after we had some turnover.”

  She could imagine what kind of turnover there had been; Tony had probably poisoned someone or broken a few kneecaps until someone quit. “He robbed the museum. He’s the one who shot you and Sam and Dr. Johnson. He’s Set.”

  Mom gasped at this, her face turning paler than usual. “Are you sure? He always seemed like such a nice boy.”

  “I’m all but certain. He created a fake name to get hired. He’s been living as someone else ever since he started working at the museum.”

  “Why?”

  Lois told Mom about Tony’s brother dying and Set’s wish to destroy the country. “He wants revenge for his brother. Not against the people who killed him, but the people who sent him there in the first place. He must have known something about the Staff of Set. His grandparents on his mother’s side came from Egypt; one of them might have said something. So he gets a job in the gift shop and starts getting friendly with Richard so that he could figure out how to use the staff. When he was ready, he partnered with the mob. They were looking for a way to get rid of you and Dad and that’s what he promised them. They created a distraction by robbing the museum while he got what he really wanted: the staff and headdress.”

  “That’s terrible,” Mom said.

  “Set hit those banks, especially the Fed, hoping that he could destabilize things here and then start working on the rest of the country. When I stopped him, he set a trap for me in the subway. If Dad hadn’t got in the way, he would have got me.”

  “Now what’s he going to do?”

  “I don’t know,” Lois said. “He killed Rahnasto last night. He’s probably going to try hitting something big. I should have slit his lying throat at the store.”

  “You can’t do that, Lois. You’re not absolutely sure he’s Set, are you?”

  “About ninety-nine percent.”

  “That’s not good enough. You don’t want to kill an innocent man.”

  “He’s hardly innocent.”

  “That’s your father talking.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “Find out if he really is Set. Then you can stop whatever he’s planning. That’s how you’ll know for sure.”

  “Then I can slit his lying throat.”

  “Is that what you want?”

  Lois looked down at her feet and nodded. “If he’s Set then that means he killed Dr. Johnson and Daddy and Stan Stevens. It means he’s the one who put you in this bed. I can’t let him get away with that.”

  “Will killing him bring back your father and Richard and Mr. Stevens? Will it get me out of this bed or help me walk again?”

  “No, but it’s better than him sitting around in a jail cell, watching TV and lifting weights for the next fifty years.”

  “Maybe it would help if I told you a story—”

  “I’m a little old for bedtime stories.”

  “This one is important. You know it was about thirty years ago I became the Silver Seraph. Percy and your father probably didn’t say why.”

  “Not really. We had other things to worry about.”

  “For as long as there’s been a Silver Seraph there’s also been a Black Demon. He’s a horrid creature who cares only about death and destruction. Like the Seraph he wears a suit of armor, only his is black as the name suggests.”

  “Obviously.” Mom Glared at her until she apologized.

  “It’s rude to interrupt. As I was saying, the Black Demon needs a host to wear its armor. When the Seraph kills the host inside the suit, the black armor finds a new one. It’s been going on like that for hundreds of years.”

  “Why don’t you just destroy the armor?”

  “Because that kind of evil can’t ever be destroyed. The Seraph checks it for a little while, but eventually it will resurface. Not long after I started working at the museum, the black armor turned up. No one knew what it was or what it did. We hadn’t seen anything like it.

  “A few days later, a burglar killed the wife and child of Dr. Wolfe, my boss. We didn’t realize it at the time, but it was the black armor behind it. Somehow it found a way to convince the burglar to kill Dr. Wolfe’s wife and child. Then it convinced him that the only way for him to get his revenge was to put on the black armor.

  “Bodies started turning up, all of them violent criminals with severe lacerations. Some of them had been cut up into parts.” Mom had to stop and motioned for Lois to put the cup of water to her lips. She took a pull from the straw and then nodded her thanks.

  “The Seraph’s armor called to me. I found it beneath the museum, in an old bomb shelter. I put it on and became the new Silver Seraph. After Percy ran me through some training, I went out in search of the Black Demon. Like you did, I found some evidence that it was Dr. Wolfe in the armor. But I didn’t kill him then. I had to make sure it was him.

  “Eventually I cornered him in the cemetery, at the graves of Dr. Wolfe’s wife and child. I disarmed him and then tried to talk some sense into him. I wanted him to surrender and come with me to the police so he could turn himself in.”

  “But he didn’t?”

  “No, he didn’t. I did manage to reach the real him. He took off the helmet and I knew it was Dr. Wolfe. He looked into my eyes. Then he used a hidden razor to stab himself in the neck. There was no way I could get him to the hospital in time. He was dead.”

  Mom’s face had gone red by this point. Lois could only imagine the strain she felt in trying to keep herself awake this long. She took Mom’s hand to give it a squeeze. “So you should have killed him. He was guilty.”

  “No, sweetheart. The point is that revenge is what the dark forces like the Black Demon or Set feed on. Revenge twisted Dr. Wolfe’s soul and your friend Tony’s. If you kill him, then you aren’t any different from them.”

  “What about Grandma and Grandpa? Didn’t you ever want to avenge them?”

  “Of course I did. Before it tried to convert Dr. Wolfe, the Black Demon spoke to me. It promised that it could lead me to who had killed my parents so I could get my revenge.”

  “You didn’t do it, though.”

  “No, because I knew by then it wouldn’t make a difference. Mom and Dad would still be dead and I would become
a monster. That wasn’t what they wanted for me. It’s not what I want for you either. Richard and your father would feel the same way.”

  “I’m not so sure about Daddy. He killed a lot of people out of revenge.”

  “That was his choice. He thought his soul was already damned, no matter how much I tried to convince him otherwise.” Mom gave Lois’s hand a squeeze. “He wouldn’t want that for you. He would want you to have a better life.”

  Lois thought back to the night they had gone to the Koala Club. Sam had said she was like Mom, not a killer. She had tried to prove him wrong by killing that man in the bar, but that had been more of a mercy killing than anything. He hadn’t tried to force her to kill anyone. “I think you’re right.”

  Mom nodded to her. “Go find Tony and try to help him. Make him understand what he’s doing is wrong.”

  “I’ll try, Mom.”

  “And be careful, sweetheart. He’s very dangerous.”

  “I will.” She stood up and then kissed Mom on the cheek. By the time she left, Lois heard Mom’s quiet snoring.

  Chapter 28

  As luck would have it, she found Tony waiting for her outside. Had he been listening at the door? He leaned forward to kiss her; she tried not to flinch, knowing what she did now. “Hi,” he said. “I thought maybe I could make up for last night.”

  “There’s nothing to make up for. Last night was wonderful.”

  “I thought we could get dinner. Maybe something to go.”

  Lois thought of her ill-fated attempt to bring Sam dinner at his hideout. “Sure,” she said. “We could go back to Dr. Johnson’s place.”

  “Great idea.” He leaned in close to whisper, “Then we could get a little exercise to work off the calories.”

  She forced herself to smile. “You have such a one-track mind.”

  “That track always leads to you.”

  “Is that another of your pickup lines?”

  “How was it?”

  “Pretty good.” She kissed him on the lips and then took his hand. As they went downstairs, she watched him out of the corner of her eye. How could she find out if he was Set for sure? It wasn’t like he would just admit it if she asked. She supposed the best way would be to follow him and see where he kept the staff and headdress.

  She nixed the idea of getting fried chicken, electing for Chinese instead. They got a couple of boxes of fried rice and General Tso’s chicken to take back to Dr. Johnson’s house. Along the way she tried to smile and flirt with him the way she had the day before.

  But things weren’t like the day before. Every time she looked into his eyes, she saw the red ones of Set. Whenever he spoke, she thought of Set’s voice on the subway and in Rahnasto’s office, that awful taunting voice. She felt a cold lump forming in her stomach as they walked up to Dr. Johnson’s house.

  They sat in the dining room at a table made to sit fifty people. Lois forced down a few lumps of chicken, while trying to banter with Tony. She couldn’t remember what she said, just spouting random words while she studied him. Other than keeping his right leg propped up, there didn’t seem to be anything different about him. Maybe she was wrong?

  She had told Mom she hadn’t ever whored herself out while on the night. Tonight she felt like a whore as she went upstairs with Tony, to make love to him despite how revolted she felt by the proposition. They chose a different guest bedroom; she hoped it didn’t turn out to be the one Melanie would sleep in.

  This time was worse than in the backseat of Tony’s car. Then they had been relative strangers who hadn’t expected to see each other again; it was just a little fling. This time she had to fight to avoid throwing up as she thought of Dr. Johnson on the gurney, Sam on the floor of the subway engine, and Mom lying on the hospital bed. He was a monster, just like that Dr. Wolfe Mom had mentioned. She had fucked people she didn’t love or barely knew, but never someone she despised.

  Once they finished, she closed her eyes, pretending to fall asleep. She listened as he too played possum for a while, maybe a half hour or so. Then he slid off the bed with just a rustling of covers. She waited while he dressed and then padded out of the room. Once the door closed with a click, she rolled out of the bed.

  She got dressed first in her normal clothes and then in the armor. Sam had said Set could see her, but she doubted Tony could without the headdress. She wrapped the cape around her body and then hurried to catch up to him.

  She had expected another cab to pick him up, but instead there was a black SUV waiting at the gate. She had to be quick to slip through the gate before Tony shut it behind him. While he climbed into the SUV, she pulled herself up to the roof by using the rear bumper. She hoped Tony or the driver didn’t hear her.

  Then the SUV pulled away from the curb, carrying them away from Dr. Johnson’s house, to Set’s next target.

  * * *

  The SUV arrived at a warehouse on the north side of the docks, not far from the club where Tony had ditched her the one night, probably so he could meet with his mob buddies. While Tony had got into the SUV, it was Set who stepped out. Did he have a way to change into his guise instantly like she did or had he kept the headdress and staff in the car?

  She kept the cape wrapped around her body the entire time, which had been quite a feat the way the wind was blowing on the roof. She still kept the cape on while Set and the driver went inside the warehouse. She rolled off the roof to land awkwardly on her feet without taking off the cape. Then she hurried to catch up with them.

  There were hundreds of guys inside, all of them with the hardened look of professional killers. Set must have gathered the entire mob. It certainly seemed as if she had her proof now. The only problem was what to do about it. Even with the armor she doubted whether she could take on a hundred mobsters and Set. She needed to wait for an opportunity to get him alone, when he would be vulnerable.

  She leaned against a wall, watching as Set addressed his loyal minions. “As you are by now aware, your former employer is dead. Mr. Rahnasto made the mistake of trying to betray me to the Silver Seraph. He paid for that mistake with his life. His lieutenant Mr. Andropov is in police custody, though not for long. We’ll dispose of him soon enough. In the meantime, we will continue our grand work.’

  The mobsters didn’t look or sound all that happy about it. The way they grumbled to each other indicated they were not exactly satisfied employees. They probably just didn’t want to meet the same end as Rahnasto. Such a distinction wouldn’t matter to Set so long as he could carry out his insane plans.

  “As recent history has proven, the only thing this country values more than its money is oil. Therefore we are going to attack the largest supply of oil on the Eastern seaboard. I speak of the storage farm on the south end of these very docks. There our foolish government has stored billions of gallons of oil, hoarding it while it rapes the desert of its wealth. The loss of so much oil will spread panic through the entire nation as fuel prices rise. Then it will be time for the next phase of my plan.”

  “What’s that?” someone asked.

  “You will learn in time. Tonight you will only worry about rigging explosives in the tank farm. We will wire the entire place to explode, a blast that will rival that of Hiroshima or Nagasaki. The resulting damage will render this entire harbor useless for months if not years. Renaissance City will be cut off from the sea. The supplies are already here in the warehouse. You will load them onto the trucks.”

  With that the mobsters split up to fetch the explosives. Lois hoped Set would wait somewhere else, where she might have the chance to disarm him. That didn’t happen. He was too hands-on for that, barking at his minions while they loaded the trucks. There was always a ring of gangsters around him, more than she wanted to deal with at the moment. So she leaned back against the wall and waited.

  It took them two hours to load the trucks. During that time Lois’s chance to get Set alone never came. She waited for him to get back into the SUV, accompanied by a pair of guards. She se
ttled herself on the roof again.

  The SUV led the way, trailed by a half-dozen flatbed trucks packed with steel drums that were no doubt explosives. She didn’t have any intention off letting them get that far. From what she’d seen and what Rahnasto had said, she knew she didn’t need to fight all of the mob; she just needed to cut off the head of the snake. Once Set was gone, the mob would bail out, hoping to go back to their nice, shady business practices. Stop Tony and this would all be over.

  From her vantage on top of the SUV, she knew how to do it. Since the oil tank farm was at the south end of the docks, the convoy was driving along the docks. The docks didn’t have safety railings like the highway to keep cars on the road. Ahead, she saw a particularly narrow stretch of concrete with the harbor on the left side. That would be perfect.

  As the SUV entered the narrow stretch, Lois let the cape snap back, not caring if anyone saw her at this point. This freed her arms to grab Caledfwlch and then jam it into the roof over the driver’s seat. As on the subway, she sliced open a flap to give her access to the vehicle.

  The driver fired a few shots at her, not that these did any good. One bounced right off her helmet to deflect into the driver’s leg. This gave her the opening she needed to seize the steering wheel and yank it hard to the left. The SUV barreled through a stack of wooden crates, its weight and momentum driving it straight into the harbor.

  She bailed at the last moment, landing on the docks to watch as the SUV began to sink. Before she could celebrate her victory, she saw Set’s red eyes rise from the water.

  * * *

  Anyone else who fired an electrical discharge from a metal staff while immersed in water would have committed suicide, but Set didn’t so much as flinch. Lois rolled to her right, landing behind some crates that hadn’t been destroyed by the SUV. Those wouldn’t provide her with much cover, not from Set’s staff.

  At moments like this she wished she were better at controlling Caledfwlch with her mind. If she got out of this alive she would have to spend some time practicing until she could do it as easily as breathing. For now she would have to wait until Set popped out of the water to try and wrestle that staff away from him. In the water she wouldn’t be nearly as nimble, which would give him even more of an advantage.