Masked

by Lou Anders

  “You little bastards, you could have hurt my wife, all that flying glass, do you ever think of anyone but yourselves? Of course not, it’s the way your parents bring you up; you’re all selfish bastards, no sense of gratitude for anything, it’s all me me me.” The children stand shaking with fear. Chester Barnes throws the ball into the air. He throws it far and hard. It loops so high it is almost out of sight, but as it drops down he looks at it, looks at it long and hard, like he looks at the boxes on Deal or No Deal, looks with all his power. The football explodes in a deafening boom. Scraps of vinyl rain down, but the children are already running and every door on Haypark Avenue is open and the people staring.

  “Selfish, the lot of you!” Chester Barnes shouts. “None of you ever said thanks, not one. Ever.”

  Then he slams the door and goes in to sit on his glass-strewn chair and pretends to watch Countdown.

  Officer Ruth Delargy is very fresh and smart and every inch the majesty of the law in her crisp white shirt and cap that shades her eyes and makes her remote, authoritative, just. She is the community officer from Ballynafeigh PSNI Station. She sits in the living room of Number 27 in Doreen’s chair, but Chester thinks it better not to complain. The glass has been swept up, the window patched with cardboard and parcel tape. The glazer can’t make it until the end of the week. Three of his Poles have suddenly announced they’ve had enough of Northern Ireland and are going home.

  “The situation, Mr. Barnes, is that where children are concerned, we have no option but to investigate. It’s a statutory duty. Now, from what I’ve heard this isn’t the first time you’ve had issues with the McAusland children.”

  “Is that what they’re called? McAusland?”

  “Yes, Mr. Barnes. Do you not know your neighbors?”

  “Did they bring the complaint?”

  “I can’t tell you that, Mr. Barnes, under the Data Protection Act. It is the sort of thing we would try to resolve at a community level through a mediated meeting between yourself and the McAuslands, and we wouldn’t want to invoke anything as heavy-handed as an Anti-Social Behaviour Order…”

  “An ASBO? You’d try and give me an ASBO?”

  “Like I said, Mr. Barnes, we wouldn’t want to be that heavy-handed. That would be using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. Now, I’m prepared to overlook the criminal damage to the football, but I do think it would be good if I arranged a series of meetings with the McAuslands: I’ve seen this kind of thing before, and you’ll be amazed how much better relationships are when people get to know each other.”

  Chester Barnes sits back in his chair.

  “Do you think they can get to know me?”

  Officer Ruth frowns.

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “It’s just that some people, well, you think you know them but you don’t know anything at all. It’s just that some people, well, they’re not like you know. They’re different. They have their own rules. You see, it so happens that I know you. We’ve met before. It was a long time ago, you were very small, maybe four, five. It was Christmas. Now, they always say that Christmases blur into each other, but you might remember this one. You were in town with your parents, they took you to the Santa’s grotto, it was a good one, in the old Robb’s department store. It’s not there anymore, it was destroyed by incendiaries, back when they were doing a lot of that sort of thing. But they always had a very good Christmas grotto. You went on a ride first: Santa’s Super Sleigh. It didn’t actually go anywhere, it was set of seats that went up and down while the walls rolled past, and there were stuffed reindeer in the front bobbing up and down so you felt you were on a journey. You were on it when the firebombs went off. Do you remember? I’m sure you don’t remember all the details, you were very small and it must have been a terrible trauma for you. You got separated from the rest of your family, somehow, you slipped in under the mechanism and got trapped there. There was smoke everywhere, the fire had really caught. Then someone came through the fire. Someone pulled you out from burning reindeer, someone took you in his arms and flew you out through the flames, down the stairwell. Someone flew you to safety, Officer Delargy. There was a hero there for you. And maybe I’m wrong, maybe it’s just vanity, but I like to think that because someone did right that day, that’s the reason you’re doing right today. And that’s more than I could hope, because we don’t have children, me and Doreen, it’s part of the whole super thing, apparently, but if someone does right because right was done to them, that’s as much children as I can hope for. So, I appreciate that there are rules, there have to be, but maybe you also appreciate now that the rules are different for some people.”

  He watches her drive off when she has finished with her notes. The police are in Skodas now. They used to be in Rovers, but that was when Rovers were good cars and Skodas were joke cars. These claims, well, they’re so outlandish I don’t think anyone could really believe them, Community Officer Delargy had said before closing her electronic notebook. It will be quiet again. He can carry on in his life of everyday unsuperness.

  “That was a bit naughty,” Doreen says, entering now that her rightful chair is hers again. A Tesco bag swings from the handles of her walker.

  “What?”

  “Pulling rank like that.”

  “I did remember her. It was real, it happened. And I think at the end she may have remembered me.”

  “Chester, it was over thirty years ago.”

  “What’s in the bag?”

  “A present.”

  “For me?”

  “Who else would it be for? Not that you deserve it; that was a horrid thing to do, you bad old goat. Here you are anyway.”

  In the bag is a brown paper parcel tied with string. The rule with Doreen’s presents has always been no peeping. Chester does not break it now, but it does smells of fabric conditioner, and the package is soft, springy to his touch. He tears open a corner. Crimson and gold spill out.

  “I thought I’d thrown this out years ago.”

  “You did. I threw it back in. Oh, I know I was so very afraid, every time you went out, and I know that’s why you got rid of it, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t. It needed a damn good wash, and I’m afraid some of the stretch has gone. Go on. You have to go. You have to find out.”

  Chester Barnes holds the paper parcel in his hands.

  “I won’t leave you, Dor. I won’t ever do that.”

  He thinks he may have strained something scrambling over the wall. A twinge in the lower back. Stupid stupid stupid, with just a thought he could have been over it, quicker and less conspicuously than climbing up the moss-smooth stone. Chester Barnes pauses, stretches, one side then the other. Even superheroes need to warm up. He’s only a stone’s throw from the main road, the yellow street light glows through the tree branches, and the traffic is a constant rumble, but the Ormeau Park seems far away from the concerns of Haypark Avenue. The night is warm and the flowering shrubs release a tremendous sweetness. Shaking out the muscle cramp, stepping out boldly along the deserted path, he feels hugely alive. Every breath empowers. Here is a secret heart in the city and tonight he is connected to it as he hasn’t felt in years. With the merest flicker of his powers, he can steer clear of the dog shit as well.

  “So, Captain Miracle!” a voice booms from a rhododendron clump. Chester Barnes stops dead. For all his powers, he’s a little shocked.

  “You know I can see right into that rhododendron,” he says.

  “You know, would you ever, once, let me finish?” says a peevish, cigarette-thick voice from inside the shrubbery. “Just let me say it. So, Captain Miracle! Tonight!”

  “Tonight what, old enemy?”

  “Tonight… we fly!”

  Dr. Nightshade, evil genius, Pasha of Crime, Tsar of Wrongdoing, steps from the rhododendron. He wears his purple cape and leotard; the Facility Belt has been let out at the waist and the mask sags over one eye. Chester doesn’t remember him so short.

  “So you made it then
, Chester.”

  “Well, Sean, you made it hard to refuse.”

  “Good to see you anyway,” says Dr. Nightshade. He extends a gloved hand. Chester Barnes takes and shakes it warily. “I don’t want to seem an ingrate, but I did kind of make an effort.” He indicates his costume. Chester Barnes steps back. With his two hands he takes his cardigan and tears it open. Golden yellow on scarlet shines forth: a glowing letter M.

  “Give me two minutes.” Chester Barnes steps into the bushes. Dr. Nightshade averts his gaze. In less than the advertised time he steps back, a hero in scarlet and gold, creased at knee and elbow, loose across the chest and tight across the belly. Chester tugs at the cape.

  “I could never get this bloody thing to sit right.”

  “I never bothered,” Dr. Nightshade says. “Pain in the hoop, capes. Shall we, er?” He nods down the empty path. They walk together, hero and villain.

  “It feels rather odd,” Chester says, tugging decorously at his crotch. “What if someone sees us?”

  “I don’t know, it feels kind of free to me,” says Dr. Nightshade. “A bit mad and wild. And there’s much worse goes on in this park after dark.”

  They stroll through the trees to the high point overlooking the football pitches. The grounds are closed up, someone has left a light on in the pavilion. Beyond the dark circle of the Ormeau Park, Belfast shines. Aircraft lights pass overhead.

  “There’s no one else understands, you know,” Dr. Nightshade says.

  “What about all those alumnus groups, the online forums, Heroes Reunited, all that?”

  “Ach, who could be arsed with that? It’s all bloody talk, and a few wankers like to hog the forum. And anyway, it’s our thing, you know? A Belfast thing.”

  “No heroes or villains here,” Chester says. “Only politics. I thought you went to Spain after you got out?”

  “It was good until everyone started moving there and, well, to be honest, it’s expensive now. The pound’s weak as piss against the euro and I’ll let you into a wee supervillain secret: I was never that well off, thanks to you. Those Criminal Asset Recovery boys; that’s a real superpower. It’s just, well, in the end, you understand more than anyone else.”

  Traffic curves along the Ormeau Embankment. The river smells strongly tonight. The night smells merely strong. Chester Barnes looks up to the few stars bold enough to challenge Belfast’s amber airglow.

  “Do you ever?” Chester asks. “Have you ever?”

  “Oh no. It doesn’t seem right. You?”

  “No, never. But tonight…”

  “Let’s see if we still can. One last time,” says Dr. Nightshade, suddenly fierce and passionate. “Just to show we bloody can!”

  “Because we bloody can, yes!” shouts Chester Barnes. “Who’s like us? Who can do what we can do? They’re all too busy on their iPods to look up when they hear something go over their heads, too bloody busy texting to look up when they see a flash of light up there in the sun. Come on, we’ll not get another chance.” He punches a fist at the stars, then runs after it, down the hill, pell mell, headlong, in golden boots over the dew-wet grass.

  “Hey, wait for me, you bastard!” cries Dr. Nightshade and runs after his enemy, the only one who can ever understand him, but Captain Miracle is ahead and drawing away and Dr. Nightshade is panting, heaving, the breath shuddering in his chest. He stops on the center spot of the football pitch, leaning on his thighs, fighting down nausea. Captain Miracle is far ahead, almost at the Ravenhill Road gates. Then he hears a strange cry and a peal of laughter, ringing out over the traffic and looks up to see a streak of gold and crimson arc up into the sky. The curve of light bends back over him, dips with a supersonic roar, then turns and climbs toward the lower stars with a faint, half-heard shout: “Away! Avaunt!”

  Bill Willingham is the multiple award-winning author of the DC Vertigo title Fables, itself the recipient of fourteen coveted Eisner Awards to date. His Jack of Fables, created with Matthew Sturges (whose work opens this anthology), was chosen by Time magazine as number 5 in their Top 10 Graphic Novels of 2007. His first Fables prose novel, Peter and Max, was released in 2009, the same year that his comic book, Fables: War and Pieces, was nominated for the first Hugo Award for Best Graphic Story. One of the most popular comics writers of the current time, he delivers a massive novella that forms an entire super-pantheon in and of itself, a brilliant comics continuity out of whole cloth that is the perfect end piece for this anthology.

  A to Z in the Ultimate Big Company Superhero Universe (Villains Too)

  BILL WILLINGHAM

  A is for Achilles

  Hero of Old

  It was bitter cold up in the hills above Lamia, where Major Kyle Stewart and Manolis Siantas had retreated following the operation. They’d been cut off from the other Greek resistance fighters, those fierce and wild andartes, along with their British SOE advisors, and were thus unable to make it to the designated rendezvous point for extraction. The backup plan was for every fighter to fade into the surrounding wilderness on his own or in small groups, which is precisely what the two soldiers, one Greek and one Canadian, had done.

  “Did we do it, Major?” Manolis asked. His halting breath puffed staggered semaphores of vapor into the dark November air.

  “Splendidly,” Kyle said. He replaced the dying Turkish cigarette in the other man’s mouth and lit the new one for him. One of Manolis’s hands was gone completely, along with most of that arm. The other hand was too torn up to matter much by comparison. In the retreat he’d caught part of a German 88 shell burst. “Operation Harling was an overwhelming success. The Gorgopotamos railway bridge is but a memory, the occupying forces are confounded, and the German supply trains are already backed up twenty or thirty to a side, sitting ducks for the next Allied air strike. The Greek Resistance has well and truly announced its existence to the world. Be proud, my friend.”

  “Die proud, you mean.”

  “Nonsense. You’re going to be fine. I’m going to get you to a medic, once we’ve rested here for an hour or two.”

  “I don’t think so. I appreciate the encouraging lie, but we both know I’ll be crossing the river tonight. Don’t forget to put a coin under my tongue, so I can pay the ferryman. Don’t be stingy, either, trying to get by with one of your joeys. I expect a full quid at least. Maybe I’ll get one of the better seats.”

  Manolis died an hour later, and Kyle granted his last request, grinning through his tears at his friend’s superstitions.

  Little time had passed after that before Kyle thought he could just make out a ghostly figure standing over Manolis’s body. A trick of the cold, the mist, and my lack of sleep, he thought. Or did I fall to sleep at last and this is a dream?

  Then Kyle imagined he could see a semitransparent duplicate of Manolis rise up from his own body and join the first ghostly figure. They walked off together, down the hillside.

  Kyle shouldered his weapon and followed.

  “Dream or no, I’ll be damned if I’m going to abandon a comrade in the field,” he muttered.

  Kyle shadowed the two ghosts for an hour or more, down the rocky defile and then into a deep and twisting dry gorge that eventually opened up onto the expanse of a great river valley. Ink-black waters flowed sluggishly in the river, the opposite shore of which he couldn’t make out in the night’s gloom. He knew the territory well enough to be certain that this wasn’t some uncharted tributary of the strategically vital Sperkheios River, the one they’d fought at earlier in the day. It couldn’t be. This one was too big and in the wrong place.

  Considering the weird circumstances under which he’d arrived, he realized this had to be the River Styx, though his rational mind still resisted the knowledge. Kyle was well versed in his classical mythology.

  There was a long wooden rowboat pulled up to the pebbled bank, with a cloaked figure beside it. The two ghosts approached the boat, whereupon the first guide faded. Manolis spit Kyle’s two-quid coin into the ferryman’s hand. He
took his place in the boat as the ferryman pulled hard on the oars, sending the craft out onto the silent waters. Kyle followed, walking down to the river’s edge, watching his friend for as long as he could, until they’d rowed out of sight.

  In ancient times the hero Achilles had bathed in these waters. His mother was the sea nymph Thetis, lovely beyond description, beloved of both Zeus and Poseidon. But the gods forced her to marry a mortal, as otherwise her son was prophesied to be stronger than the both of them combined. Thetis dipped Achilles into the River Styx as a newborn. Holding her son by one heel when putting him in the water, she made the child’s entire body, except the heel, immortal and invulnerable.

  Impossible dream or not, Kyle was never one to pass up a golden opportunity. He wouldn’t make the same mistake Thetis had. He dropped his weapon and stripped. When he was entirely naked, he took a short run and dove into the coal-dark Styx, immersing himself completely. No heel, or any other part of him, remained untouched by the water.

  The Styx hit him like the strike of an angry god’s hammer against the anvil of his heart. He shuddered and thrashed in its terrible, haunted depths, pained and horrified beyond the limits of mortal imagination. When he was at long last able to drag himself out onto the embankment, he cried and mewled for uncountable days.

  Some months after that a miracle warrior, mighty and unstop pable, appeared in besieged Stalingrad, and the German forces quaked at his fury. Then he was seen at Tripoli, and perhaps at Kasserine Pass, and possibly at a hundred other battles. Reports became confused and unreliable in the superman’s wake.

  Kyle Stewart had entered the Second World War as a Canadian expatriate member of Hugh Dalton’s Special Operations Executive, part of the so-called Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare. He was determined to do his part in following Churchill’s instructions to “set Europe ablaze.” He returned from the war as an immortal and invulnerable champion of justice and “what is right” in the civilized world. He called himself Achilles, after the first champion born of the Styx’s miraculous, if dreadful, transformations.