Sorceress Super Hero

by Darius Brasher

  “Fortunately for the world, Hitler did not have the knowledge or the ability to unlock the Spear’s full potential. Even so, things were touch and go there for a while. Had things gone slightly differently at certain key moments, the Axis powers would have won the war instead of the Allied powers, and the world would be a much darker place than it already is.

  “But fortunately, the Allied powers did win the war. The Spear of Destiny was recaptured by U.S. General George S. Patton when he and his men advanced into Germany in 1945. Luckily, Patton retrieved the Spear before the Red Army did, which had seized Berlin.” Daniel shuddered. “I hate to think of what would have happened if Joseph Stalin had gotten his hands on the Spear instead of the Americans. Stalin was as bad if not worse than Hitler, despite the Soviet Union having fought on the side of the Allies.”

  I suppressed a yawn. By this point I’d gotten sucked into what Daniel was saying, but it had been a very long day. “That’s quite a history lesson. But what has any of it got to do with me?”

  “I’m getting to that,” Daniel said, waving away my impatience. “Patton supposedly returned the Spear of Destiny to Vienna after the war was over. The artifact Patton returned to Vienna is on display in the Hofburg Palace there. But Patton, being a Master Magician and a member of the Conclave, knew better than to risk a Relic so powerful falling into the wrong hands again. So—”

  “Whoa, wait, hold up,” I interrupted. “You’re telling me General Patton was a magician?”

  “Oh yes. Quite a powerful one. He concealed that fact, of course. The First Rule of Magic was in place then as much as it is now. If you check the history books, there are hints of Patton’s magical nature, however. For example, he openly discussed how he had been reincarnated several times. Before the 1943 Allied invasion of Sicily, a British general told Patton that he would have made a great marshal for Napoleon had Patton lived in the nineteenth century. Patton’s response was ‘But, I did.’” Daniel laughed. “Patton got a visit from a representative of the Conclave shortly thereafter, who told Patton to keep his lip buttoned about his past lives. Many prominent figures, both historical and present day, are either Gifted humans or Otherkin passing as humans. Or Metahumans, but that’s far more so the case historically than it is now since Metahumans are so tightly regulated by the Hero Act of 1945.

  “Anyway, as I was saying, Patton did not take the real Spear of Destiny back to Vienna. Rather, the Spear that’s on display there is a replica. In fact, the Vienna spear is not the only fake Spear of Destiny. A so-called Spear of Destiny is preserved under the dome of Saint Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican. Another object carrying the name of the Spear of Destiny is in Vagharshapat, the religious capital of Armenia.”

  “First Armenia gives the world a fake celebrity like Kim Kardashian. Now, a fake relic,” I joked lamely. I was exhausted, and this history lesson wasn’t exactly a shot of espresso. My jokes were better when I was well-rested and hadn’t just been kidnapped by Space Ghost.

  “Indeed,” Daniel said dryly. He was a tough crowd. “Patton shipped the real Spear of Destiny to friends of his here in the United States for safekeeping. High-level members of the Conclave. After all the horrors of World War Two, they concluded the Spear was too powerful for anyone to know where it was. Since they did not know how to destroy such a powerful Relic, they hid it. They were so committed to the idea that no one should ever discover the location of the Spear that they all committed suicide afterward. They hoped the location of the Spear would go to the grave with them.

  “It’s recently come to my attention that the Hero turned Rogue Millennium has been searching for the Spear of Destiny. Now that he’s been exposed as a Rogue, he wants to conquer the world he once was sworn to protect. Millennium’s hands were severed during his battle with the Hero who exposed Millennium’s evil deeds. Since it is difficult to effectively perform magic without hands, Millennium hopes to restore his hands with the healing power of the Spear. With his hands, Millennium is the most powerful sorcerer in the world. With his hands intact and armed with the Spear of Destiny, no one would be able to stand against him.” Daniel paused, and looked at me probingly. “Why do you have that look on your face?”

  “It’s a long story. The short version is that a Hero was asking me just a little while ago how to locate Millennium.”

  “It is indeed a small world. In any event, I cannot let a Relic as powerful as the Spear of Destiny fall into the hands of someone like Millennium.”

  “Why you? Why is that your responsibility? Tell some Heroes about it and let them handle it. This looks like a job for supermen.”

  Daniel stared at me in disbelief again. “I’ve told you that one of the most potent artifacts in history might fall into the hands of an unscrupulous sorcerer, and you’re making jokes?”

  “I do that sometimes when I’m skeptical. And boy, am I ever.”

  “I’m making it my responsibility for two reasons. One, because it’s the right thing to do. Two, because if I foil Millennium’s quest for the Spear, I’ll earn my angel wings back. I’ll be allowed back into Heaven.”

  “What did you do to get kicked out? Did you bore the heavenly host to death by talking too much? I see you haven’t learned your lesson.”

  “I questioned divine policy. If you read the Bible, especially the Old Testament, you know that sort of thing is frowned upon. I was stripped of my wings and banished to Earth. I am compelled to roam from place to place, doing good deeds to try to earn my wings back. You were not wrong in thinking I am homeless because, by divine decree, I am very much so. I cannot stay in one place for very long.”

  “That sounds an awful lot like the premise to Highway to Heaven.”

  Daniel ignored my reference. Maybe he didn’t understand it. Perhaps fallen angels weren’t allowed to watch TV. That sounded like cruel and unusual punishment to me. Instead of complimenting my classic TV knowledge, Daniel said, “I’ve been roaming the world for over two thousand years now. Thwarting Millennium’s attempt to acquire the Spear will be enough to finally allow me to ascend back to Heaven.”

  Exhaustion felt like a weight on the back of my neck. “It seems like it was a mere fifteen years ago when you said you were going to explain what this all has to do with me. I’m going to have to become immortal like you to live long enough to get a straight answer.”

  “I’m here in Washington because I have intelligence which indicates that the Spear of Destiny has been hidden in the city or in the surrounding area. Millennium has learned the same thing. I need to find the Spear before Millennium and before my divine compulsion forces me to move on. I believe I’ll need several different forms of magic to find it before Millennium does. I therefore need the services of a sorcerer or sorceress. I want that person to be you.”

  I was glad I was sitting down for that one. “Me? Why me? There are far more powerful and accomplished magicians than me. Go talk to one of them.”

  “If I approached a really powerful magician with this, he might be tempted to keep the Spear and use it for his own selfish purposes. It was bad enough with the Spear of Destiny in the hands of a mundane like Hitler. But in the hands of an unscrupulous powerful Gifted?” Daniel shuddered at the thought. “It would be almost as bad as handing the Spear over to Millennium. I won’t risk it. I’ve been watching you. You’re a lot of things, some good, some bad. Power mad is not one of them. You’ve got a good heart. I’m more concerned in this situation about the content of a magician’s character than I am about how powerful her magic is.

  “Besides,” Daniel added, “as I said, the Spear of Destiny is not the only Relic. There are others, some of which can augment your abilities. I know of one here in D.C., less than four miles from where we sit.”

  The issue of protecting the world aside, I had to admit the idea of having something to augment my abilities was appealing. With my magic augmented, maybe I could get certified as a Master Sorceress and become a voting member of the Conclave. That would mean the Conc
lave’s punishment for my violation of the First Rule would not be as severe, assuming they punished me at all. Rank had its privileges.

  Daniel might have sensed I was wavering because he added, “And you wouldn’t be helping me simply out of the goodness of your heart. I’ll pay you. How does a ten thousand dollar retainer sound? I’ll give you another twenty-five thousand when the Spear of Destiny is in my possession.”

  I perked up like a plant getting watered for the first time in a while. Then I tamped down my sudden surge of interest, remembering that Daniel had been rooting around in garbage earlier today. “I don’t think you have that kind of money,” I said.

  Daniel stood, went to the duffel bag, unzipped it, and pulled something out. He tossed it to me.

  It was a bundle of hundred dollar bills. A currency strap, bankers called it. Assuming it was a traditional strap, I now had one hundred hundred dollar bills in my hand. I quickly riffled through the bundle. It was real, not Monopoly money.

  Ten thousand dollars in cash. I had never held this much money at once in my entire life. The temptation to slip the bundle down my blouse, insist I’d grown a third boob, and say I had no idea where the money had gone was almost too much to resist. With thirty-five thousand, I could pay my rent, avoid eviction, and erase some of my debt.

  I looked with amazement at the money, over at the other bricks of money peeking through the open duffel bag, then back up at Daniel. “How in the world did you get all this money?” I asked.

  Daniel shrugged modestly. “I’ve been on Earth for over two millennia. I can’t have a home, but there’s no prohibition against me having money. Time and compound interest are a powerful combination.”

  Daniel smiled down at me with satisfaction, putting me in the mind of a fisherman who had hooked a fish.

  “Let’s go save the world,” he said as he played with the coins in his pocket again. “What do you say?”

  I thought about it. Thanks to Oscar’s suspension, I had lots of free time. Why not fill it by doing something good for both the world and me, and kill two birds with one stone? Daniel’s money would solve my financial issues. The nearby Relic Daniel described would maybe solve my Conclave issues. And, if I found out where Millennium was, I could tell Ghost and get that nosy Hero off my back.

  Add all that up, and the answer was clear. How could I say no?

  “No,” I said. I gave the ten thousand dollars one last longing look, then tossed it back to Daniel. “Gimme back my forty-six dollars I gave you on the street. I need it more than you do.”

  CHAPTER 10

  I heard somewhere that if you wanted to turn your life around, instead of tackling everything all at once, you should take baby steps: first make your bed, organize your closet, fold your laundry, that sort of thing. In honor of that, when I padded sleepily into my tiny kitchen the morning after yesterday’s craziness, I thought today was as good as any to turn over a new leaf and transform the hot mess that my life was right now.

  I would start with breakfast. I’d blow the dust off the unopened canister of oats on the counter and make myself some heart-healthy oatmeal, perhaps with a side of vitamin-rich sliced grapefruit.

  After further contemplating turning my life around one small change at a time, I threw the grapefruit away. I had let it sit uneaten for so long that it was collapsing in on itself like a dying star. Instead of making oatmeal, I nuked some bacon in the microwave and paired it with a side of the champagne donuts I had picked up from Georgetown Donuts a few days ago. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day was probably just oatmeal company propaganda, anyway. The donuts were made with actual champagne and were topped with edible gold leaf. The cost of just one would feed a Third World family for a while.

  Oscar paid a good wage, yet I was always broke and behind on my bills. I knew part of my problem was I lived a Sex in the City lifestyle when I should have been living like Roseanne. I would not have been in the monetary fix I was in now if I spent less money on frivolities like gold leaf donuts and more money on necessities like rent. But that realization had come too late. I’d already bought the donuts, so what was I supposed to do with the decadent treats? Throw them away? Wasting food was a sin. Surely that was in the Bible somewhere. If I ever ran into Daniel again, I’d ask him to be sure.

  I bit down on a donut. A donut had never given me an orgasm before, but this donut came close. My taste buds cheering me on drowned out the sound of my thighs cursing me.

  I turned the oats canister around to face the wall when I got up for a third donut. The Quaker Oats guy had seemed to be staring at me reproachfully. Body-shaming bastard.

  I thought about Daniel’s visit while I ate. Daniel had an obsessive glint in his eye. I had seen that look in other people before, and it always spelled trouble. People with that look in their eye would do anything it took to achieve their aims, heedless of the danger they might expose others to. If I had seen Ghost’s eyes, I suspected he would have had a similar look in them.

  Taking Daniel up on his offer would solve most of my problems. That was another thing that troubled me about Daniel’s offer. Beware Greeks bearing gifts was a cliché for a reason—if something seemed too good to be true, it probably was. Something about Daniel and how he had shown up at just the right time to solve my problems set off alarm bells in my head. If I went along with every single thing a smooth-talking man wanted me to do, I'd be a single mother with baby daddies of every color in the human rainbow.

  Then again, maybe Daniel had been telling me the gospel truth and the world really was at risk in the face of a Spear of Destiny-toting Hero turned Rogue. If so, somebody else would have to deal with it. I had my own problems to worry about.

  I hopped in the shower after breakfast and stood under water as hot as I could stand for as long as I could stand. Though I had soaked in the bath for a while after throwing Daniel out last night, I still felt dirty after tangling with the wererats and being abducted by Ghost.

  In a fancy sports bra and matching panties I knew I had spent too much money on, I contemplated myself in my full-length bedroom mirror. This was the only mirror in the apartment, and I kept it covered with a heavy tarp when I wasn’t using it. Too many nasties could use a mirror as a peephole, or even as a doorway.

  The gargoyle-inflicted wounds on my back were healing nicely, the wererat claw wounds on my arm had already scabbed over, and my numerous bruises were fading. The magic that made me super strong and enhanced my speed and reflexes also helped my body heal at an accelerated rate. I did not yet feel one hundred percent, but I did not feel like lying down and dying either. Good enough.

  I poked my tummy. I winced as it jiggled. If eating too many donuts gave you a belly, was it still called a muffin top? Tomorrow, I silently vowed to my donut top, the Quaker and I will start trimming you down to size.

  As I turned away from the mirror my belly quivered, but not in terror. It had heard my vow before. Its convex contours silently mocked me.

  Like the rest of my apartment, my bedroom looked like a bomb had been set off in it. I dug through a pile of laundry in the corner, eventually finding what I was looking for: a black t-shirt with the white image of a stylized mouse’s head with huge ears. I put it on along with dark jeans and black sneakers. I’d picked the shirt up at a Deadmau5 concert a while ago. Deadmau5 was pronounced “dead mouse.” It seemed an appropriate shirt to go wererat hunting in.

  Of all the trouble I was in, the wererats were the issue I could do the most about immediately. I did not know what I was going to do for money while I was suspended, how to keep a certain nosy Hero from following me around like a creep in a bar who would not take no for an answer, or how to deal with the Conclave when they came knocking on my door (or, as was more likely, upside my head). I could do something about my rodent problem, though.

  If I didn’t do something about the wererats, they would surely do something about me. There was no way I had seen the last of them. They were a mercenary people the shad
ier elements of the magical world hired when they wanted to intimidate or kill someone. The wererats who attacked me had not been merely trying to scare me, though they had certainly done that. My lingering wounds were proof those wererats had been sent to kill me, and they would have succeeded in their mission had Ghost not intervened.

  But they were not merely a mercenary people—they were a stubborn mercenary people. If wererats had been hired to kill me, they would not stop trying until they succeeded.

  I had enough problems already without needing to look over my shoulder every two seconds for bared wererat fangs. So instead of waiting around to be attacked again, I would take the fight to the wererats. It was better to fight at a time of your own choosing than to fight at a time of the enemy’s choosing. I think the military strategist Sun Tzu said that. Or maybe it was Optimus Prime. I couldn’t remember.

  I would confront the wererats and get them to tell me who had hired them. Then I would deal with whomever that was. If I had to put money on it, I would’ve bet Willow had hired them, but I’d keep an open mind until I knew for sure.

  Anyway, first things first.

  I covered my mirror back up. I unsealed the plastic sandwich bag in which I had put the brown wererat fur that I had picked up from the alley yesterday. Fortunately, Ghost and his goons either had not gone through my pockets when I was unconscious, or they had and simply left the fur where it was in my pocket, perhaps not understanding what it was.