by Liana Brooks
Angler Girl nodded to him vaguely, as if she couldn’t quite place his face. Rolling Shock scowled in confusion and whispered something to the Rainbow Dane.
Hempman pivoted. “Doctor Charm? Where?”
Evan smirked. They deserved everything he was here to dish out.
The Rainbow Dane turned around. “You?” he roared. “What are you doing here?”
“Me?” Doctor Charm asked with an easy laugh. “I was in the neighborhood. The Peerage asked me to stop by to welcome you to town.” He held out a hand to the Rainbow Dane.
The Dane scowled at him. “Who are the Peerage?”
“Why, my dear boy! The Peerage are the criminal royalty. The movers and shakers of the underworld. I must say, we are all very impressed with this scheme of yours. So original. One hundred percent shock value. I, myself, am merely a plotter. I don’t do the violent crimes. I find it ruins your suits. Blood stains on Dior? You can imagine the dry cleaning bill. But this? Dane! This is perfect. Deliciously evil. You are to be congratulated.” Doctor Charm mimed doffing his hat as he gave the Dane an elaborate bow.
The Dane wrinkled his nose. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Why, the murder of all those innocent children. Quite ingenious. You’ll be the most wanted man for decades to come.” Doctor Charm turned to a passing super-heroine in a frighteningly short skirt. “I say, old chap, are all of these delicacies for your enjoyment, or would you mind if I took something home with me?”
Starlit Starlet, stunned by his boldness, stopped to gape.
Doctor Charm lifted her hand to his lips. “Enchanté, madam. May I have the pleasure of your company this evening? Do say yes.” Overhead light winked off his watch.
“Y-yes,” she stammered.
“Charming, absolutely charming.” He tucked her arm into his. “Have a fabulous evening, Dane. Remember, the Peerage is only a call away if you ever need some advice.”
The Rainbow Dane stamped the floor, enraged.
Time was running out. The superheroes were stunned now, but in a few moments they’d shake off the stupor and attack. “A tip, gratis: the name will have to go. The LGBT community has never fully embraced the villains of the world and you don’t want a lawsuit from them over the use of the rainbow when you start murdering children. Come to think of it, I suspect the Danish will be highly incensed when you start portraying them as wanton killers. All around, a name change will do you a service. If nothing else, you need to let the public know that you’ve changed sides.”
“I am a super hero!” the Rainbow Dane screamed.
Doctor Charm laughed. “Naturally. Naturally. A super hero who murders children. Isn’t he a gem?” he asked Starlit.
The Rolling Shock pushed forward. “We aren’t murdering innocent children.”
“No?” Doctor Charm smiled. “That’s not what I heard.”
“We’re stopping the children of super villains, and super villains themselves.”
He laughed. “The children of super villains? Oh my. Do you know how many super villains have children? Anyone?” He scanned the crowd for an answer. “Anyone at all? No, and rightly so. Super villains don’t have children. It’s called a condom. We keep things under wraps. Now, super heroes? You have children.”
There was a gasp from somewhere in the crowd.
“All those adorable little tykes dressed up this evening as they go begging door to door. I suspect there’s even one or two dressed as Doctor Charm. They’ll make easy targets for the Dane here, and you have no way of knowing who they belong to.”
“Super villains have children!” the Rainbow Dane shouted.
“Really?” Doctor Charm caught the hand of another passing heroine. “Stay with me, darling,” he whispered.
Zephyr Girl stepped closer. She’d added a small blue mask to her costume, but otherwise looked unchanged. He tried not to show how much it hurt to look at her.
“The Rainbow Dane is leading us on a noble quest,” she said.
“Zephyr? Is that really you?” Doctor Charm leaned forward. “Not so girlish anymore. A bit of weight gain? A pregnancy or three perhaps? I hear you have a boisterous husband back home, or was that a rumor?”
Tabitha’s back went stiff.
“She doesn’t have any family,” the Rainbow Dane said. “She has—what in the blue blazes is that?” He pointed up to the ceiling.
Doctor Charm cocked his head at the lights, ignoring the floating purple glass. “Light bulbs. Invented by Thomas Alva Edison in 1879. They turn electric energy into light waves. Really quite an ingenious design, but not new. You’ve never noticed them before?”
“I meant the purple bulb, you frakkin idiot!”
“Frakkin?” Doctor Charm laughed. “You need to stop watching science fiction shows. I don’t see any purple dots. Perhaps it’s time to get your eyes checked? Ladies, shall we leave? I fear our host is less than Charming.”
The women hanging on his arms tittered appreciatively.
The Rainbow Dane roared, ready to charge, and the anti-lotus bomb dropped. Purple smog filled the air around Tabitha.
“Zephyr Girl! Get away!” the Dane shouted.
Tabitha coughed, but started moving backward, her heels dragging on the floor.
Time to move the party to the next level. Evan was wondering when Maria—Strike—would lay down the cover fire when a voice boomed through the room.
“You stole my mommy!”
Rage and anger made his blood boil. He wanted to break heads, rip the stone from the foundation. He shook his head and focused on not listening to Angela’s mental suggestions.
Overhead lights burst, falling from the ceiling as sparks of flame encircled the room.
“Time to leave. Ladies, it was a lovely thought. Another time perhaps?”
“Who are you?” the Dane demanded.
Evan turned to see him pointing at the girls. Frozen in terror, he barely noticed Hempman closing in on him.
“I’m Rage,” Angela said.
“Strike.”
“Curse.”
“Locke,” the other girls said, all posing.
“You stole our mommy. You want us dead. Now, you face your choices.”
Terror swept the room like a living thing. People dropped to their knees crying. Burning embers rained down at Strike’s command, sending people shrieking as they batted at singe marks in their polyester costumes. Doors opened, and people babbled nonsense as Locke let loose.
The Rainbow Dane shook it off and charged. “Abomination!”
Evan dove to intercept, but Hempman knocked him to the ground.
“No!” Zephyr Girl rose up, punching the Dane and sending him flying.
“Those are monsters, Zee,” the Dane growled.
“Those are my daughters. The only monster here is you.” She wavered on her feet, not fit for a fight.
Evan pulled his arm back sharply, slamming his elbow into Hempman’s nose. With a twist, he broke free and had his gun pointed at the Rainbow Dane. “Don’t move.”
The room stilled.
“Or what?” the Dane mocked. “I’m a superhero, what are you going to do? A bullet won’t hurt me.”
“This isn’t loaded with bullets. One shot, and you’re a normal human being. No super power. No abilities. No protection.”
Dane rushed him, and he pulled the trigger.
Sneering, Evan side-stepped the enraged superhero. “You’ll never touch anyone again. You’re normal now. Average. There’s nothing heroic about you.”
The Rainbow Dane floundered. He staggered forward, and fell to the floor gasping in panic.
The Rolling Shock jumped at Evan. He pulled the trigger again. “Join your friend. Be average. Be nobody. Be forgettable.”
Evan risked a glance at the causeway above. Tabitha and the girls were gone. “Super heroes and heroines of varying sizes, it’s been a delight to thwart you this evening. Please remember me for all your future vanquishing needs, because—i
f you touch my family again— there won’t be a single superhero left in the world.” Doctor Charm bowed. A swirling opera cape would have added a nice touch.
Silence met his threat. Doctor Charm walked away, confident as only a super villain holding all the cards could be.
After closing the warehouse door, Evan sprinted across the street to the van. Hert was helping the girls buckle. All four were slumped in their seats, barely interested in their bags of Halloween candy.
Tabitha leaned on the side of the van looking lost and confused. “What happened?”
“You were given a lotus serum. It interrupted communication between your synapses and blocked your memory.” Evan brushed a loose hair from her face. All his fears fluttered away. Tabitha was back.
“And the fog?” she asked, taking off her mask. Turning it over in her hands, she dropped it to the ground.
“A clarifying agent. It’ll pull the lotus serum out of your blood stream. You’ll probably have to pee like crazy in an hour, and you might get sick, but your memory will come back.”
“Everything seems like a dream. I can’t remember what’s real and what isn’t.” Tabitha rubbed her arm, shivering. “Are you real?”
“Always.”
Evan helped his wife into the car. She was thinner than he liked, and purple bruises under her eyes marred her perfect face, but she was still beautiful. If only he knew if she was really coming back to him. He kissed her forehead.
Glancing back to make sure Hert and the minions were loaded, he sighed. “Let’s go home.”
Chapter Nineteen
What’s it like to fight a super hero? Picture an enraged bull with the intelligence of a monkey and the survival skills of a cockroach. Then think of a way to defeat them. The only option is to outsmart them. That’s what I did. A room full of super heroes and I was the only one with my brain turned on.
There is no Peerage, so don’t go looking for them. Super villains are self-centered as gyroscopes. We don’t play well with others. We don’t cooperate. If we did, we’d run the world.
There is no cure to being a super hero. No one knows what makes one person a hero and another an ordinary person. Obviously super strength and flight aren’t average skills, but in the grand evolutionary scheme of things, are they that impossible to accept?
And even if we knew what caused the abilities, would I have any right to “cure” someone of being who they are? That’s like saying I have the right to “cure” a person of being Irish, or African, or religious, or gay. You don’t have to like what a person is to accept them as they are.
I hate super heroes, and for a moment, I even considered killing the Rainbow Dane. He stole my wife. He tried to murder my children. But who am I to say who lives or dies? So I left the gun with bullets in my ankle holster and shot him with an extra strong persuasion ray. Nothing changed physically, he was just hypnotized into believing he’s average. It’s such a simple lie, one almost everyone believes.
Maybe someday I’ll start shooting people with the persuasion ray and telling them they’re heroes.
***
It should have taken fourteen hours to get from the college campus back to the house. The real house, with a good lab and the broken Morality Machine. Evan did it in five. Tinkering with a minivan’s engine was not illegal, although the speeds he reached probably were. But the police had more interesting things to do with their time, like figure out why every car on the road from Colorado to Texas decided to pull over for a few hours.
They stopped twice, once so Tabitha could pee, and the second time so she could throw up. Somewhere in the middle of Oklahoma, she woke up and stared at him.
“Feeling better?” he asked.
“A little.” She rubbed a hand over her shoulder. “What happened to the girls?”
“They grew up. Full into superpowers. Just like their mommy.” Evan tried to smile, but there was too much tension. He drove in silence, waiting for her to tell him what she was thinking.
Tabitha cleared her throat. “I don’t remember what I did.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It does to me.”
He let her fall back asleep. The memories would return. It would take time, patience, but they would come back.
They rolled into the driveway as the morning sun started to pink the sky. He carried the girls in one by one, tucking them into their beds with a kiss on the forehead. Then he carried Tabitha to their bed. She didn’t move as he laid her down, and he dampened a desire to check her pulse. She was breathing. She was home. For now, that was enough.
Evan stretched out beside her as light filtered through their dark blue curtains, washing the room in deep jewel tones. This might be all he had, this moment of peace with her. When she woke up in the morning, would she love him? Old insecurities wrapped around him tight as a boa constrictor. Could she love him? Could anyone love him?
Tabitha sighed, rolling in her sleep so her head rested on his shoulder, an arm casually flung across his stomach.
It didn’t matter if she loved him. He loved her. He always had. He always would. Content, Evan settled beside his wife and fell asleep.
A shriek and the sound of glass breaking in the kitchen woke him up. Tabitha sat up in bed beside him, still wearing her Zephyr Girl costume under a faded T-shirt he’d found wadded up in the back of the van.
“Morning, beautiful.”
She raised a skeptical eyebrow at him and scooted away.
“Tabitha!” His plea came out too desperate.
“I feel like I haven’t showered in days. It tastes like something died in my mouth. Lemme get a shower before we talk.”
He sighed. “I don’t want to talk,” he muttered as she walked away, hips swinging. Grumbling, he kicked himself out of bed, sent the girls to watch TV with a box of cereal, and cleaned up the broken bowls.
When Tabitha came out with wet hair, dressed in old sweats and a T-shirt he’d bought her as a joke when the girls were born that read, “I make milk, what’s your superpower?” The girls were asleep in front of the TV, still worn out from their late-night adventure. It was a perfect opportunity to slip back to the bedroom and make up for lost time. If only she were willing.
Her face was emotionless, no repelling glare, but no come-hither smile either.
Evan’s shoulders slumped and he turned away. At least the minions would talk to him.
“Where are you going?” Tabitha asked.
Wondering why she would ask the obvious, he stopped by the door. “Downstairs.”
Her hand rested light as a butterfly on his arm. “Are you angry with me?”
“No. Why would I be?” He caught her hand, horrified that she would even think that.
“Because I ran off with another man?”
He shook his head, emotions churning in his stomach. “You were kidnapped. It’s not the same thing.”
“Then why won’t you look at me?”
Evan lifted her hand and gave it a gentle kiss. “Do you want me to look at you?”
She pulled away. “I’m not sure anymore. I’m...” She sighed. “I’m not sure who I am. I’m not sure what I did.”
Anger boiled back up from the depths of his psyche. “Did Thane touch you? Did he force himself on you?” Making the Rainbow Dane believe he was average would be enough to protect Tabitha and the girls, but if the Dane had hurt her, Doctor Charm would expand his repertoire beyond basic conniving to outright murder.
Tabitha stared unseeing at the wall for a moment, then shook her head. “No. He stole my memories, he confused me, lied to me, but he didn’t...” She trailed off waving a hand. “Thane locked a part of me away, and now I don’t know who I am.” She sat down, watching the sleeping girls. “I think I need some time to sort it all out.”
“I’ll go down to the lab then, give you some space to think. We can talk later.” Evan let her hand go. If he couldn’t make the world perfect, at least he could give her the space she wanted.
“
Do you think space is what I need? Evan, I’m adrift.” She walked over to their daughters and tucked a blanket lovingly around Maria’s shoulders. “What kind of parent forgets they have children? Can a good wife really forget she’s happily married? I’m a superhero! And...”
“And you lost. It happens. We all lose some days.” Evan kept his voice flat. Admitting he was out of his depth and lost wouldn’t change anything.
“I did something wrong,” Tabitha hissed. “Wrong. How can I keep going from there? How do I know I’ll make the right choice next time? I don’t know how to live with doubt. I feel empty inside. Everything I was is gone.” She stood in the living room looking small for the first time. “I’m empty.”
“We’ll work it out.” He headed for the lab again, and Tabitha followed him down.
“What do you think is down here that will make me better?” she asked as she picked her way through the mess of stuffed animals and destroyed cassette tapes.
He hesitated. Time for truth. “This.” Evan pointed to the Morality Machine. “It, ah, tweaks your normal levels of uprightness and makes you a little more, um, horny. For lack of a better term. Sex fixes everything?”
Tabitha ran her hand over the broken machine. “I love your lab.” She smiled shyly, and then it turned sly. “Minions, out!”
The multicolored minions peeked out from their various hiding places, large eyes bulging in confusion.
“You knew about the minions?” Evan demanded. They ate grass clippings and occasionally nachos, so there wasn’t even a food bill for them. “My mother doesn’t even know about the minions!”
With a giggle, Tabitha rolled her eyes. “I met Hert the same night I met you.”
“Yes, but I told you I got rid of them!” he shouted over the sound of a hundred flapping feet.
“Lock the door on your way out!” Tabitha called after them. She gave him a patient, one eyebrow raised look. “You are charming and sincere, but not a very good liar, dear. Little things are noticeable. Like the perfectly trimmed lawn when we don’t have a lawn mower. Not to mention the actual minions all over the building last night. They don’t blend in with the scenery as well as you think.”