The Games of Supervillainy (The Supervillainy Saga Book 2) (9 page)

Amanda, uncomfortably, sat between Diabloman and Cindy in the backseat of the Nightcar. Mandy took the side seat beside me. Angel Eyes decided to follow us in a white and gold limousine straight out of the Disco Era.

I tried to remember my car was cooler.

“You stole the Nightcar?” Amanda asked, after about five minutes of driving.

“We didn’t steal it,” Mandy said.

“Yes, yes we did,” I said, smiling proudly. “Fear the wrath of Merciless!”

“No supervillain actually says stuff like that,” Amanda said, looking at me strangely. “Right?”

“A few do,” Diabloman corrected. “Mostly lunatics.”

While I had the autopilot engaged, I did my best to figure out how we were going to save the city. I also started planning my sudden but inevitable betrayal of Angel Eyes. The Greek God was too dangerous, unstable, powerful, and well, Greek, to tolerate as part of my gang. The fact he was stalking my wife, no matter how capable she was, meant he had to go.

“Maybe I should look up hydra poison,” I muttered under my breath. “That kills demigods. Yes.”

“Hmm?” Mandy looked over at me. She wasn’t exactly dressed for assaulting a bunch of well-entrenched cultists but I figured we could break into a store and get her a practical outfit on the way. “Is something wrong?”

“Nothing.” I turned back to watching the road. “Just plotting Angel Eyes's death.”

“Ah.” Mandy was annoyed. “Surprise, surprise.”

“It's within the rights of every husband to plot the death of his rival. It’s in the Supervillain Code.”

“You’re not rivals,” Mandy muttered.

No, we weren’t. My wife might have a taste for supervillains but I didn't think she was interested in the beautiful blond-haired cologne commercial back there with his expensive suits, fabulous style, chiseled good looks marred only a single scar, as well as ravishing....dammit. I really hated Superhuman Beauty as a power. Really, my actual rival, wasn’t a villain at all anymore. The Black Witch gone legitimate, working for the man now, and was ironically working for my ex-lover. Mandy and I needed to talk more about this situation and I positively dreaded it.

Mandy, thankfully, distracted me. “Also, there is no such thing a Supervillain’s Code.”

“Yes there is,” Cindy piped up in my defense. “I've read it!”

“Then you just made
that
up.” Mandy sighed, leaning her head against the passenger side window.

“That is
also
in the code.” Diabloman placed his hand over his heart. “It is the province of supervillains to make the rules up as they go along. Also, to ignore any of the rules in the code as they see fit.”

“Hence, of course, why we're supervillains,” I clarified, smiling. “To be a supervillain is to be free to do anything you want when you want it because you say so.”

“It’s really not,” Cindy said, popping her head between the front seats to look at me. “Otherwise, I wouldn’t be stuck hanging around with you hoping you’ll pull a job which makes me really-really rich. Not that I don’t like you. It’s just very few of us are doing the supervillain thing as a philosophical lifestyle choice.”

“Or any of us,” Diabloman said, crossing his arms in the backseat. “You’re rather unique, Boss.”

“I am what I am,” I quoted Popeye, “and what I am is a supervillain.”

“Technically, aren't you an antihero?” Amanda said, not realizing my feelings on them. “I mean, you've killed a bunch of supervillains since your debut. You also killed that big demon on the moon and helped save the Society of Superheroes. Everyone is talking about it.”

“Gary! How could you?” Cindy said, sounding betrayed. She was mocking me, I hoped.

“I swear, it was for purely selfish reasons!” I said, crossing my fingers. I then called back to Amanda, “And don't ever say that again.”

“Weird,” Amanda muttered. “So terribly weird.”

“The truth is everyone is a hero in their own mind,” Diabloman said, looking out the window into the rainy night outside. “I was raised by the Brujah Circle of the 9th Gate to serve as the champion of the Great Beast Arkon-Gul and defeat my little sister, Spellbinder, after she rejected her destiny to be the Anti-Christ. Even then, I thought it would be better for the world to be ruled by the Dark Powers.”

I'd heard of Spellbinder, she'd been a Mexican sorceress member of the Texas Guardians, the team which Ultragoddess had briefly been on during the Nineties while I'd been struggling through high school. Her story hadn't ended well. Like a lot of heroes I’d found. I hadn’t realized, until this moment, Diabloman and she had been siblings.

“What happened?” I asked, genuinely interested.

“Spellbinder sacrificed her life to destroy Arkon-Gul,” Diabloman said, taking a deep breath. “I realized, in that moment, I was the villain in her story rather than the hero in mine. That is what ruined my career as a supervillain and what set me down on the road of ruination I eventually walked.” He paused. “Everything else was just an excuse.”

“You actually thought the world being ruled by demons would be better?” Amanda asked, staring at him.

“Humans can convince themselves of anything if they try hard enough,” Diabloman said, glancing over. “I have too many sins on my conscience to ever go straight and my family willingly sold themselves to damnation, so I do not wish to worship a god who would separate me from them, but I do not lionize supervillainy. It is simply my chosen path because I know nothing else.”

“Well, that's just depressing,” I said, shaking my head. “You should embrace your idiom with gusto.”

“I am,” Diabloman said, mysteriously.

Mandy then surprised me by asking. “Are you thinking of taking the Book of Midnight for yourself?”

Amanda looked ready to kick Diabloman out of the car.

Diabloman said, “I was tempted when I heard its location. I could kill you, seize the book, summon Zul-Barbas in place of the Brotherhood, and achieve the undreamt of power the cult promised me since birth.”

“But?” I asked, suspecting otherwise.

“I find...I do not want to. I was raised to believe that without the hand of gods, mortals would degenerate into killing, murder, and evil. That they would be like the Great Beasts. Fierce and amoral with a hatred for all life and an endless capacity for cruelty. Instead, I find, like you I am inclined to do what I want and what I want is to protect my family. Perhaps your insane philosophy is not so insane after all.”

“No, it's pretty damned crazy,” Cindy said. “I'm glad I'm doing something rational by killing people for cash.”“Well, if I’m the one calling the shots then I better start codifying my philosophy.” I put my hands on the steering wheel.

Mandy glanced at me. Her eyes looked like they were boring into my soul. It was sexy as hell. “Oh?”

I coughed. “Rule number one, of course, being to do what my wife says.”

“Nice save,” Mandy said. “Maybe you won't be sleeping on the couch for the next thirty years.”

“I should hope not. I just got out of prison.” I started fiddling with the radio. I needed some music to help me think. We had a long ride to Douglas Manor given all the abandoned cars, debris from damaged buildings, and zombies blocking the way. The Nightcar A.I. was good at navigating around them but was taking a lot of detours.

I took my hands off the wheel. Not touching anything was my new strategy. “Okay, Amanda, why don't you tell us the whole story? We've got time and I, for one, am very curious how you managed to get one of the seven Reaper's Cloaks.”

“I don’t know this is pretty private. Hold on, my dad’s talking.” Amanda talked with her cloak for a minute, exchanging short phrases that were meaningless without context. In other words, it was like any normal conversation a girl might have with her father. “Okay, my dad says that it's okay for me to trust you. For now.”

“Man, trapped with your Dad in your head for all eternity. That's rough. I only have to deal with a perverted old man in my cloak,” I said, sympathetically. “God knows what demented voyeuristic kinks I'll have to learn to live with.”

“
I hate you
.
I really do
.”

“I'm not the one who used to hang around with a bunch of weirdos in tights,” I said, shrugging my shoulders. “You do that for forty years and you shouldn't be surprised when people talk.”

Mandy looked at me strangely. I'd have to explain to her that Lancel was probably going to be watching us for the rest of our natural lives. Add that to the list of troublesome things supervillainy had brought to our marriage.

“I've spent my entire life trying to be little more than the social construct my parents made for me,” Amanda Douglas said, frowning. “They're the ones who created the party-girl persona for me as a way of promoting our hotel brand. I've always hated the fakeness and superficiality of the upper class in this city. I'd like to say that's because the majority of them were being groomed for the Brotherhood of Infamy but it turns out most of them are just that shallow.”

“What about the sex tape?” I asked.

Mandy shot me a glare.

Amanda rolled her eyes. “Worst mistake of my life and a creation of my manager. I don't think I've ever actually been with a man who really cared what I thought.”

I was surprisingly sympathetic. “I'm sorry.”

“The kidnapping was a wake-up call so I suppose I owe Diabloman, Cindy, and the Typewriter. You as well, for rescuing me,” Amanda said.

“Please don't say that,” I said.

“You did,” Amanda corrected. “The Typewriter was going to sell me to the Hypno-Slaver after getting the ransom and all I could think of was I helpless because I'd let myself become this way. I hated myself for a long time but I'd taken gymnastics, dance, and self-defense training in the past. Enough that I was on the list of superhero candidates Sunlight was looking through after his first pick fell through.”

Mandy gave me a sideways glance.

“I am so sorry,” I whispered back at her.

“The city was going to hell the past month anyway so I didn't have much time to train but experience is its own trainer,” Amanda said. “I got to do something meaningful for the first time in my life fighting the zombies out there and rescuing people. I was the Nightwalker even when I was wearing a fake version of the Reaper's Cloak. Someone who helped people. I got to give back the strength I was given by someone coming to my aid when I needed it. So, no, Gary, I will say it. Thank you for saving me. I'm not going to need it again but thank you.”

“Well, you can save my life and we'll call it even,” I said, shrugging. “Hell, when we save the city we'll do it.”

“I'll hold you to that,” Amanda said, clearly resenting owing anyone. “You can imagine my surprise, though, when my efforts to find who was responsible led back to my house.”

I recalled she'd mentioned she knew her father was an evil cultist during her kidnapping. “Somehow, I don't think you were as surprised as you imply now.”

“No,” Amanda said, looking down. “I always knew my father used black magic to make himself rich. I just didn't realize how black. My mom's death must have pushed him over the edge. Either way, I came home to find him surrounded by a bunch of cultists he'd killed and more on their way. They were there to seize the mansion, the Book of Midnight, and all of my father's collection of curiosities. Dangerous stuff they could use to take over the city. We talked, he gave me the cloak. That's the end of the story, simple.”

“Your definition of simple is very different from mine.” I was about to say more when I heard Mandy's cellphone ring. It was David Bowie's
Life on Mars
.

Mandy picked it up and put it to her ear. “Yes, Adonis?”

“You have a
specialized ring-tone
for him?”

Mandy waved her hand in my face. Her demeanor became serious. “Yes, Adonis, uh-huh. Okay, that's bad. Thanks for the head's up.”

“What's wrong? You look like someone just told you someone is trying to kill us.”

“Someone
is
trying to kill us.” Mandy confirmed my suspicions. “Angel Eyes just said that the Typewriter is coming after us.”

“We knew that,” I muttered, wondering if Angel Eyes was just calling to make time with my wife.

“I mean now!” Mandy snapped.

I clenched my teeth. “Is no one staying dead in this town?”

If the Ice Cream Man was a B-Lister then the Typewriter was a B-Lister who should have been a Z-lister. What else can you say about a lunatic who wore a helmet shaped like a giant antique typewriter? He wasn't even that devoted to his concept. No crimes based on the proper spelling or anything. He was just a regular criminal with a costume and a lot of access to advanced technology like an energy-spewing cane. It made me ashamed for Diabloman and Cindy that they’d used to work for the guy and Amanda that she'd been kidnapped by him.

Amanda, meanwhile, turned around in her seat to stare out the rear-view window. “I have dreamt of a chance to get my revenge!”

It wasn’t a very superheroic sentiment but I’d never quite been clear on the distinction between justice and revenge.