by Vance, Ramy
Old age is terrifying. As in soul-crushingly, knee-wobblingly, nightmare-inducingly terrifying. And everything horrible about it stems from one undeniable and sad fact: as your body grows weak, your mind grows stronger. I believe it is this contrast that makes mortality truly cruel.
Seeing Bogdan sleeping there, his body devastated by time he hadn’t spent, I couldn’t help but examine every liver spot, every wrinkle, every tiny imperfection now graffitied across his face. And the prevailing thought running through my head wasn’t about the injustice that had been done to poor Underdawg. No, my first thought was this shameful one: Thank the GoneGods it wasn’t me.
I’m ashamed that was my first thought on seeing him lying helpless on that hospital bed. But as ashamed as I was, my second thought was no better: That will be me one day.
That thought set my head to spinning … and made me wish I was a vampire again. Not the first time I’d wished that since becoming mortal, but it was probably the one time I would have happily accepted the vampiric virus in my body for a second chance at immortality.
I guess it makes sense I’d feel that. After all, I didn’t age a day for three hundred years. Hell, I didn’t age a second. I was frozen in time, cursed to be forever young. And, in the dead of night when I cannot deny what I truly feel, I loved it. I loved being a vampire. The power, the confidence, the knowledge that no matter what happened, I was strong enough, fast enough, smart enough to deal with it.
Such a contrast to being human.
And even though I’d only aged four years since the gods left, from the beginning I became particularly sensitive to the tiny aches and breaks that my body started experiencing. I felt them all because, as minor as they were, my body hadn’t felt anything like that for centuries. Those minor indications of time marching on in both my body and soul stood out like signposts in an otherwise empty desert.
And every time I felt one, I would freeze in anguish and self-pity as the thought “I’m going to die one day” rang in my mind.
That was exactly what I felt the afternoon I saw Boggie lying there. I’m going to die. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but one day I’m going to die. And not just me … we all are. The day the gods left, every single one of us were cursed to die.
“I wish,” Cassy said, her words bringing me back to reality as her eyes admonished me for thoughts that should have been private but had instead been uttered out loud. “Come, pay your respects. He’s in this state because instead of running away, he came to warn us. For that we owe him our thanks.”
I nodded. “Sorry.”
Cassy huffed. “No, it is I who am sorry. I shouldn’t be so cruel. Existential crisis aside, we also owe you thanks. Your bravery saved us all.”
I did what I always do when praised: I curtsied. It was an old habit ingrained in me as a child and despite the passage of hundreds of years, I still did it.
I guess time can’t kill everything.
Walking over to Boggie, I took his frail hand in mine and gave it a gentle squeeze. Even though my touch was light, almost imperceptible, he woke.
“Hey—it’s you. Angel Girl.”
“It’s Kat, Boggie. From earlier.”
“I know. I’m old, not senile. Angel Girl’s your superhero name. You know, because of …” he lifted his hand to his face.
“Got it,” I giggled. “But I prefer Cherub.”
“Ohh,” he rasped. “That’s way better than Angel Girl. OK Cherub, what’s the rub?”
Now I positively chortled. I saw why Cassy liked him; despite nearly being killed and aged beyond his years, he still managed a smile. A rare quality these days. “The rub,” I said, “is that the villain is still at large, still stealing life and superpowers and still an asshole.”
“Amen,” Boggie said.
“But we’re going to get him. We can’t take him on head-to-head—he’s too powerful—but perhaps a trap, or maybe someone could reverse the spell and take him down a notch. Ahem, ahem.” I pointed at Cassy.
The impossibly beautiful girl with silver hair shook her head. “I can’t.”
“Why not?” Boggie asked. “I don’t need to be Underdawg anymore.” He gestured to the other aged superheroes in the room. “None of us need to be super anymore.”
“I know,” Cassy said, her voice quivering. “I know.” She stood up in frustration and walked to the window. Placing two hands on the window pane, she groaned. “But that’s not how my magic works. I didn’t cast a spell … I cursed you.”
“Oh,” I said, understanding dawning within me.
“ ‘Oh’ what?” Boggie tried to sit up, but he wasn’t used to being old and sat up too fast. He lay back down with a yelp of pain, a shaking hand at the small of his back.
I came to his side and helped him down, then I handed him the remote to his bed. “Use this.”
He pushed the button that placed him in a sitting position. As the machine hummed and Boggie slowly folded into an upright position, he repeated his question. “ ‘Oh’ what?”
“Curses aren’t like spells,” I said. “You can’t turn them off or do something that reverses the effect. The only way to stop a curse is to break it.”
“So break it.”
“She can’t. Can you?” I looked up at Cassy.
Cassy didn’t turn from the window, simply shaking her head as her hand continued to press against the pane.
“I can’t break the curse—but you can,” she said, not looking at either of us.
“How?”
“By fulfilling your purpose.”
↔
“OK,” Boggie said, getting more and more excited. “I’ll do it. Just tell me what I have to do.” He pointed at me like I had the answer.
“Hey, don’t look at me—I have no idea how to break your curse. Cassy does.”
Cassy didn’t say or do anything, just continued to stare out the window.
“Cassy,” Boggie said, “tell us. How can we break the curse?”
Cassy didn’t respond for a long time, and I was beginning to think she wouldn’t tell us how to break the curse. That, or she couldn’t. Then she sighed and, being very careful, she said, “There is a place where Death comes flying from above. She is the anger of the unentitled. She is the fury of the mistreated. She wears the mask of the righteous, though she is anything but, for her anger and fury is misplaced. Stop her. Convince her she is wrong, and your curse will be lifted.”
“What the hell does that mean?” Boggie said.
I shook my head and stood. I crossed the room and put a hand on Cassy’s shoulder. “It’s a prophecy. They’re meant to be cryptic because … well … prophets are often cursed so that people will not hear them. Cassy here is doing her best to warn us in such a way that we can both hear her and have a chance to do something about it. She’s told us everything she can.”
Pulling her from the window, I turned her around and looked her in the eyes. “Isn’t that right, Cassandra, Prophetess of Doom?”
Cassy turned, her wide eyes all the confirmation I needed.
“It took me a while to figure it out,” I said. “It’s been years since I studied the classics—but that’s you, isn’t it?”
Cassy answered with eyes that welled up with tears. So that was one mystery solved. We weren’t dealing with just any cursed person—we were dealing with the original cursed human.
And on hearing her name, Cassandra, sister of Helen, daughter of King Priam of Troy and cursed Prophetess of Doom, wept.
↔
Cassy wept for several minutes before gathering herself. Looking over at Boggie, who stared up at us with confusion painted on his face, she said, “I was cursed by the god Apollo to see death and be powerless to stop it.”
That was the thing about curses. They compel you to action—and not just any action, but the most straightforward, simplest route to accomplishing whatever you’ve been cursed to do.
And seeing Cassandra … Cassy … I understood her burden. She was cursed to b
oth see the future and have no one believe her. You’d think after a few hundred years of prophesizing doom and gloom, she’d give up. Or at the very least, she’d become desensitized to people’s suffering.
But seeing her cry before me showed the opposite. She cared.
She cared just as she had cared during a thousand tragedies before this one and would care for a thousand more.
She cared partly because of who she was, but mostly because she was compelled to do so.
That is the nature of a curse: you are almost forced to act in ways that are in direct conflict with your desires. That’s the cornerstone of your curse.
That is why the students had been attacking each other. It had started with the Jessica Jones look-alike throwing a truck at her boyfriend. In other words, she’d been damaging the campus—the very thing the superheroes were cursed to protect.
But when a rhino pummels you, there’s bound to be collateral damage … damage which summoned more heroes, who in turn did more damage, and so the cycle continued—and might have continued for who knew how long—until I did something dramatic.
Springing the leak in the water main was just dramatic enough to get their attention and draw them away from the very place they were meant to protect.
↔
“Cursed, huh?” Boggie not so much asked as muttered to himself. I could recognize his mortal mind wrestling with what was happening. I’d seen Justin struggling in the same way quite a few times.
Cassy nodded. “More than cursed. What Apollo did to me was a malediction.” Her voice took on a woeful quality. “ ‘Cassandra, ye shall walk this Earth, never to be heard, never to help a single soul, never to die.’ ”
We were all silent until Boggie broke the hush with, “Damn, that is one cold dude.”
Cassy and I looked at the aged teenager, who returned our indignant gazes with a huge, gaping smile. “Well, it’s true.”
That was too much. After hearing those last words, the three of us burst into laughter. Hard, long, wonderful laughter. Gallows humor—the best remedy when overcome by sadness or tragedy. I had known many people in my life, more than most, and few could truly be funny in moments like these, often choosing self-pity or fear over a joke.
Boggie didn’t wallow in either. He chose to laugh as he marched to his death, and I liked him all the more for it.
Cassy went over to Boggie and ran her fingers along his hair. “You could always make me laugh, Boggie. That’s why, when I saw your death, I knew I had to do something. And then I thought, ‘I may not be able to warn you or save you, but I might be able to give you the power to save yourself.’ That’s why I gave you superpowers. So you would have the power to save yourself. I did all this. I tried and I failed. I am sorry. I am so, so sorry.”
Cassy started to cry again. Boggie, weak as he was, pulled her in for a hug. “Shuush, shuush … you did your best.”
“But I didn’t save you. I hurt you, and not just you. The others, too.”
“You did, but as my mother always said, ‘Accidents happen and we can only do our best.’ Of course, she’d say that with a ladle in hand as she prepared to spank my brother and me for breaking a vase or something.” Boggie giggled, and so did Cassy.
They sat together for a long moment, not speaking, just being together before Boggie, being Boggie, said, “So you’re the Prophetess of Doom, eh? I don’t know if anyone’s ever told you this before, but that’s one kickass superhero name.”
↔
“So now what?” Boggie asked.
“Now we try to figure out what the curse is about and save the day. That would be difficult enough, but one of the people you’re trying to save has turned out to be a homicidal maniac.”
“No problem, Cherub,” Boggie said. “You kicked his ass once. You can do it again.”
“I didn’t kick his ass. Believe me—I barely escaped with my life.”
“But you did,” Cassy said.
“Actually, it was this guy who saved me.”
“Boggie?” Cassy asked.
“Yeah,” I said, taking Underdawg’s aged hand in mine. “I remembered what you told me about your powers and how they were activated by … you know ...” I held a forefinger and thumb to my lips.
Boggie did the same with a giggle.
“So I figured a crusader—a holier-than-thou type—would never partake in the stuff. I also figured that Underdawg’s powers and the more enlightened state of mind one achieves when high go hand in hand. That was my gamble, and I was right.
“The higher we went, the more he giggled and sang along to my stupid song. And I needed to buy myself as much time as I could, because—”
“You needed the other heroes to show up,” Cassy said.
“Exactly. That was my second gamble: that they would turn up to protect the campus. And just when I was about to do a swan dive into The Three Bares … well, that’s when he showed up.” I pointed at Comet Boy, who lay asleep on his hospital bed.
“Yes,” Cassy said, nodding, “very wise. When I designed the curse, I did so because I needed—”
But before she could say anything else, Boggie and Comet Boy’s EKGs flatlined with that screech of death. For a moment I thought the two were actually suffering from cardiac arrest, but neither clutched his chest or showed any pain. Boggie’s face just showed confusion.
It seemed Cassy still couldn’t tell everything she needed to.
Two nurses ran into the room, sighing in relief when they, too, realized it was a machine malfunction. Resetting the machines, the elder of the two pointed at her watch. “Five more minutes, guys. Your grandfather needs to rest.”
I winced at the word “grandfather,” and Cassy let loose a tear down her perfect cheek.
Boggie, on the other hand, chuckled. “ ‘Grandfather.’ Never thought I’d live long enough for anyone to call me that.”
↔
We left Boggie to his hospital bed and cable television, leaving the hospital in silence. As we did I mulled over what was going on. Cassy gave those kids superpowers to protect them from some great evil that was coming after them. Whatever was coming was going to kill them and Cassy did the only thing she could think of to save them. She gave them superpowers.
We went outside where I turned to Cassy and said, “We have to warn them. The superheroes … we have to tell them something is coming after them.”
“I can’t,” she said. “I would if I could. Hell, I wouldn’t have—”
“Maybe you can’t, but I can … I know I don’t know the specifics, but I know enough to give them a heads up, a fighting chance. I suspect their deaths will come at the hands of the Crusader.”
I let my thought hang there to see if Cassy would … could … give me a sign to see if I was right.
Cassy said nothing.
“Fine … regardless of whether or not the Crusader is the big bad, we need to at least tell them about his ability to steal powers. They’ll need them for whatever is coming.”
Cassy nodded in understanding and then in agreement.
“I don’t suppose you have a list?”
Cassy shook her head. “No, but I have a song.”
Presidential Fights Aren’t Very Presidential
Leaving Cassy and Boggie and the other aged superheroes in the ward, I made my way home. I had a lot to plan and not much time to get it done. All we needed now was for a superhero skirmish to break out and Wizard Crusader to suck up all their powers in one go.
Time is of the essence, I thought (probably out loud, but since I was alone, I had no idea) and then cringed at the cliché. You’d think the inner workings of my mind would be wittier. Guess not.
But time was of the essence. We had the superhero problem, the aging issue and lifting the curse. Then there was that weird thing Wizard Crusader had said in the bookstore. “He told me about you.”
Who was “he?” And what did Wizard Crusader know about me? That I was the Cherub or an ex-vampire? That I often wore platform
shoes to appear taller or that even though I was a natural redhead, not this shade of redhead?
What?
I needed to figure that out as well. I’d amassed many enemies in my lifetime, and if one of them was rearing their ugly head, it meant—beyond the issue of twenty-two superheroes trying to squash me like a bug—another player was out to get me.
The trouble with out-to-get-you type players … they often use your friends as leverage. If Justin got kidnapped one more time because of me, I was sure he’d dump me.
I shook my head, trying to break loose the myriad of problems swimming in my head. I figured I had a few phone calls to make, some plans to sort out, then I’d have a few hours—the calm before the superhero monsoon—in which to watch a movie and chill. Since I was in an epically bad mood, I needed something to lift me out of it.
And I knew just the remedy: Legally Blonde 1 and 2.
I was climbing the final stairs up to Gardner where a very impatient and frustrated Andrew stood waiting for me. As soon as I made it to the landing, he lifted his phone. “What is the point of having one of these if you’re never going to answer it?”
“What are you—?”
“I must have called you a hundred times. We have a debate. Well, had a debate. In the end, it was just Harold, some fool named Michael who kept talking about beer and a girl named Aimee who spoke so softly we could barely hear her.”
“Aimee? Mousy girl. Kind of cute. Real shy,” I said, pushing my way past him. “I know her from—” I stopped myself. The truth was, I knew her because she had been friends with a gargoyle I’d also known who was killed during my first day on campus. Long, sad story. “I had no idea she was running. Good for her.”
“ ‘Good for her?’ Good for her!” Andrew cried out. “Give me a break. Do you know what essentially happened? An idiot, a shy girl and a bigot. And the voice of reason, our heroine—who in this scenario is you—wasn’t there. Do you know what people are saying about you?”
