“Dammit!” I said, slapping my head. “We totally screwed this up.”
“We need to fix it immediately,” Splotch said, making a fist.
I did too. “On the count of three?”
“You got it,” Splotch said. “One, two, three. Shoot!”
“Scissors!”
“Rock!” Splotch said.
“Dammit,” I said. “You win this time, Splotch, but I will have my revenge.”
He chuckled. “Yeah, well, you’ll win the rematch. That’s usually how these meetings go. You don’t just get one fight. You have to fight twice in one day.”
“We can do a dance off next,” I said.
“Oh, no, there’s no way you’re winning that,” Splotch said. “You are the whitest supervillain I know.”
“In Florida? I’m pretty sure that’s Johnny Rebel or the Klansman.” I, of course, had them on my hit list. Not that I had a hit list. No sir. That wouldn’t be a very superheroic thing to have at all.
“Fair enough,” Splotch said. “I’d still kick your ass in a dance off.”
“It still doesn’t explain why your father and you are hated,” I said. “It sounds like he just would be considered a bit edgy.”
Splotch didn’t respond.
“It’s a personal subject,” Splotch said, looking up at the sky. “Pretty hard to share.”
“Well, my brother was killed by Shoot-Em-Up in front of me and I ended up killing him at age fourteen. It’s left me permanently traumatized.”
“Okay, that may be oversharing,” Splotch said. “Especially for a first team up.”
“I’m sorry, I always come on a bit strong.”
Splotch sucked in his breath. “My dad’s first wife was killed by a supervillain. Samhain got lucky and killed her with a jack-o-lantern bomb. So, Dad made a deal with the Crime King to find him. He beat Samhain to death.”
“Sounds like justice to me,” I said, being honest. “I’m not a guy who judges the person who kills a murderer the same as the murderer. Black and white morality is not my thing.”
“Then maybe superheroism isn’t for you,” Splotch said. “Better to be a good supervillain than a bad hero.”
“There’s more to the story isn’t there?” I asked.
Splotch nodded. “My dad did a lot of things to make up for the favor he owed the Crime King. Never anything overtly evil. Go beat up these criminals here, go avoid these areas where things are victimless crimes, and maybe just distract Ultragod. In the end, when my father finally said enough, the Crime King revealed all his activities. He’d kept meticulous details and proof that showed my father was dirty. After that, everyone just took the worst interpretation of anything we did.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, meaning it. “I know what it’s like for a good person to get caught up in events beyond their control.”
I wasn’t sure if I meant Keith, Diabloman, Cindy (okay, that was stretching it), or myself. My brother had failed the test to become a Navy SEAL but he’d put that training to use to become a thief. First because it was a way to provide for his family and later because he was good at it. I used to think he was the coolest man on the planet when he was Stingray: The Underwater Assassin. Instead, he’d died ashamed of the path he’d took and unable to make amends for what he’d done.
“It’s okay, I don’t do this for the fame or glory,” Splotch said. “I do this because I want to help people.”
“You’re the real deal, Splotch,” I said. “You remind me of Lancel and Moses.”
“You’re on first name bases with the Nightwalker and Ultragod?” Splotch asked.
“The first was trapped in my cloak for years and the latter was my father-in-law,” I said, ignoring the fact Gabrielle kept finding reasons to delay our wedding. It was starting to give me a complex. If she didn’t want to marry me then I wish she’d just say it. I did want to get married, but I’d understand if it wasn’t something she could do.
For whatever reason.
“I feel like you maybe should be the one mentoring me,” Splotch muttered. “Maybe I should get in on this billionaire supervillain thing.”
“Eh, I gave all my money to my sister,” I said, pointing over to her billboard. “Kerri is much better at managing all the vast fortunes I’ve stolen. I’m now on a strictly regimented allowance of mere millions.”
“Oh, you poor baby. I barely make ends meet thanks to my wife being a model.”
“You complaining?” I asked.
“No.” I could see the grin under his mask despite it being completely opaque. “You should probably head back to your family, Gary.”
“I will,” I said, nodding. “It’s good working with you, Splotch.”
“Thanks. It’s been a while since I’ve had a partner. I used to do a lot of team-ups with Gabrielle, but she hasn’t visited the city in a long while.”
“She’s been…busy.”
Truth be told, a part of me suspected Gabrielle didn’t want to return to Atlas City. It was her father’s city and while she’d been raised in it, there was nothing but memories of her long-dead family here. It bothered me that her living family was living here, though, and that wasn’t enough to bring her back. She visited all the time but deliberately avoided spending more than a day at a time and always prevented the locals from knowing she was here. In a city dying for lack of heroes to inspire them, it was a conspicuous absence.
“I bet,” Splotch said, sounding sad. “Well, if you see her again, tell her we miss her in the Big Orange.”
“That’s Tampa,” I replied.
“So they claim,” Splotch said, taking off into the night. I hoped he got back to his home safely and that he was met by a family every bit as loving as the wall-springer deserved.
Turning around, I went floating through the air of Old Town and thought about what I’d done today. It was strange how Splotch had made me realize a few things that I’d somehow forgotten along the way to trying to be a superhero. Specifically, that this was never supposed to be about the fame. It was supposed to be about revenge. Then it was about the people. I’d achieved my revenge against Shoot-Em-Up and countless others who’d wronged me. Maybe it was time to start working on the other thing.
Protecting people.
Which made Splotch’s death all the more gross and unfair. Six months after our first team up, the Super-Duper Splotch Man got killed trying to talk down a mentally ill man the police were going to shoot due to feeling threatened. It hadn’t even been the mentally ill man who’d done it, no, it had been the police being twitchy and over-armed with military surplus from the Foundation for World Harmony. I’d attended his funeral, met his family, and watched his young biracial son take on the mantle. Before my deal, he would have ended up alive as a clone or resurrected by a cosmic entity or brought back via time travel. Now he was just dead, and the world was a worse place for it.
It wasn’t right.
I deserved to be in the ground instead.
Maybe that was justice.
Lies, a voice spoke in my mind. Death is not a punishment. It is a transition. You of all people should know that?
Death? I asked, speaking into a featureless white void. I was now immaterial, lacking even a body, and surrounded by nothing. Is that you?
I hadn’t seen Death since the tournament. I’d honestly felt abandoned by my former master and it had only added to my sense that I’d made a mistake. I’d made Death the ruler of the Primals until the next tournament was hosted in a thousand years, but I hadn’t really thought through the consequences. A part of me had felt used.
I’m always with you, Gary, Death replied. I’m with everyone at every moment of every second. The beginning and the end.
Well, that’s not creepy, I thought back, sarcastically. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do.
Whatever you want, Death replied. That is my gift to you. This universe is yours now.
What? I asked.
You are the one who made the wish, Deat
h replied. You are the only one who can undo it. I crowned you the God of Death for this universe, just as I crowned many others in other dimensions. The good, the bad, and the damned are determined by you. If you wish to bring back the dead, then it is within your power now. Ironic, when you spent years seeking a way to bring back your wife, you only gain the power when you know she wished to move on.
Why tell me this? I asked, feeling like she’d punched me in the gut. When it’s too late.
Oh Gary, you’re not dead, Death said. You’re far too stubborn for that.
With that I woke up to a vampire’s fangs in my neck.
Chapter Thirteen
Camp Blood on Beautiful Slaughter Lake
There was a slight difference between the vampires of my world and the vampires of Jane’s Earth. On Jane’s Earth, vampires were sex symbols and their bites induced mind-blowing orgasmic bliss akin to heroin mixed with a Star Wars sequel that didn’t suck. Normally, on my world, vampire bites hurt like hell and usually ended with you dead on the floor.
Vampires could hypnotize you into feeling pleasure but that was not really the same thing. It was part of the reason that they’d remained feared monsters on my world rather than become a Twilight-esque phenomenon. Well, you know, outside of Twilight. The one-time Mandy had bitten me, it had hurt like a mothersucker.
This was not like that.
No, instead, this was much more like I’d wanted the prequels and sequels to be like. The phrase “better than sex” gets thrown around a lot and really depends on who you’re with as well as how talented you are at it but even with a skilled partner you like, this was definitely better than sex. I suddenly understood why Jane kept complaining about how vampires had effectively taken over her world via social media and good marketing. If this was what the undead could do, no wonder people were signing up to be bled dry. Hell, paying for it. I bet the first nibble was free too.
As someone who had more self-control and willpower than you’d probably imagine from looking at me, I wasn’t about to just about to lie there and be bled dry. I was no man’s Capri Sun and I managed to summon the willpower to reach around the neck of whoever was biting me and give their hair an enormous tug. Not the most elegant of martial arts move but there was a reason most superheroines kept their hair short unless they were indestructible.
“Ow!” an awfully familiar female voice spoke after her fangs broke free from my skin. “What the hell, Gary?!”
“Mandy?” I asked, leaking out of my neck.
Random aside, but there’s something about vampire saliva that serves as an anti-coagulant. Seriously, if vampires didn’t slow down the flow of blood then biting an artery would result in a geyser akin to Dracula: Dead and Loving it as well as immediate death. It’d also be like drinking from a fire hose. I bring that up because otherwise I’d be dead, and this would be a book narrated by my ghost. Which was possible but not how this story was going to end, at least here.
I was lying on top of a bed in the middle of a log cabin underneath a window letting in the moon’s light onto my face. The cabin was full of junk and looked like it had been recently used for storage. It wasn’t very large and maybe had two rooms. Straddling me, wearing her catsuit and trench coat, was my wife (ex-wife? We never really divorced but she died?) Mandy. Mandy’s hair had changed from raven black to stark white and she was wearing a domino mask. It was a slight change to her costume but was still a noticeable one.
Standing just to the side of the bed, looking embarrassed, was Jane. Jane had changed out of her normal clothes to a pair of shorts, boots, and a white t-shirt that said, COUNSELOR. She was holding a freshly carved wooden staff in her hand and it looked like she’d burned some crude runes into the side.
“Okay, what the hell is going on?” I asked, not feeling like getting up. Mandy’s bite had left me paralyzed, or maybe I was just suffering massive blood loss. Then again, that was a remarkable improvement over death.
“Cure Serious Wounds!” Jane shouted, waving her staff over me. “Cure Serious Wounds! Cure Serious Wounds!”
I felt an immediate sense of relief as well as a return of my previous energy. So much so, I was able to relax. I could also feel my own magic had returned without Sheriff Injustice there to drain it, which was a relief. It almost made up for the fact that I woke up being Mandy’s Capri Sun juice bag.
Mandy spit to the side. “I’ve been sucking out the alien poison in your blood for the past half hour while Jane kept you from dying.”
“I tried Neutralize Poison but apparently that’s not a high enough level spell for an alien redneck parasite thingy,” Jane replied.
“You’re lucky I’m a spitter rather than a swallower, but you knew that,” Mandy replied.
I rolled my eyes. “Yeah.”
My flashback to Splotch’s death and nasty beating at Sheriff Injustice’s hands left me in no mood for jokes, which was a sign of the apocalypse according to some religions. There was also the fact I had no idea how to react to Mandy. When last we’d talked, I’d sucked out the ghost possessing her and banished it to Hell.
I was sure Mandy blamed me for her being possessed in the first place, though. Never mind that she had been psychotically murdering supervillains and criminals throughout Falconcrest City before she’d been possessed too. That was part of the reason I’d been so desperate to get her soul back.
Vampirism in my world differed from the kind in Jane’s world in more ways than just how much of a full mast you were sporting after being bitten (or how gushy you were as a lady I presumed). No, it also differed on a metaphysical level too. On Jane’s world, vampires were still fundamentally the same people they were while alive. They were undead, cursed with an inhuman hunger, and tainted with demonic magic. Pretty bad things but they were the people you knew in life for the most part.
On my world, the souls of someone transformed into a vampire were split like a wishbone. Everything that was good and pure about them ascended off to their afterlife while the negative traits they’d had in life formed into a newborn demon that inhabited the body. Imagine your best self and your worst self then have them get a divorce with the latter getting the house. It was just enough to torment the loved ones of the recently turned to maximize their pain and suffering, which was exactly what the Great Beasts intended when they made vampires.
Mandy surprised me by sliding off the bed and offering me her hand. “Are you going to be alright?”
“Uh, yeah,” I said, taking it and pulling myself up. “Where the hell am I? How the hell did you get here? Oh, and thanks.”
“Welcome to beautiful Camp Blood on Slaughter Lake,” Jane replied. “You should use that as a name of a chapter in your next book.”
“Sure,” I replied, not up to thinking about another volume in my memoirs right now. “Wait, the place where all those teenagers were murdered in the Eighties?”
Satan’s Hollow had a bad reputation even ignoring its crooked sheriff. The place had once been home to a bunch of undead cannibals called the Clan. Note, that’s clan with a C rather than a K. Though they were probably members of that too. The Clan had stalked, murdered and ate travelers throughout the area until the Nightwalker had finally put them down. He’d done it despite Sheriff Injustice’s interference and multiple attempts to reopen the summer camp by landowners who really had no concept of good taste.
“Yep,” Jane said. “I’d comment on how your world is apparently ripping off horror movies now but that would be grossly hypocritical.”
“Yes, yes it would,” I replied. “That explains where I am and being treated for my ass-beating explains why, but it still doesn’t say how.”
“Cindy and I are running this place,” Mandy said, crossing her arms. “William and Nancy just sort of wandered in one day. We’ve been using them to help fight off the ghouls, cultists, demons, and ghosts in the swamp.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose as I felt a headache coming on. “Why in the world would you guys re-open up a
haunted summer camp? Here of all places?”
I wanted to wrap my arms around Mandy and kiss her. Vampire or not, I’d missed her so much and didn’t care if she was a demon or evil. I felt guilty about that since I’d tried—and failed—to accept Mandy’s death. Her ghost had appeared to me twice to reassure me that she didn’t blame me for her death. Nevertheless, I wanted to be with her and love her even as a shadow. It felt like cheating since I’d forged relationships with Cindy and Gabrielle both, which Mandy wouldn’t have approved of. Still, all I could think of when I saw her was how much I missed her. I was close to tears and hoped they’d mistake it as a result of the pounding I’d taken.
“Let me show you,” Mandy said, sounding nothing at all like the angry predator she’d been before her possession by Spellbinder.
Confused but owing her my life, I got up off the bed and followed her. Jane trailed up behind me and handed me her staff to help me walk. I was still weak despite her magic that helped me recover, but every second made me feel stronger. There was something about this place that had the opposite effect of Sheriff Injustice and his daughter.
I could feel the Primal Orbs again but there was something strange about them. They were reacting with a kind of manic energy that I could feel even without actively using them. There was also a lot of magical energy in this place, buried beneath the floorboards as well as swirling around in the mud below. Camp Blood was a very magical place and possibly a natural reservoir for crossed ley lines. Beyond that, and this was just me speculating, there was another one of the Primal Orbs nearby. Like, really, really close. Possibly within the confines of the camp itself. That was going to make my job much easier (and I’d probably just jinxed it).
Nevertheless, stepping out through the front door of the cabin, I was confronted by a most unusual sight. Camp Blood was in full swing despite it being past sunset and the activities going on were less s’mores or singing than Super boot camp. I saw teenagers throwing fireballs, turning into various shifters, and at least a few of them flying around. Nancy was teaching a variety of teenage girls how to use enchanted bows and arrows.
The Supervillainy Saga (Book 7): The Horror of Supervillainy Page 12
