“Oh yeah,” the Backwoodsman said. “I was there when you escaped from the Society of Superheroes' prison on the moon. I heard about all those lives you saved during the riot.”
I grimaced. That was going to kill my rep. “Yeah, well, I only just got back. Do you mind filling me in on some details as to what the hell has been going on?”
The Backwoodsman checked his watch. “Okay-dokey. Just know I can't spare too much time. There's a lot zombies out and aboot.”
I stared at him. “Canada is literally just across Falconcrest Lake. Half our population is Canadian. They do not talk like that.”
The Backwoodsman dropped the accent and spoke with a deeper more gravelly accent. “Eh, I just do it to fuck with people. Be glad I hadn't gotten to randomly inserting maple syrup and hockey into the conversation. How can I help?”
I had plenty of questions, most of which the Backwoodsman probably couldn't answer. How was my wife? How were my henchmen, Cindy and Diabloman? How was my family which lived in the city? How were, ugh, my in-laws? Instead, I just settled on asking a very simple question. “How the hell did the city start to look like a Resident Evil level?”
“Wow, you have been gone awhile.” The Backwoodsman looked over to the Falconcrest City skyline visible from our current position in the suburbs. “It started a couple of days before the big moon breakout. Supervillains killed in the fight to see who would own the city after the Nightwalker's death started rising from the grave and taking revenge on those that killed them. Then those supervillains started rising from the grave. It became more than the police could handle.”
“Can they handle anything?” I asked, sarcastically.
The Backwoodsman snorted. “No. They don't even try. Probably why they’re still alive. A few people started to put up a token resistance when they realized the authorities wouldn't help. That rich girl, Amanda Douglas, started organizing citizen's militias with that old fart Sunlight while a new heroine called Nighthuntress took down several of the more powerful zombies. She was accompanied by some new heroes in masks, a strong man and a sexy woman in a red hood.”
My heart seized up at the mention of Nighthuntress. That had been the name my wife had chosen for herself when she decided to become a superheroine. It seemed Mandy had decided to begin her career when the city needed her most. The others were probably Diabloman and Cindy, disguising the fact they were helping a hero. “Go on.”
“That was when the Brotherhood revealed itself. Hundreds of the city's rich, famous, and powerful proclaimed they were in service to Zul-Barbas and cast rituals which raised all of the city's dead in graveyards across town. Thousands of dead, including bodies they'd been stockpiling from P.H.A.N.T.O.M attacks and the last couple of alien invasions. Many of the police chose to join the cult for protection and those that didn't joined the ranks of the dead. Millions evacuated the city as fast as they could.”
“What about Nighthuntress?”
“No idea. She’s hot, though.”
“That she is.” I nodded, holding the bottom of my chin as I thought about what this could all mean. “Go on.”
“President Omega and the government declared a state of emergency and helped with the evacuation. They forbid the Society of Superheroes from sending in reinforcements, claiming the government would send in a military response to deal with the zombie threat. The Society was then distracted by Pyronnus and Entropicus waging a war over the Cosmic Starchild. It’s only us second-stringers left over to help.”
“You’re not a second-stringer!” Cloak shouted in my head. “You are an inspiration to children everywhere!”
“Merciful Moses, dial it down,” I said to Cloak. “You’re going to give me brain cancer.”
“Sorry,” Cloak said. “I read his Junior Adventure Novels as a boy. They were a great inspiration to me. Did you know the Backwoodsman killed a bear when he was only three?”
“I’m pretty sure that was Davy Crockett,” I said.
“Maybe they both did.”
I sighed, disregarding Cloak’s statement. “Stupid team-wide crossovers. The Society of Superheroes will be gone for months. What about the government response? If President Omega is trying to show off by handling this, what has he done?”
“Not a damn thing. I believe he’s keeping Congress deadlocked while looking like he's trying to get them to move in order to increase his political power. The bigger the disaster, the more it makes him look heroics when he resolves it. Pfft, politicians. A few heroes like me have broken the Foundation for World Harmony blockade of the city, though. Ultragoddess and a team of renegades have been fighting the monsters left and right. A real hell-cat that one but magic is one of the Ultra-types weaknesses so they haven’t been able to sort things out.”
“No one could do a better job under these circumstances.” I had a lot of faith in Ultragoddess, real name Gabrielle Anders, who, I shit you not, had been my girlfriend in college. Back on the moon, she'd confessed she'd broken up with me to protect me from her enemies. The oldest excuse in the book. She'd indicated she still loved me but I wasn't going to leave my wife and she wasn't a home-wrecker. It was good to know Gabby was out there, though, fighting the good fight.
“I don’t doubt that,” the Backwoodsman said, sharing my opinion of Gabby.
“Any idea why the Brotherhood is doing this?” I asked.
“To be evil?” The Backwoodsman suggested. “Supervillains aren’t complex.”
I glared at him. “I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. Gotta run, though! My cybernetic receiver says there’s more folk needin’ rescuing.” He then turned around and started running like a speeding locomotive, leaping onto one of the nearby houses and then leapfrogging to the next a street over, heading toward the city.
I sighed, taking in everything he’d told me.
“What now?” Cloak asked.
I took a deep breath. “Now I go to my house to see if my wife is there.”
Chapter Two
Where I Find Out What My Henchmen have been Doing
Within minutes, I was in front of my home. Not much had changed, though the Nightcar was parked in front of the driveway.
The Nightcar was a futuristic looking tank-car hybrid created by the late billionaire Arthur Warren, reclusive scientist and philanthropist, for his brother the Nightwalker. The vehicle was black with armored plating and stealth technology plus god knows how many upgrades from alien tech as well as Society of Superheroes super-science.
Ironically, Cloak said the Nightwalker never used it for anything but public gatherings since he preferred to travel around the city in an innocuous white van or with magic. Being more theatrical, I'd retrieved the Nightcar from the Nightwalker's former base a month ago, hoping to use it in my crime sprees. The only concession to its new identity was the big Red M spray-painted on the front hood.
Aside from the oddity of leaving such a machine right outside of my house, which kind of defeated the purpose of a secret identity, there was also the fact the rest of the block seemed to have been fortified. All of the houses had been boarded up, automatic sentry gun emplacements put down in their lawns, and “M” graffiti placed over everything as if to announce to the world that Merciless lived here.
The sentry guns followed me, but didn’t fire, for which I was grateful. Taking a moment to look through the cracks of one of the boarded up windows, I saw my neighbor’s homes had been converted into makeshift bank vaults. There was art, cash, weapons, and food all stored inside. Someone had been busy during the past month and I hoped my neighbors weren’t too pissed off at what my henchmen had done.
“Go ahead and say it,” I muttered.
“What?”
“Say I told you so. Everyone will know who I am.” Cloak had warned me Diabloman and Cindy were trouble.
“Are you maintaining a secret identity? I wasn't sure. Everyone in the Society already knows who you are. You were just in prison after all.
”
Turning back to my house, I started up the front walkway. I lived in a two story white-house with a tiny front lawn, garage, and moderate sized backyard. It was more than I could have afforded as a bank teller (my previous occupation) but something Mandy had been able to pay for with her family’s inheritance. The lawn hadn’t been mowed in a while and the cherry tree to the side was dead, a sight which bothered me.
I walked up to my front door and rang the doorbell. It was my hope Mandy would meet me at the front door, we'd have a tearful reunion, and go on to make love. I had a feeling it wasn’t going to be that simple. To only my mild surprise, the door mat collapsed under me and I fell through a trapdoor down a funhouse-like chute.
Seconds later, I landed in a steel cage against the wall of a house-sized cavernous lair. There were stacks of money, gold bullion, jewelry, food, weapons, and supplies next to a large number of warehouse crates. A big “M” hung over the back of the wall and it overlooked the Nightcomputer. Apparently, my henchmen had relocated it from the Nightwalker’s former base in the Falconcrest City Clock Tower.
A staircase led up from a spot a few feet away from me to the old basement entrance which connected to my kitchen. The strangest thing? The fact my washing machine and dryer was still present. It seemed my henchmen had expanded my basement to house their equipment and loot only to start filling up the neighbor’s houses when they were full up.
“Alright, this is new,” I muttered.
“You've added a Merciless Lair, I see.”
“So I have.”
“The words ‘low profile’ really aren’t in your vocabulary, are they?”
“Hey, this wasn't my idea!” I snapped back. “I would have gone with a big M-shaped nightclub.”
Moments later, the door opened up to the kitchen and Cindy started down the stairs in pair of jeans and a t-shirt. She was carrying an empty laundry basket and seemed to do a double take at my presence. Cindy Wakowski was, if you’ll forgive a married man saying so, gorgeous. She was a pale-skinned redhead with a body to die for, and a tendency to flaunt it.
We’d been boyfriend and girlfriend in high school before I’d realized there were some girls who were a lot of fun but not quite what you wanted from a relationship. I think our breakup had been over a threesome, Happy Gas, an exploding abandoned gas station, and a stolen bowling ball trophy. It bothered me on some level we’d remained friends after that. There was something seriously wrong with me.
“On that we’ll agree,” Cloak said.
Before I'd been whisked away to the moon by Ultragod, Cindy had been my first recruit to the Merciless Gang ™. Yet another ex-girlfriend, Cindy was also a medical doctor who had decided to pursue a life of crime both for kicks as well as to pay her expansive medical school bills. Mandy had been less than pleased at Cindy’s recruitment but, honestly, I don’t think I could have done it without her. It also helped she really brightened the room.
“Oh my God.” Cindy’s mouth hung open. “Gary!”
“Ahem.” I cleared my throat.” When I'm in the cape, it's Merciless. You don't want to spoil my secret identity do you?”
“You have the Nightcar parked out in front of your house. I'm not sure you have one left.”
“That was sarcasm, Cloak,” I said, rolling my eyes. “You’d think you’d be used to it since every other sentence I say is it.”
“Only every other?” Cloak said.
I smiled and turned insubstantial before passing through the bars. I didn’t really want to risk that one out of ten chance. “It's good to see you, Cindy. I escaped certain death and life imprisonment on the moon. I killed a few bad guys, destroyed Magog the Nephilim, reunited with an old friend, defeated the world's greatest superhero, and claimed a million dollar ransom. Now, where the hell is my wife?”
Cindy winced as she walked up to me, laundry basket in hand. “Uh, wouldn't you rather hear about the nifty new lair we built for you? Hey, maybe we could tell you about all the money we've made extorting protection from the people of Falconcrest! Saving people from zombies in exchange for wealth! It’s like heroism only better!”
I narrowed my eyes. “As happy as I am with your criminal initiative, no, no I don’t. Where is Mandy and I’m not going to ask for a third time?”
“Would you like me to put on some music? I've just added Powerman 5000’s ‘Super Villain’ to our playlist.”
I stared at her, my gaze capable of cutting through steel.
“I... I don't know,” Cindy admitted. She slowly walked down the steps, putting the laundry basket on the ground beside her.
I paused a second, my heart skipping a beat. “Explain.”
Cindy tapped the ends of her fingers together. “Well, Gary, she was mad at you.”
I felt sick, thinking about my month-long absence. “I can't imagine why.”
Cindy nodded, apparently missing my sarcasm. “Very mad at you. There was also the fact we were using your house to conduct criminal mayhem. I think she got fed up with us and moved out.”
I looked at the piles of cash nearby. “I don't suppose it occurred to you to find a hotel?” I wasn’t going to set fire to her or strangle her. However, the fact she’d kicked my wife out of her own home made me sorely tempted.
Cindy followed my gaze to the piles. “But your house is so nice! You have a flat screen television and such cute doggies.”
“Yes well... “I stopped cold. “Wait, the dogs are still here?”
“Yeah, why?” Cindy asked.
“Oh my God.” I couldn’t breathe. “She's been kidnapped.”
Cindy suddenly looked alert. “Wait, what?”
My heart pounded as I realized the full terrible implications of this. I needed to sit down. Walking over to the Night Computer, I plopped myself down in the leather seat in front of it. “Do you own any pets?”
“No,” Cindy admitted.
“Trust me; under no circumstances would she leave our dogs. Is Diabloman here?”
Cindy nodded, shouting up the stairs. “D! The Boss is back!”
A few seconds later, Diabloman came down the stairs wearing a fresh set of wrestler's trunks with a big ‘M’ on the front. His chest, arms, and neck were covered in tattoos of demons now visible thanks to his attire. In his hands was a small action figure of me and a cell phone. “Is this important, Cindy? I'm on the phone with the Evil Promoter. He’s interested in bringing us in as a stable of Heel wrestlers for the next Slaughtermania.”
Diabloman was one of the sadder stories of Falconcrest City's underworld. A former A-lister from the Eighties, he'd become a B then C and finally D-Lister henching for losers like the late unlamented Typewriter. As I understood it, he was a practitioner of tattoo magic and a worshiper of demonic forces raised by a Satanic cult to destroy the world.
Despite this, Diabloman was an extremely affable man who'd seemingly abandoned his plans to take over the world after getting married and having a kid. While he claimed this had nothing to do with his fall from grace, I couldn't help but suspect there was a link to his status as a devoted family man and his lost favor with the Lords of Hell. D had taken to henching for me with gusto, mostly because my plans seemed to actually work. He was a great deal smarter than either Cindy or me and would probably be able to find where Mandy had been taken far quicker. While possessed of an above-average IQ, this comic book nerd/anarchist/ex-bank teller/Star Wars fan wasn’t exactly up there with Tom Terror for supervillainous genius.
“My wife has been abducted!” I shouted at Diabloman. “I want the National Guard, Marines, Foundation for World Harmony, Society of Superheroes, and Detective Duck on the case!” I shook my fist in the air, standing up. “Get to it.”
“You realize she could be de—” Cloak started to say.
“Do not finish that sentence,” I threatened.
Cloak, surprisingly, didn’t.
Diabloman did a double take at my appearance. “Boss?”
“Yeah. He's alive,” Cindy said,
crossing her arms. “That means we have to split the loot. So it’s both good and bad. Mostly good.”
“Cindy...”
Cindy winced, shrugging her shoulders. “Sorry, sorry. Old habits die hard. I keep forgetting you're a touchy-feely kind super-criminal.”
“Not to mention the whole ex-lovers thing,” I said, annoyed. “But who are we to quibble on relationships?”
Diabloman rushed down the stairs and grabbed me in a hug. “It is a glorious thing to discover you have managed to escape the custody of the Society. I have tried to oversee your empire well in your absence.”
“Watch me not care.” I rolled my eyes. “What do you know about Mandy's disappearance?”
“I'm sorry, Boss. I have failed you. I do not know what has befallen her. You may take my life if you wish,” Diabloman said, ending our embrace. Taking a step back, he knelt down and offered his throat to me. If I wanted to, I could have killed him then and there.
I shook my head and crossed my arms. “This isn't feudal Japan and I am not Darth Vader. You will live to fail me many more times, I hope. I need to find out where she is and who has her.”
“I may have an idea.” Cindy walked over to a nearby pile of mail which had been put together with a rubber band, reaching in she pulled out a long golden envelope with glitter on it. It was, quite frank, ridiculous looking. I could also smell it from here as it was covered in a thick perfume. “This could be a clue.”
“Do we often get letters from David Bowie?” I asked, raising an eyebrow. I also wondered why the hell the mail was still being delivered and why they were just tossing it down here. Maybe they’d rigged the mailbox with a trapdoor too. Nah, that was ridiculous. You know, unlike the trapdoor tied to the door buzzer.
“It says If you ever want to see your wife again on the front,” Cindy said, pointing to the red lettering on the front.
I walked over and snatched it from her hands, mentally revisiting the question of killing her. No, I wasn’t that sort of guy. Especially not a friend, even if she drove me crazy. I would do anything to protect Mandy, though. If someone had abducted her, I was entirely willing to tear this city down to its foundations.
The Games of Supervillainy (The Supervillainy Saga Book 2) Page 2
