“Do you mind if I do the honors?” I asked Amanda.
“Go ahead,” Amanda gestured. “I'm going to enjoy watching this.”
Okay, that wasn't creepy.
Noticing a piece of concrete had been knocked out of the bridge by the car crash, I reached over and grabbed it before using it to smash the Typewriter's head in. It was a bloody, grizzly, gory process that ended only when I had thoroughly scattered the Typewriter's brain matter across the pavement.
“Nice,” Amanda said, a giddy look on her face.
“You frighten me Amanda,” I turned to Cindy who had just dispatched the purple-costumed supervillainness with her ray gun. “New plan, Cindy, I decapitate the corpses of everyone I kill.”
“Good idea.” Amanda coughed in her hand. “Mister Merciless... they’re trying to distract us. I know how the cult operates. I’ve been studying them for weeks. They know we’re a threat so they’re arranging things so we’re slowed down. We don’t have time to let them—”
“The gorilla,” Cindy said, interrupting her, “he's killing Mister Diablo!”
I looked up, only to see Diabloman thrown on the ground beside Angel Eyes’ car. The vehicle’s owner was still inside, having apparently decided to sit this one out. Either that or he was caught gazing at his reflection in the rearview mirror. That, or something like it, was supposedly his secret weakness.
Ganglord Gorilla beat its chest and reached up to pick up the Typewriter's punctuation-shaped car. Lifting it up effortlessly over its head, I tried to figure out a way to deal with it before it crushed us. Setting the super-strong super-durable zombie on fire seemed like it would only tick it off and I didn’t know if the Brotherhood had given it a similar amulet as the kind the Typewriter claimed to possess. Before I could make any decision on what to do, the giant gorilla exploded into flaming pieces.
“That was unexpected,” Amanda said.
Turning around, I saw Mandy had picked up the fusion cannon. She’d changed out the power pack with a replacement from the back of the Typewriter’s vehicle. The cannon smoked and she looked sexy holding it. What could I say, I liked a girl with a big gun.
“Yeah, well, what can I say? My father taught me well.” Mandy tossed the now-useless weapon aside. “I prefer the P-38, though.”
“I love you,” I said, smiling brightly.
“I know.” Mandy grinned.
Angel Eyes climbed to his feet, taking time to dust off his outfit. He’d been utterly useless during our right. “This is not the most auspicious beginning to our business relationship.”
“Kidnapping my wife wasn't the most auspicious beginning to our business relationship.” I wanted to go over there and re-arrange his breathtakingly beautiful face. I couldn’t, though. He was just so damned pretty.
“I wasn't kidnapped,” Mandy corrected. “Try and remember that.”
“Kidnapped like the helpless little princess you are.” I adopted a playful mocking tone. “How could ever such a delicate flower survive the depredations of such a monstrous cretin as the one before me? Oh woe.”
Mandy looked ready to kick my ass.
“Your sarcasm is duly noted.” Angel Eyes glanced over at the Typewriter's corpse. “One less supervillain rival in the city, I suppose.”
“He was a rival?”
“Not really.”
Amanda pulled out another boomerang to threaten us. “By the way, I want you guys to know I’m only letting you go because I owe Mister Karkofsky and the city is in danger. After this, I’m coming after all you all.”
Cindy aimed her ray gun at Amanda.
I shook my head and Cindy lowered it. I just gave a nod at our new partner. “Duly noted, Nightwalker.”
Angel Eyes stared at her incredulously. “Where did you pick up this insolent little moppet?”
“You were there,” I said, wondering if being immortal affected one’s memory. I was about to shout before I found I couldn’t. The words were difficult to speak and I suddenly felt woozy. “So, any objections to hot-wiring a car to continue our mission? We may have to loot some stores for Mandy to get some proper adventuring attire too plus any other equipment we need to case the place.”
I felt like I needed to sit down.
Everything was blurry.
“I’m sorry Gary,” Cloak said, sounding heartbroken. “I truly am.”
“For what?” I thought back, confused.
“I'm all for stealing to save the city.” Mandy took the initiative. “It's when you’re doing it to satisfy your ego I object.”
“Do you normally clear everything with your spouse?” Angel Eyes said, raising an eyebrow. In that moment, he showed me I'd never have to worry about him and Mandy. She'd never tolerate anyone talking down to her.
“Yes.” I wondered if Angel Eyes had caught up with the 21st century regarding women’s rights. “She wears the dress in the family and thus rules.” I needed to find some place to sit down for a minute.
Angel Eyes looked at me like I'd grown a third head. “What are you talking about?”
I waved him away, looking down at Diabloman. I rocked back and forth on my feet, unable to properly balance myself for some reason. “D, you okay?”
“I am...alive,” Diabloman said, sounding surprised. “You, on the other hand, are bleeding badly.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked, surprised.
I noticed my cauterized wound had re-opened. A large amount of blood was pouring from it and sliding down the front of my torso. It was worse than before.
“Oh dear.” I felt my legs buckle out from under me.
“I appear to have led you to your death.” Cloak’s voice echoed in my head while my feet started to buckle under me.
I was dying.
I stumbled around, struggling for something to say before I passed out. “Yeah. Well, as my last words, I'd like Mandy to know I love her. That I like all of you but Angel Eyes. I love some other people. Also, I regret nothing. Nothing!”
I slumped over, face first, into the concrete.
Dead.
Bet you didn’t see that coming.
Chapter Eleven
Death is the High Cost of Living
Then I died.
Well, maybe.
One thing I would learn is the difference between life and death isn't quite as clear cut as most people assume. Comas, unconsciousness, and even sleep are about halfway there. Halfway will get you a chance to wade in the Stygian darkness that is the Great Beyond.
Death, for me, felt a lot like getting drugged by the Ice Cream Man.
This meant, perhaps, I wasn’t dying.
Hopefully.
So what happened when I died? Where did I go? Well, I floated through the darkness of oblivion and past memories until I found myself once more solid and consciousness inside an elevator. The place had a faded stainless steel finish and the carpet was an ugly pattern stained with soot. There was only a down button on the right side of the wall and the place smelled vaguely of brimstone. Paint it Black by the Rolling Stones was playing in the background.
“Well this is odd.” I looked around the elevator. “Not at all what I expected.”
“What did you expect?”
“Fire and brimstone.” I waved my hands around for emphasis. “Torture with hot pokers and rubber chickens. No possibility of seeing anyone I love ever again. The latter might still be true. Which is hell enough I suppose.”
“You have a very interesting view of the afterlife,” Cloak observed, his usual annoyance absent. “Quite possibly unique.”
“Way to reassure me,” I muttered.
“I'm not here to reassure you.”
“Obviously. We're going to Gehenna, aren't we?”
“Yes. I'm afraid so.”
“Bugger. I shouldn't have said I regretted nothing.”
“Probably not. That might have made all the difference in some religions.”
“Not mine. If I'm dead, why are you still a cloak a
nd not some hundred-year-old Hugh Hefner wannabe?” I asked, noticing I was still in the Reaper's Cloak.
“I don't know.” Cloak sounded genuinely perplexed. “This isn't how I imagined my afterlife either. Why am I with you as opposed to being on the bridge seeking a new host. This isn't supposed to be how it goes.”
“Well, only one way to find out.” Reaching over, I tapped the elevator’s lone button and lurched downward. “We can go ask the man himself. Samael, here we come.”
“You have no idea what you're doing.”
“That's never stopped me before.”
The elevator took an extremely long time to reach the bottom. “Carry on my Wayward Son” by Kansas played, “In the City” by the Eagles, and “Sympathy for the Devil” by the Rolling Stones. Say what you will about Death but she had good taste in music.
I was less afraid than I might have been because I knew the Reaper’s Cloak tied me to Death. Be she angel, god, or anthropomorphic personification, Death was a literal being who powered my cloak. We’d only spoken a few words together since I’d gained my powers but all indications were she’d wanted to speak with me. I also knew she wanted something from me given she’d given me a dramatic power boost on the moon to save Gabrielle’s life. I was hoping to talk my way out of being dead, even if bargaining with Death rarely worked out for most people.
“You need to know a few things before you go to meet our master. This is a place formed by your impressions of what you expect the afterlife to be like. Hell is a mindset. You need to be in control of what you expect here.”
“Our afterlives are formed by our perceptions?” I asked, surprised he decided to bring this up now of all times. “How very Discworld.”
“I have no idea who that is. I don't get half of your references.”
“Half is generous.”
Moments later, the elevator hit bottom and the doors opened up. I was rather disappointed to discover it was a typical fire and brimstone location with a long cavernous stone walkway leading up to a throne facing the opposite direction to the elevator doors so I couldn’t see who sat inside it. Interestingly, the lava environment around wasn’t hot but deathly cold. It seemed Gehenna was a place where fire burned low and without warmth. A fitting metaphor for evil I supposed.
“You should introduce yourself, formally,” Cloak advised.
“Lucy, I’m home!” I shouted in my best Desi Arnaz impression, walking toward the throne.
Cloak was, for the first time, genuinely speechless.
“Welcome, Merciless,” a voice spoke from the throne. It was pure sex, having roughly the same effect on me as my wife wearing a teddy. The figure stood up and walked around the throne. That was when I saw the form of the Great Beyond's ruler.
It was Mandy's.
She was dressed in a pair of tight leather pants and a black corset I remembered as Mandy's stage outfit. I barely remembered the Black Furies concerts I'd gone to but I remembered her wearing that. It still fit perfectly, despite her body type having changed a bit after our marriage. Curiously, her eyes were different. They were the eyes of my ex-fiancé Gabrielle’s.
“Okay, that was unexpected.”
“That's not your wife.”
“No kidding,” I said, sarcastically. Clearing my throat, I looked up at the woman who so clearly resembled my loved ones. “I don't believe we've had the pleasure of meeting. Would you believe you look like someone I once knew?”
“I'm Death,” the woman resembling my wife said. Her lips were the shade of blood and just seeing them sent spasms of pleasure up and down my body. “I am known my many names. Hel, Persephone, Samael, Lilitu and her sisters, Azrael, and others. Everyone has a conception of Death but no one truly knows her. I am the Grim Reaper and the Loving Embrace.”
Her voice was pure sex.
Even my toes felt aroused by her.
This was so wrong.
“There's a joke I could be making but I doubt Mandy would appreciate it,” I was trying not to drool.
God damn, she was hot.
“Mind explaining why Death is appearing as my spouse, Lancel?”
“I am... at a loss for words. She appeared to me as a hooded skeleton with a scythe.”
“Well, you're a traditionalist. Honestly, though, I prefer this look.”
Death’s look was a mixture of seductive and amused. “Lancel Warren summoned me with necromancy and bound me into the form he expected death to appear as. I decided, for our conversation, I'd adopt the form of your ideal mate. I'm surprised to see it's your wife's image. Most men dream about every woman in the world but their spouses.” She paused. “Then again, perhaps you like this better?”
Her appearance altered to a mid-riff revealing black and white variation of Ultragoddess' costume. It looked like a cheerleader’s outfit with a cape only with a strategically torn parts to give it a vaguely Goth look. Gabrielle's bronzed skin contrasted with Mandy's eyes and I couldn't help but feel both ashamed as well as tormented by the fact I loved both women. Mandy, though, was my wife.
“Choose whichever form you like.” I looked down at the ground, unable to meet her gaze. “So, I take it I'm dead? Like, really dead? If so, I've got to register a complaint. I object to not only the manner of my death but that it happened period.”
“You and everyone else,” Death said, turning around her stone throne with a twirl of her hands. She sat back down in her, once more assuming the form of my wife. It was a head game I didn’t appreciate.
“Touché,” I replied, shrugging my shoulders. “You've got me there. In which case, I'd like to reserve six of the deadly sins to indulge in on a regular basis. I'll pass on Gluttony because I'm trying to lose weight.”
Death sat down, crossing her legs and lying back languidly in a pose that turned me on in ways I hadn't been since, oh, last Halloween. Mandy had gone with a Guinevere costume and... well, anyway, that's none of your business.
“You're not dead,” Death answered. “Not yet, at least.”
“Thank God.” I breathed a sigh of relief. “You know, if he had anything to do with it.”
“He didn't.” Death laughed, not at all reassuring me. “It is by my actions and my actions alone.”
“Good to know.” I looked for some place to sit down. Unfortunately, everything was burning or sizzling. Absent anything comfortable to sit on, I chose a large piece of rock jutting out of the lava river beside me. It was surprisingly comfortable. Apparently, the molten lava ran lukewarm in hell. Either that or this being the product of my imagination, nothing could hurt me. I was tempted to see if I could influence things like in The Matrix or Inception.
“Can I offer you any refreshment? Alcohol, food, or dessert?” Death enunciated the word dessert the way bad movie scripts did when they needed their two leads to have sex.
“Not interested in dessert.” It took every ounce of my willpower to turn her down, calling into question my fidelity as a husband. I'd never been tempted by anyone the way I was by Death. Of course, she was tempting me by looking like my wife so maybe there was a loophole for my naughty thoughts. Nah. “I will take a Cherry Coke with rum in it. As for anything else, you may look like my wife but you're not her. I'm strictly a 'look at the menu but don't order anything' guy when it comes to attractive women who aren't my wife.”
Death looked hurt, giving a cute little frown. “Your loss.”
A human skeleton dressed in a butler's outfit walked up with a silver tray carrying a cherry coke with rum. A little stick of celery was sticking out of it as well as an M-shaped red straw. Taking a sip, I nodded. “My compliments to the bartender. This is the best I've had since grade school.”
“This is not at all like my encounters with Death. He...she... it... threatened me with death and doom every other sentence.”
“You don't have my people skills.”
“That's a terrifying thought.”
I sipped my drink. “By the way, do we have that time dilation thing where it's like t
wenty minutes here but only seconds passing in the real world? Because, honestly, I don't want to leave my friends up there. I know everyone can take care of themselves but I'd hate to miss helping them kick the Brotherhood’s ass.”
“Our meeting will only take a moment of your time. You have a lot of faith in your friends.” Death sounded surprised. “Most would believe they would be killed by the Brotherhood given how the odds are stacked against them.”
“I'm pretty sure I'm the least competent person in that group,” I said, being more honest than I ever wanted to be. “I may have an edge on Amanda but that's only if she's listened to a single word uttered by Sunlight as to how to be a superhero. What do you want from me?”
“I want to offer you a job.” Death rested her elbows on her knees and placed her chin in her palms.
“Could I have a chocolate chip cookie?” I asked the skeleton butler. “Fresh from the oven? Like my grandmother used to make?”
A moment later, another skeleton butler brought out a chocolate chip cookie on a black paper plate. It smelled absolutely delicious and I put down my drink long enough to tear into it. Hell was a lot nicer than I'd imagined it. Well, technically, it was exactly how I'd imagined it but that was neither here nor there. This is probably why I had a failing grade in philosophy. I aced Humanities, though.
“Merciless?” Death asked, looking somewhat annoyed. “Did you hear a word of what I said?”
Chewing my cookie, I took a few seconds to respond. Swallowing a mouthful, I answered, “Not interested.”
“We're dead.” Cloak sounded like he wished he could slap me in the face. “Well, I'm dead anyway but we're deader than dead. Gary, you do not turn down an offer from the Grim Reaper. She... it... is one of the Primals, the cosmic constants that govern this universe. Only the Great Beasts are as powerful.”
As usual, Cloak's lessons probably would have had more impact if I had the slightest idea what he was talking about.
The Games of Supervillainy (The Supervillainy Saga Book 2) Page 10
