Marshall Conrad: A Superhero Tale

by Sean Cummings

  “So what makes average people become mass murderers?” I asked. “Ingrid said that fear is the only thing that matters to a Púca—maybe the spirals and the graphic nature of the murders are supposed to scare the living shit out of people.”

  Stella’s face became ashen and she slumped in her chair. “Oh my God. This is just like what happened in New France back in 1528.”

  “New France? What are you talking about?”

  “Dammit, I need a copy of Chroniclus and I don’t have one,” she said. “I’m going to have to talk to Zona Beltane and see if I can borrow hers.”

  “What’s a Chroniclus?”

  “It’s like Hansard for witches. We keep records of any incursions into the near world. If it isn’t listed in Chroniclus, it never happened.”

  “What happened in New France?”

  Stella bit her thumb. “Trying to remember. Something about Lake Champlain boiling over and mass killings in what is now Burlington, Vermont.”

  My jaw dropped. “What are you saying? This crap happens regularly?”

  “I’m not sure,” she admitted. “Sentry Witches are gatekeepers, and sometimes certain residents of the unseen world sneak through without our knowledge. It might be for reasons beyond our ability to understand. Who knows? What I can tell you is that a Púca is a difficult creature to defeat, even for a Vanguard. If we’re about to square off with an army of Púcas, well, I don’t even want to consider that possibility.”

  “Why?”

  “Because supernatural creatures from the unseen world outnumber near world residents on an almost limitless scale.”

  I gave her a confused look as I attempted to stand up. My head was throbbing violently and my legs were still weak. “You’re a witch. Can’t you just get your coven together and send them back?”

  “Do you remember anything about high school biology?” she asked.

  “No, I was a terrible student.”

  “Well, consider that it takes nine months for a human being to come into this world. It takes a further eighteen years until that human grows up, and there’s at least a dozen or so years included in the equation devoted to traditional education. I’m over fifty— I spent more than twenty years learning how to master witchcraft.”

  “So?”

  “So everything!” she groaned. “What chance do we have against supernatural creatures that can spawn at the utterance of a spell or incantation?”

  I felt sick to my stomach as the gravity of Stella’s assertion began to sink in. If the spiral rocks were indeed a mechanism to spawn supernatural beings in the real world, then it was a race against time to discover how to prevent my vision from becoming a reality.

  “I have to rest,” I said weakly. “Can you help me get back to my apartment please?”

  “I’ll call a taxi for you. Meantime, I am going to consult with the elders.”

  Chapter 17

  I’ve never suffered any major injuries in my crime fighting career—I guess I’m just lucky that way. I’ve crashed into trees, fallen off buildings and even experienced ten thousand volts of electricity blast through my body after lifting a car from under a collapsed power pole, and suffered no ill effects. You would think that after having foreseen an apocalyptic drama play itself out in the backroom of Stella Weinberg’s curiosity shop, something as simple as a migraine would be minor in comparison. Sadly, I was mistaken.

  After I returned to my apartment, my mind poured through endless vignettes of killings that hadn’t yet happened, and my body adjusted to these dark dreams by punishing me with a tsunami of nausea. Normally I receive one or two visions, but this was off-the-scale psychic carnage. And super powers or not, I couldn’t keep up. As soon as one violent series of images ended, an entirely new set of visions stormed through my brain. My energy was spent so I stretched out on my couch with a bucket on the floor beside me. I covered my eyes with a sleeping mask because the smallest beam of light that filtered through the blinds cut into my head like a welder’s torch.

  Time doesn’t exactly fly when you’re seized by visions of children shooting their parents or shopping mall security officers smashing little old ladies into pulp with baseball bats. I popped ibuprofen in my mouth like it was candy, and if anyone had seen me lying on the couch, they’d probably have called a coroner. If any good came from the visions, it’s that I was fortunate enough to see the face of the person hosting Greenfield’s resident psycho immigrant from the unseen world.

  He was standing high atop the gazebo in the middle of Delaney Park, surrounded by hundreds of men, women and children chanting in a language that didn’t sound like any dialect from the near world. They stood naked, covered from head to foot in blood and gore. Their eyes gazed up in hypnotic fascination at the young blond-haired man standing high above them. In his hands were two rocks similar to the ones in Stella’s curiosity shop, but this time the spirals blazed in white light, illuminating the gazebo like a stage.

  His hollow eyes were black as pitch, and he grinned wildly at the crowd. His yellow stained teeth contrasted his pale skin, adding to his already sinister appearance. He wasn’t naked like those who surrounded the gazebo—he wore white coveralls that were amazingly free of any bloodstains, and his thin blond hair hung limply to his narrow shoulders.

  Beside him lay a large organic mass about the size of a compact car that oozed a dark brown substance over the roof of the gazebo, dripping into large puddles on the ground. The mass resembled a human organ, its thick veins stretched out from the base to a large opening that opened and closed, emitting a green glow that shot into the sky.

  The host grinned madly as he dropped each glowing stone into the orifice, causing it to shake violently. Suddenly the orifice peeled back like a horrific flower. Its fleshy petals flattened themselves on the roof of the gazebo and braced the mass as the green light turned crimson. A large clawed hand emerged through the orifice, its bony fingers stretched out and reaching for the young host. The vision ended with the image of the host pulling the large clawed hand through the orifice, and I assumed it was attached to the Púca Ingrid had mentioned.

  I took the sleeping mask off my face and pulled the wax earplugs out of my skull as I slowly sat up on my couch. Walter cringed in the corner of my living room. His cream colored fur puffed out in all directions, and cat hair lay in clumps around his fat body.

  I looked at my watch. A day and a half had passed since the vision in Stella Weinberg’s backroom. “Jesus God, that was unlike anything I’ve experienced in my life,” I gulped. “Gotta call Stella.”

  I had just reached for my telephone when someone started pounding at my apartment door.

  Chapter 18

  Rarely does anyone knock at my apartment door. Save for Marnie Brindle inviting herself over because she’d been the victim of a stalker, it just never happens. “Probably someone selling newspaper subscriptions.” I’d ignore whoever wanted my attention.

  My stomach rumbled as I shuffled into the kitchen to find something to eat. I poked my head into the refrigerator when the pounding at the door started again.

  “Marshall Conrad, you open this door right now!” a female voice sounding like it belonged at a prayer meeting demanded.

  “We don’t want any!” I shouted to the door. “Go away.”

  Undaunted, the voice became shrill and the door shook violently as whoever was standing outside my apartment became insistent that I let her in. “Conrad, let me in right now or I’ll break your G-D door down!”

  “Crap,” I mumbled, as I looked through the peephole. “I don’t see anyone at my door. I don’t do practical jokes, Marnie.”

  “You’re testing my patience, Conrad ... open this G-D door right now! This is your last warning!”

  “Cripes,” I growled through my teeth, as I flipped the dead bolt and quickly swung open the door in an obvious display of dissatisfaction. To my great surprise, Marnie Brindle was not standing outside my apartment. Instead, a little old woman wearing a teal col
ored cotton pill overcoat who stood no more than five feet high looked up at me with a serious frown on her face.

  “Well, are you going to invite me in?” asked the old woman.

  I snorted. “Not bloody likely! My mother always taught me never to invite strangers into my apartment. Harmless looking old biddy or not, I don’t know you, but I’d be interested in learning about how you know me.”

  The old lady scowled. “I don’t have the G-D time for this crap, outta my way.”

  I didn’t see her purse coming, but I knew it must have been filled with lead because when it connected with my midsection, I flew into the wall behind me. My head hit the gyp-rock with a loud crunch and I slid onto the carpet. “Ow,” I said, sheepishly. “Can’t breathe—”

  The little old lady stood over me and extended a thickly veined and liver-spotted right hand. “You’ll live,” she said. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you. You can deduct the damages to your wall from the money you owe The Guild in unpaid dues.”

  “Pardon me?” I asked, still dazed.

  “You got the letter announcing that you’d be meeting me,” she said, helping me to my feet with a tug on my arm that almost pulled it out of its socket. “I’m Ruby Thiessen. I’ve been assigned to you.”

  “Assigned to me?” I winced and I rubbed my shoulder. “What the heck are you talking about?”

  The old lady shoved me aside and strode into my living room, taking a seat on my easy chair. She opened her purse and pulled out a pewter flask. “Want a shot?” she asked.

  “No, I don’t drink,” I said, still dazed.

  She unscrewed the cap and held the flask in the air. “A toast, then... to temperance and treating your body like a temple. Whiskey is the Devil’s drink and may the Devil remain scared shitless of me!” She gulped back a huge shot from the flask and grimaced as she screwed the cap and put the flask back into her purse. “Guess you’re probably have no idea who I am, is that it?” she asked.

  “You guessed right.” I sat down on my couch. “I’ve never been assaulted by a senior citizen.”

  “Fair enough. What do you want to know?”

  “You were assigned to me by whom?”

  “The Guild,” she said. “I’m pretty sure I’d established this about two minutes ago when I knocked your sorry ass into the wall.”

  “I’m not a member of The Guild. I don’t even know what it is,” I said, impatiently. “Look, forget about the damage to my apartment. I feel like death warmed over, so if you could just go back to the Justice League or whatever you call it, I can get on with my day.”

  Ruby gave me a dirty look and then opened her purse again. “You done flapping your gums?” She pulled out a compact and started applying foundation to her deeply wrinkled face. “I’m not leaving. We’ve got a lot of work to do.”

  “What work?” I groaned. “Listen, Mrs. Thiessen, there’s a creature from some bizarre mystical realm that I didn’t even know existed until a day ago, and he’s somehow possessed a local wacko to chop up the good citizens of Greenfield. All hell is going to break loose on the summer solstice if I can’t find the guy, and by the way, why hasn’t your so-called Guild done anything about it?”

  She flashed me a dirty look as she closed her compact with a loud snap, and stuffed it back into her purse. “You’re an idiot, did you know that? You also don’t know who the hell you’re talking to.”

  “Presumably you’re some great sage from The Guild and you’ve come here to teach me your mysterious superhero ways,” I said. “When you’re done here, what do they do? Beam you up to a secret base somewhere?”

  “There is no secret base” she said. “I’m staying at the Concord Motor Inn. I’m a member of The Guild, but I’m semi-retired. I’m not here to train you, either. Do I look like G-D Yoda to you?”

  “So why are you here?”

  Ruby stood up from my easy chair and walked over to the living room window. “I’m here because we’re stretched pretty thin, Conrad,” she said, as she adjusted her silver hair that was tied in a tight bun on the back of her head.

  “What do you mean?”

  “The Guild is composed of meta-powered beings from all walks of life. There are over two hundred members, and right now, every single one of them is busy with missions ranging from battling international terrorism to keeping a huge asteroid from smashing into the earth and destroying life as we know it.”

  “So they’ve yanked you out of retirement so you can work with me?”

  She spun around and her thin lips formed a sly smile. “I’m your sidekick, but don’t let it go to your head, and don’t think I’ll be taking any orders from the likes of you,” she lectured. “You might be a Vanguard, but I’ve been a Guild member for over thirty years, and just because I look like a fragile old lady, it doesn’t mean I can’t mop the floor with you.”

  “You’re a Vanguard, then?” I asked. “Stella said I should have been seconded, whatever that means.”

  “Pfft—I’m no Vanguard. I work for a living.”

  “Then what are you?”

  “A Chieftain,” she said. “I’m also an expert on the supernatural, and the creature with designs on Greenfield is a nasty bit of business.”

  “The Púca? You know about this thing?”

  “Yep. His handle is Grim Geoffrey and he is pure concentrated evil.”

  “This is insane.” I groaned, got up from the sofa and went into the kitchen to put on a kettle of water. “Faeries. Púcas. Little old women who carry armored handbags. I didn’t ask for any of this, you know.”

  She followed me into the kitchen and sat down at head of the table. “That you didn’t ask for any of this is unimportant, so suck it up. Grim Geoffrey is as real as the unsolved murders in your happy little town, and he’s one powerful son of a bitch.”

  I sat down opposite her and waited for the kettle to boil. “So, Ruby—Do you have a superhero name like in the comics?”

  “Nope.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it’s dumb.” She shook her head. “That and the good citizens of planet earth don’t know that meta-humans exist, even though we save their collective asses on a regular basis.”

  “That’s too bad.” I grinned. “They should call you Raging Granny.”

  She slammed her fist on the table. “Are you always this kind to senior citizens?” she snapped. “We’re not exactly off to a good start, here, and I had so hoped that we’d become the best of friends.”

  The kettle started whistling, so I walked over to the cupboard and grabbed two coffee mugs. “Want a cup of tea?”

  “Nope, I keep my favorite drink in a flask,” she said, tapping at her purse. “Do you have any idea what you’re up against?”

  “Not really,” I said, as I poured the water over an orange pekoe tea bag in the bottom of my coffee mug. “I guess this Grim Geoffrey is like a really mean-ass fairy that feeds on fear. The murders were committed by his host. I guess he’s a parasite of sorts.”

  “You’re partially right, Conrad.” She said. “Grim Geoffrey is a Púca, but he’s not a pure breed.”

  “Come again?”

  “He’s a hybrid. Part Demon and part Púca.”

  “So what does that mean?” I fished the tea bag out of my mug with a spoon.

  She pursed her lips. “It means that he can take physical form separate of his host, and that his followers are also hybrids.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Yep. You have to kill his host if you want to stop him.”

  I spun around and stared at her. “Whoa. Wait a minute little lady. I’m in the business of saving lives, not taking them.”

  Ruby got up from the chair and walked back to the living room window. “That’s what I was afraid you’d say. Actually, that’s what The Guild predicted you’d say. That’s why they sent me.”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked.

  “If you don’t kill the host, we’ll have to do this the hard way,” she said
.

  “And that would be?”

  “We’re going to have to defeat Grim Geoffrey in his own realm.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “The Netherworld,” she whispered. “But first, we’re going to have to locate a portal.”

  Chapter 19

  “We’re being followed,” muttered Ruby, as she peered out the side view mirror of my Tempo. “I understand that you stupidly offered yourself as the prime suspect in the murders. That likely explains the ghost car tailing us since we left your apartment.”

  I glanced in the rearview mirror to see a gray Crown Victoria with tinted windows about three cars behind us. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Ruby’s frown deepen as she shook her head in an obvious display of disapproval.

  “What else was I to do?” I groaned. “It wasn’t until you came along that I even knew the name of the killer, and the past week hasn’t exactly been pleasant, you know.”

  “Sounds like a personal problem.” She opened her purse and pulled out the flask, then took a big swig and offered it to me.

  “Jeezis, put that down, for crying out loud!” I snapped, as I pushed her hand below the dashboard. “The last thing I need right now is a drunk driving charge.”

  “I take it back, you’re not stupid. Just horribly naïve.”

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  Ruby gave me a sour look.

  “Think about it for a second. The cops are following you because you’re a suspect in two unsolved murders and you’re worrying about an impaired charge?”

  I pulled ahead of a city bus and lost sight of the unmarked car. Ruby was right. While I’d intended to learn more about the killer by injecting myself in the official investigation, I hadn’t considered the possibility that a supernatural creature was behind the murders. I’d believed this was just a case of finding a serial killer, and been counting on clairvoyance to point me in the right direction.