by Lucas Flint
“What if she somehow removes the collar?” I said. “I mean, it looks pretty sturdy, but if she somehow figures out a way to get rid of it, then it won’t matter if the government can track the collar or not.”
“If she tries to remove her collar, it will detonate and blow up her head,” said Rubberman. He looked over at the Necromantress with a smirk. “Right, Shawna?”
The Necromantress let down her hair, covering her collar again. “Correct, but should the Necromantress ever decide that she tires of living, she shall at least make sure that you are within range of the explosion.”
Now I understood why Rubberman divorced her, but aloud I said, “That’s all well and good, but I’m still a little hesitant about trusting a woman who refers to herself in the third person.”
“You don’t need to trust her,” said Rubberman. “You just need to work with her until we can defeat Iron Angel. Once that’s done, she’ll go back to prison and rot behind bars, where she deserves to be.”
“The Necromantress does not believe that she ‘deserves’ to rot in jail,” said the Necromantress. “Actually, the Necromantress believes—”
“Shut up, Shawna,” Rubberman said. “Unless you’re going to tell us about the ritual Iron Angel is trying to perform, I don’t want to hear a word from your mouth.”
“What a coincidence, Dennis,” said the Necromantress. “The Necromantress does not wish to hear words come from your mouth, either, unless they are the screams of agony as she kills you.”
Rubberman’s hands balled into fists, but Greta suddenly stepped forward and held up both of her hands. “Hey, can we please stop fighting? I know you two have had a bad history together and all, but right now we have more important matters to deal with. Can’t you two at least wait until we defeat Iron Angel before you start fighting? Please?”
“Greta is right,” said Rubberman, lowering his fists to his side. “Our own personal conflicts are irrelevant. Until Iron Angel is defeated, we will just have to put aside our differences for the moment.”
“For once, the Necromantress agrees with you,” said the Necromantress. “Of course, the Necromantress finds it rather amusing that it took a teenage girl to stop you from fighting her. Your ability to control your temper hasn’t improved much since the divorce, she sees.”
I could tell that that last comment bothered Rubberman, but he just ignored it and said, “Tell us more about the ritual. Do you think it will work?”
The Necromantress nodded. “The Necromantress believes so, at least if Iron Angel has properly prepared for it. It was quite the complicated spell, the Necromantress recalls, not one easily performed by an amateur magician.”
“Even if Iron Angel performs the spell, it might not work?” I said hopefully.
“The Necromantress did not say that,” said the Necromantress. “You see, a general rule in magic—actual magic, not the kind you see performed on stages by men in funny hats and capes—is that a spell or ritual will always have some effect, even if it is not the effect you hoped for. A ritual or spell gone wrong can be extremely unpredictable, even deadly depending on the spell in question.”
“What might happen if the ritual goes wrong?” I said.
“For this particular spell, a failure to perform it correctly could result in a gateway to hell opening and demons being unleashed upon the world,” the Necromantress said. She paused, and then added, “Or it could shrink the size of the caster’s boots a size or two. That particular part of the spell was very hard for the Necromantress to translate and she is not entirely sure she translated it perfectly.”
I looked at Rubberman and opened my mouth to make a comment about how I couldn’t believe that the spell could accidentally backfire and summon real demons into the world, but Rubberman looked like he believed every word the Necromantress said. I wondered exactly what kind of weird threats Rubberman had been dealing with prior to hiring me as his sidekick. If he considered the possibility of demons from hell being summoned real, then what other freaky, strange things existed out in the world that I wasn’t aware of? Were vampires, ghosts, and aliens real, too?
“Of course, it all depends on Iron Angel’s skill,” said the Necromantress. “The Necromantress knows very little about this man’s magical skill. Therefore, she does not know for sure whether his efforts will be successful, though if he follows the rules, he will see far more success than if he does not.”
“But if we can keep him from getting Rubberman, he won’t be able to perform the ritual successfully, right?” I said.
“No,” said the Necromantress. “He will likely find another sacrifice to do it, which should not be hard to do, given that the ritual does not specifically require the blood of superheroes.”
“But if Iron Angel can use anyone to perform the spell, why does he want Rubberman, then?” said Greta. “Why not just grab some random person off the street and be done with it?”
“He hates superheroes,” said Rubberman. “I imagine he wants to spill the blood of ‘corrupt’ superheroes like me to resurrect his sidekick because it would ironic. Iron Angel isn’t a psychopath, as far as I can tell, which is probably why he hasn’t just picked up random people from off the street to sacrifice in his ritual, because that would be wrong and would go against his own beliefs.”
“So it is possible to bring a person back to life, then?” I said. “Assuming Iron Angel manages to perform the spell successfully, his sidekick will return to life, right?”
The Necromantress folded her arms across her chest. “Perhaps. The Necromantress never practiced the spell herself before, so she does not know if it will actually resurrect his sidekick or not. Such a thing seems impossible to the Necromantress, especially given how long his sidekick has been dead, but when dealing with magic, it is usually not wise to declare anything impossible, merely unlikely.”
“In any case, we have no choice but to stop him,” said Rubberman, punching his fist into his other hand. “Iron Angel is a murderer, no matter what his justification for his murders might be. Not to mention that he and his minions have stolen my base from me and have probably trashed the place by now. I have no intention of letting him get away with this.”
“Okay, but I still don’t see how we’re supposed to stop him,” I said. I gestured at all of us. “We’re just four people against Iron Angel and his Legion. While we don’t know how many vigilantes he has, it sounded like Iron Angel had a lot of members on his team. How can four people defeat an entire legion of ex-superheroes and sidekicks?”
“Throughout history, there have been plenty of examples of small forces defeating much larger ones, usually with more advanced skill and a little bit of luck,” said Rubberman. “And I’ve already thought of a way to do it. Listen closely, because we all need to understand the plan if we’re going to pull this off.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
An hour later, I crouched low behind the tombstone of someone named Harvey Jones (who, according to the tombstone, lived from 1884 to 1950) in the old Golden City Graveyard, trying to be as still and quiet as possible. Every now and then I’d peer around the side of the tombstone, but I never saw anything other than the various tombstones scattered here and there, plus the trees which dotted the graveyard. One such tree—a large, old oak—stood over the tombstone I hid behind, though due to the fact that it had no leaves, it didn’t provide me with as much cover as I would have wanted. Still, the Harvey Jones tombstone was wide enough that I was completely hidden from anyone walking along the main path through the Graveyard, which was important if the plan was going to work.
Once more, I peered around the tombstone. I saw Rubberman standing not far downhill, near another grave that looked no different from any other, but which was extremely important for our plans. It was the grave of Hilary Fields, or, as she was better known when she was alive, Winged Gal. From a distance, I couldn’t read the tombstone, but I could see Rubberman walking back and forth, glancing up at the sky or down at the path every now an
d then. Despite the fact that he still hadn’t entirely recovered from his injuries yet, Rubberman had insisted on facing Iron Angel and the Vigilante Legion out in the open like this. He said that he would be fine and that I shouldn’t worry about his health or his life, because his plan would, once executed, ensure the defeat of Iron Angel once and for all.
I knew all of that, but I still worried about him. Rubberman was a strong, experienced superhero, but Iron Angel was still much stronger, faster, and deadlier than him. Not to mention that I worried that Rubberman might not have been thinking entirely rationally about this, because I noticed that any time you mentioned Iron Angel around him, he’d scowl and sometimes even growl like an animal. I worried that Rubberman was so crushed by this betrayal from Iron Angel that he might forget all about the plan and just attack Iron Angel as soon as he showed up, which was a fight that Rubberman definitely wouldn’t win, especially if Iron Angel’s vigilantes helped him.
Pulling my head back behind the tombstone, I sat against it and, tapping the side of my helmet, said, “Rubberman, see any hint of Iron Angel yet?”
“Negative,” said Rubberman’s voice over my helmet’s radicom. “Nor do I see any of his vigilantes. But they should be here soon, given how they know where I am. Just be ready to act when I give the signal and everything should work out the way I planned it.”
I nodded, although I was also frowning. “Okay, boss, but are you sure you’re up to this? It might be better if you—”
“Beams, we’ve already discussed this,” said Rubberman in a sharp voice. “Iron Angel wants me. He doesn’t want you or Shawna. Therefore, I have to be the one to show myself. Besides, it works as a good psychological tactic, because Iron Angel still doesn’t know that we’re reunited. If he sees me standing all by myself out here, he’ll lower his guard, which will make it easier to take him down.”
Rubberman’s explanation was reasonable, but I thought he sounded a little too excited about taking down Iron Angel. I didn’t mention that, however, because I didn’t want to get into an argument with him about whether his emotions were compromising his ability to think clearly. “If you say so. But if things go wrong, I’ll jump in early, okay?”
“Okay,” said Rubberman. “Anyway, I don’t want Iron Angel or any of his vigilantes to see me talking to someone they can’t see, so I’m going to cut the radio communication for now. Talk to you later.”
A small click in my helmet told me that Rubberman had cut off the connection between our radiocoms. I was alone with my thoughts again, so I found myself thinking about the plan again.
The plan went like this: Rubberman had called the Elastic Cave via Greta’s cell phone and told Iron Angel (well, it had actually been Glue Gun, one of Iron Angel’s vigilantes) that he wanted to meet Iron Angel in Golden City Graveyard, at Winged Gal’s grave, for a final confrontation between the two. He hadn’t used the words ‘final confrontation,’ of course. He’d made it sound like he was planning to surrender to Iron Angel, because he couldn’t beat him and it was a waste of time to keep running from him.
But, of course, Rubberman fully intended to beat Iron Angel. Although Rubberman appeared to be alone, he actually had help in the form of me and the Necromantress. I was hiding behind the Harvey Jones tombstone, where I had a good view of Winged Gal’s grave, plus an excellent vantage point from which to shoot my eye beams at Iron Angel and his vigilantes. As for the Necromantress, all I knew was that she was in the graveyard somewhere using one of her spells to prepare a trap for the Legion. Exactly what her spell entailed, I didn’t know; Rubberman did, but he told me that I didn’t need to know what the Necromantress was planning to do. He sounded quite disturbed when he said that, which made me think that the Necromantress was planning to do something creepy or even outright horrifying. It would have been nice to know what she was going to do, but I trusted that Rubberman had a good reason to keep me in the dark about it, so I didn’t worry too much.
The goal of the plan was to attack Iron Angel and his vigilantes when they arrived in the Graveyard. Assuming the plan worked, Iron Angel and his vigilantes would be taken down before they even realized what happened and Golden City would be safe once again. The only person who was not involved was Greta, who was still back home with orders from Rubberman to call other superheroes for help if this plan failed. Greta had given me a good luck kiss before I left, though I still couldn’t help but feel uneasy about the plan.
Iron Angel, after all, was not known as a living legend for no reason. He had earned that title due to his years of experience and success in the superhero business. It was possible that he would guess what we were trying to do and have a counter plan, though Rubberman was counting on Iron Angel’s blood lust overriding his critical thinking processes to ensure that he wouldn’t be able to do that. It seemed like a far-fetched thing to hope for, but we really didn’t have a choice.
The way Rubberman saw it, we would have to confront Iron Angel sooner or later, and better sooner, on our terms, rather than later, on Iron Angel’s terms. By choosing the time and location of the confrontation, we had changed from the hunted to the hunter, albeit that was still no guarantee that we would beat Iron Angel or his vigilantes. At this point, however, we just had to hope that our plan would work and we’d win. Because if it failed … well, I guess we’d find out if it was possible to resurrect someone after all.
Part of the reason we chose the graveyard was because we knew Iron Angel would not be able to resist coming here to fight us. He probably thought that this would just make it easier for him to perform the ritual; plus, there weren’t any people in the graveyard, which meant we didn’t need to worry about civilians accidentally getting caught up in the battle that would ensue. The worse that might happen is that a few graves get disturbed, but that seemed like a small price to pay if it meant the defeat of Iron Angel and his Legion. Also, the graveyard gave the Necromantress material to work with, though again, I didn’t know what she was planning to do and I wasn’t sure I wanted to find out.
My thoughts were interrupted by the sound of jets burning through the sky. Carefully, I peered through the hole in the cross on top of the Harvey Jones tombstone at the sky above.
Iron Angel was flying toward Rubberman. His huge wings flapped occasionally, but it was the jets built into the wings which truly allowed him to fly. He wasn’t alone, either; walking along the main path below him were six vigilantes. I recognized Glue Gun and Hissteria from earlier, but I didn’t recognize any of the others. Given how Iron Angel had chosen to bring them with him, I bet that all six of them were highly experienced fighters who would probably be hard to beat in a straight fight.
Rubberman, to his credit, showed no fear at all before Iron Angel or the approaching vigilantes, even though it was this same group of people which had tried to murder him mere hours before. He just stopped and stood in front of Winged Gal’s grave, folding his arms in front of his chest as if he was tired of waiting for them.
Iron Angel circled the air around Winged Gal’s grave once (I had to duck behind the tombstone to avoid being spotted) and then landed with surprising grace on the ground in front of Rubberman. His vigilantes reached Winged Gal’s grave not long after and spread in a semicircle around it, almost totally surrounding Rubberman. I saw Glue Gun’s trigger finger twitch, while Hissteria’s tongue flicked in and out from between his teeth like an actual snake, which was pretty creepy and made me wonder what his powers were, exactly.
“Dennis,” said Iron Angel. “I didn’t expect you to show yourself again so soon. I thought you’d run away and lick your wounds, like the little boy you truly are.”
Iron Angel did not remove his mask, so I couldn’t see his face. Based on his body language, however, I could tell that Iron Angel wanted to rush forward and tear Rubberman apart now. Yet he showed surprising self-control, perhaps because he wasn’t sure if this was a trap or not.
“The way I see it, you’ll never stop coming after me until I’m dead,” s
aid Rubberman with a shrug. “So I decided I’d rather take a stand and die fighting on my feet, instead of die on my knees begging for mercy like some kind of coward.”
“Noble words coming from a profit-seeker like yourself,” said Iron Angel. He raised a bloody claw, which gleamed slightly in the winter sun. “And, of course, I don’t believe them. All superheroes are motivated by profit. The only reason you haven’t fled Golden City is because you don’t want to abandon your business and your money, not out of some noble sense of heroism or honor.”
“Not all of us are motivated just by money, Iron Angel,” said Rubberman. His voice slightly shook when he said that. “But I guess you allowed your despair to ignore all of the good that superheroes have done and continue to do, haven’t you?”
Iron Angel took a step forward, although it wasn’t a very long step. “Don’t talk to me about ‘good,’ Dennis. You and I both know that this industry is corrupt from top to bottom. There is not one good man or woman left in this business. No one dons a cowl or costume to right wrongs, protect the innocent, or punish evil. It is all about increasing the bottom line and fattening their wallets and nothing more.”
Despite how muffled Iron Angel’s voice was, he also sounded quite passionate. Not for the first time, I was reminded of Fro-Zen and his rants about the superhero industry. It was pretty clear that Fro-Zen had gotten his rants from Iron Angel, although when Iron Angel said them, they sounded a lot less crazy, perhaps even rational. I had to remind myself that Iron Angel was just as crazy as Fro-Zen, if not more so, and that I couldn’t let myself be fooled by his own rhetoric, whatever truth may have been in it.
“I’ve known my share of corrupt or selfish superheroes, but you and I both know that there are still plenty of good people left in this industry,” said Rubberman. “Even if there wasn’t, murder is not the answer to the superhero industry’s problems. All it does is make you look like the villain.”
