Almost Infamous: A Supervillain Novel (30 page)

Curiosity is a lot like syphilis. You only need to introduce the smallest dose into your body before it spreads everywhere, eventually taking over your mind and your life before driving you insane. Of course, curiosity doesn’t end up with your body rotting to pieces (usually) and can’t be cured with a few rounds of antibiotics, but that’s the real insidious thing about it.

The only cure for curiosity is to look into it.

Getting Showstopper to agree to the plan I had in mind was easy. Getting Ghost Girl to agree wasn’t.

I started trying to mend fences with the ever-classic chocolate and flowers. When that didn’t work, I tried the even more classic getting down on my knees and begging. When that didn’t work, I offered to eat her pussy. This got her to laugh, and to say that she might’ve taken me up on the offer if she was convinced that I’d be any good at it. Still, this must have been enough, because it got her to read my aura and agree to my field trip.

So, dressed in black and bearing bouquets of flowers, we got Odigjod to teleport us to the Forest Lawn Cemetery in Hollywood.

We had to teleport in at the far edge so no one would see us, but aside from some huffing and puffing on Showstopper’s part, we were clear.

“Angelique’s gonna be jealous; she loves cemeteries,” Showstopper said.

“It’s better if we keep this small. If all seven of us showed up, they might get suspicious,” I said.

“Should Odigjod go?” Odigjod asked. As usual on field trips, it felt strange to see him in human form.

“Nah, stick around, Odigjod,” I said. “Take in the sights if you want; I don’t think we’ll need you till we leave.”

Smiling, he pulled a camera from his pocket and took off running down the road, looking for celebrity graves.

“Well, he’s gonna sleep well tonight,” Showstopper laughed.

“You know, if he actually slept,” I said.

“Figure of speech.”

“I hate to be the voice of reason here, but do either of you know where we’re going?” Ghost Girl asked. I looked to Showstopper. He shrugged.

“Dunno, but I can find out,” he said, bounding off towards a greenskeeper not too far away. He turned on the waterworks, throwing his arms into the air and ultimately getting a hug from the confused-looking workman. He bounded on back to us with a folded napkin in his hand.

“Got a map!” he said enthusiastically. “Now if my services are no longer needed…”

“They are,” I said.

“Well, shit, are you sure?”

“Positive,” Ghost Girl said. “We need you on crowd control.”

“But if you’re really good, we’ll take you grave hunting afterward,” I added.

“And perhaps buy you some ice cream,” Ghost Girl said, without missing a beat.

“You know, you guys can really be cocks sometimes,” Showstopper said.

“Supervillains,” Ghost Girl added.

“Can you guys at least tell me
why
we’re here?”

Ghost Girl and I exchanged looks, but didn’t say anything. According to what Trojan Fox and Odigjod said, the abilities of our Creepers were greatly overstated by Blackjack. They weren’t really listening devices, but they could get a good read on our emotions and intentions, apparently, so long as we didn’t feel too outwardly traitorous, we probably wouldn’t get in any trouble. That being said…

“It’s better you don’t know,” I said.

“Awww, come on!” he pleaded. “I can keep a secret!”

“No you can’t,” Ghost Girl said.

Showstopper grumbled, “You know, if I had a secret plan, I’d tell you guys.”

“Next time,” I said, though I sincerely hoped there wouldn’t be a next time like this. I wasn’t really into running around in secret, it felt too much like I’d get caught. I much preferred the straight-up, costume battle side of supervillainy where I was guaranteed an easy getaway.

Still, despite his bitching and grumbling, he led us to the gravesite. There were dozens of bouquets and wreaths around her tombstone, pictures, teddy bears, everything you’d expect from a hurried memorial. There were a few tourists taking pictures there, and a few mourners for other gravesites within eyeshot.

“Can you take care of them?” I asked.

“Please,” Showstopper said. “Watch and learn.”

My heart skipped a beat as he clapped his hands. I almost expected him to stage one of his elaborate musical numbers, which wouldn’t have made for a very subtle visit. He behaved himself, though. Raising his hands only slightly, he got each and every single person within eyesight of us to walk away.

He explained, “The trick is not making them go away, because if that’s all you’re doin’, then they’re gonna come back and probably find themselves wonderin,
Hey, why’d I go over here again?
No, you need to make them go away with a purpose. Make them think there’s something they ought be doin’ somewhere else more important than what they were doin’ here. Like in this case, remindin’ those tourists that there’s some far more interesting superhero graves over yonder hill, or those mourners rememberin’ that they left the lights on in their car, or that groundskeeper over there remember he’s got a break comin’ up and a pretty good porno on his phone he’d rather watch.”

“You are an artist,” I said.

“Damn right I’m an artist.”

“Think you can stay one while we take care of this?” Ghost Girl asked.

“Are you kidding? This is the most fun I’ve had since I got out of my tube,” he said, putting in his earbuds as he ambled a short distance away.

She looked at me. “Are you sure you want to do this? I can go in on my own.”

No, I wasn’t sure. She’d told me that people had seriously freaked out when she tried sharing her power with them, and I didn’t want to lose my mind any more than I already had.

More than that, I was afraid of what I’d see.

“No,” I said. “I’m not sure.”

She sighed. “Aidan… do I have to force you to make the choice you already know you want to make?”

“Would you?”

“With pleasure,” she said, grabbing me by the wrist, shortly before the world around me exploded.

Well, not really, but all the colors went crazy. The grass took a shade of bright blue, swirling as if it were underwater. The sky became a pale, empty pink. Ghost Girl herself was glowing a bright gold, with thousands of strands of auras of every color of the rainbow hanging off her back, some of them lazy, some of them darting about as if trying to escape or grab my attention. So many came straight out of her front that it appeared she had a double, a double that moved in ways she hadn’t yet moved.

Then there were the five thick, black strands that floated just above her shoulders, each bearing the faintest hint of a face locked in an angry scream.

“Don’t look over your shoulder,” she said. Naturally, I did. Icicle Man’s screaming, half-skinned face stared back at me, all black and darting at me like a snake.

I screamed. I looked away. That was even worse. The ground was covered in dead bodies, or at least what looked like dead bodies. Brown outlines of what were once people, writhing with still living strands of auras, some vibrant and active, others faded and sluggish from time underground. Adriana’s dead, brown aura lay down in front of us, her hands crossed under her breasts as her body writhed violently with aura strings.

“Dear God…” I said, trying to hold back my breakfast.

“Yeah, you thought they looked bad when they were just bodies,” she said, waving a hand over the aura and making the strings dance, pushing some to the side while others grew and lengthened. “Ah, here we are…”

A small handful of glowing brown strings arced up from Adriana’s head, chest, hands, and knees, swirling together to form an image that looked almost like her, sitting on a couch. She was looking at a tablet—shopping maybe, or perhaps looking at tabloid stories about herself by the way she was laughing. She looked up. Then she was at the front door, accepting a thick envelope from a messenger. Back on the couch, she tore open the envelope, spilling out papers. She looked confused.

The aura jumped.

It was some time later. She was hugging, kissing Helios, welcoming him home. They shared some drinks, some food, some drugs, had sex. They were getting ready for a night out when she mentioned the messenger and the paperwork. In a rage, he turned on her, yelled at her for going through his personal things. She was confused. She was crying. He hit her once.

That was all he needed.

She was folded in half.

She died.

She never knew why.

I wrenched free from Ghost Girl, doubling over and spilling my breakfast on the still-blue grass. My powers flickered, flattening the grass around me, then making me feel as weak as a kitten.

She patted me on the back. “It’s a lot to take in the first time. When I first manifested this power, I screamed for nearly a day.”

“Did you throw up too?”

“No,” she said. “Did you get what you wanted?”

“Not really. He just turned on her like
that
. I mean… I don’t think he meant to kill her, he was crying way too much, but… what the hell was in that envelope?”

“One moment,” Ghost Girl said, her eyes again flashing gold. “She didn’t get a good look at what was inside, but she did get a good look at the outer label: SITUS CONSTRUCTION. Does that name mean anything to you?”

Strangely enough, it did. “My dad did some consulting work with them. They’re one of the biggest urban renewal companies in the country.”

“Why the hell would that set Helios off?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “But we know someone who could find out.”

#Supervillainy101: Otis Shylock

Though the official War on Villainy was declared in the United States, other world powers had been fighting their own versions for some time. In the early Silver Age, higher-ups in the British Empire created the Ministry of Loyalty & Security for the sole purpose of rooting out subversive superhuman elements within the government.

They may have even succeeded, too, if they hadn’t hired Otis Shylock to head the Ministry.

On paper he sounded like the ideal candidate. A decorated veteran of World War II (having fought across France, India, and the Pacific) and an experienced MI5 operative, he was charming, handsome, intelligent, and unquestionably loyal to the crown.

Unbeknownst to his superiors, he was also a superhuman sociopath with mind control powers and the ambition to make himself into a modern day Moriarty. While he did his job well, he used his influence and powers to create a network of human and superhuman operatives with a near cult-like devotion throughout the Empire. While they spent these earliest years setting up a number of criminal enterprises to build capital and influence, his ultimate goal was nothing shy of global domination.

And he would have gotten away with it too, if it hadn’t been for a joint intelligence operation between the Soviets and Atlantis. Their spies within the Empire exposed Shylock’s dealings, forcing him to go underground (though not before making nearly one thousand of his followers commit suicide). The Empire was embarrassed and paranoid, the Ministry of Loyalty & Security was disbanded, and despite his failure, Shylock had the infrastructure in place to make him one of the world’s greatest supervillains for decades to come.

#LessonLearned:
Nothing sets people on edge like a good conspiracy.

20

THE AMBER CITY CAPER

We usually stayed out of Professor Death’s old laboratory, partly because Trojan Fox had claimed it, partly because it was one of the island’s creepier corners. Aside from the heroes taking some of Professor Death’s more creative toys, it was mostly left like they found it: full of half-built robots, torture devices, and shattered genetic experiment tubes. The giant death ray that held a place of pride in the center of the expansive chamber was supposed to have been deactivated, but I’d seen Trojan Fox tinkering with it in her spare time.

She’d installed more lights since I’d last been in, put in some carpeting and removed all the cobwebs, so it seemed about as homey as an old cave could get.

Ghost Girl, now wearing her doll mask, and I went to see her right after we got back from the cemetery. As usual, she was working in the small, enclosed workshop off to the lab’s far end. She said she liked it in there because it was quiet.

She was dressed up nicer than usual and, if I wasn’t mistaken, was wearing makeup.

“What do you want?” she asked, irritated.

I smirked. “Were you expecting someone else?”

Ghost Girl chuckled, lightly. “We’re in the way of a hot date.”

“Really?” I asked.

“No!” Trojan Fox said defensively, then looking at Ghost Girl, “Yes, fine. What’s going on? Make it fast.”

I looked up around the workshop’s walls. “So… you say you like it because it’s quiet in here?”

She got my meaning quickly enough, crossing the room and closing the door.

“These walls don’t hide everything, but I’ve made them so they put our Creeper signals on a feedback loop. Talk.”

And so I did. I told her about what I’d seen the night Adam killed Adriana and the things he’d said that made me curious.

Ghost Girl then told her about what we’d seen at the cemetery.

“So you came to me because you want to use my technological aptitude and utter hatred for the superhero fucks who put us here to find out why Helios killed his girlfriend based on the paperwork from this construction company, and why he believes that this information, if leaked, could ruin us all?”

“Pretty much, yeah,” I said.

She smiled. “Of course I’ll help! You do want me to dig up info to blackmail or disgrace him, don’t you, because if so I could really work something up with Adriana’s mur—”

I cut her off, “NO! I don’t want to hurt him, I just… I just have to know why he asked me to do what I did.”

Reaching for an earring on the table, she looked like a kid who’d been told she couldn’t go to Disneyworld. “So, all I get for this is your peace of mind?”

“You’ll get my peace of mind too, if that helps,” Ghost Girl said.