The Rules of Supervillainy (The Supervillainy Saga Book 1) (8 page)

“Awesome!” Cindy’s enthusiasm was sincere and we’d go on to be good friends. Albeit, ones who would drift apart as she sank farther into crime and I tried to get out of it. Apparently, she’d had a better idea of where she wanted to go with her life than I had.

Still, I couldn’t help but remember Shoot-Em-Up’s bullet ridden corpse. The image was burned into my memory. I remembered it whenever I went to sleep and sometimes when I was just daydreaming. I didn’t feel guilt, per se, but I felt
something
. Acknowledgement that I wasn’t a normal person anymore perhaps. It hadn’t been as satisfying as I’d hoped, but it had left me feeling a sense of, closure I guess.

They never did find out the cause of Shoot-Em-Up’s death. Otherwise, I’d have been in jail. Cindy sold his weapons and costume on Crimebay and managed to pull herself out of the worst of Southside’s poverty. The Society of Superheroes did an investigation but never managed to find out the truth, perhaps because some of them didn’t want to.

Or maybe I just got lucky.

Either way, I got away with it.

For what it was worth.

Thrashing in my slumber, I woke up, covered in a cold sweat. Cloak had receded into my skin so he wasn’t present anymore. Yet, I could feel him in my head still.

“
The Nightwalker handled the investigation of Shoot-Em-Up
,” Cloak said, “
He interrogated his ghost for an hour
.”

“
Why didn’t you arrest me
?” I asked him, mentally.

“
Whitman didn’t remember who you were
,” Cloak whispered. “
The Nightwalker should have sought you out, made sure you got help. You were turned into a killer at an age you should have been playing or noticing girls
.”

“Superheroes should have stopped Shoot-Em-Up from happening in the first place,” I muttered. I looked over to see Mandy’s naked form on the other side of the bed, sleeping peacefully. I got up to get a drink of water.

“
Are you so different from him
?” Cloak asked. “
Can you truly say you are walking a different path
?”

“Yes. I can.”

Staring into the bathroom mirror, I tried to see if there were any signs of my nightmares on my face. I’d worked for years to get rid of the signs of stress and worry about getting caught, pushing down the emotions until they were nonexistent. I wondered if I was a sociopath like Cindy had suggested, or if I was simply very good at fooling myself.

“
I don’t think it’s that simple
,” Cloak said, invisible but still inside me. “
I think I have a better understanding of you now
.”

“Yeah, I’m a cold-blooded killer. Ever since I was a teen. Quite the step down for the Nightwalker’s cloak.”

“
The Nightwalker had his own secrets. Other heroes may judge you for your actions but I won’t be one of them
.”

I turned on the hot water to splash some on my face. “You just said I was as bad as Shoot-Em-Up. You could have been more sensitive, you could have compared me to
Hitler
.”

“I’m sorry.”

That surprised me. I hadn’t expected Cloak to show such a humanlike reaction. Then again, he’d done that at the sight of the little girl’s exorcism too. “Apology accepted.”

“
I would, however, like to discuss your choice of pursuits to use our powers
.”

“Ah-ha, so there’s the judgment.”

“
You don’t seem to be a supervillain for reasons of insanity, though I questioned that a few times. You do not need the money—”

“Mandy’s family had money. We’re not rich but there’s enough of a cushion we don’t need to worry about losing everything like so many of the bastards in this thirty-percent unemployment city. At least until—”

“
You get a job
?”

I paused. “Yeah, I just realized I don’t have to do that now.”

“
I don’t think you’ve fully internalized being a supervillain, dream or not
.”

“Do you understand why I want to be Merciless?”

Cloak was silent.

“Tell me,” I said, daring the Reaper’s Cloak to deny he did.

He didn’t. “
Yes, I do. If there’s one thing I understand, its exorcising the ghosts of the past.”

“You know all of my secrets now.”

“I am privy to everything you think, feel, and see
.
I am not privy to those secrets you hide from yourself
.”

A thought occurred to me. “Uhm...were you watching when...uh?” I was referring to what Mandy and I had just done.

“
Do you really want me to answer
?”

I shook my head.

“
Good
.”

I splashed some water in my face. “This city has the highest crime rate in America for a reason. It is riddled from top to bottom with predators. While some of them are pretty damned obvious, I’m not worried about the guys dealing drugs or selling themselves or even stealing to survive out there. I’m more concerned about the guys who have driven this city into the ground since before I moved here. The guys who steal a thousand families’ savings and never see a day in court because the system is designed to prop them up. I don’t have anything against superheroes in-general, Cloak. The only ones I hate are like Shoot-Em-Up and I know they’re a minority.”

Thank God.

“
We call them anti-heroes, Gary. They’re not part of the team even if we have to work with them. The government demands it
.”

I ignored Cloak, not bothering to dignify the hypocrisy. “The fact is—superheroes are tools of the establishment. They prop up the system with super-planes, super-tech, super-powers, and super-justice even though that’s what they should be tearing down.”

“
As bad as the system is. It’s better than the alternative. I’ve seen lands where the system gets torn down
.”

“And that’s because they were allowed to run screaming into the wall.” I turned off the faucet. “So, if you’re asking me if I should use my powers to be a superhero then no. No, I’m not. I don’t know what I’m going to do with my powers just yet but I’m pretty sure it’s going to involve robbing people as well as putting the scare into the people who piss me off about the world.”

“
How noble
.” I could tell Cloak was being sarcastic.

“There’s nothing noble about it,” I said. “I intend to do this because it’s going to make me feel better. I’m probably going to throw a lot of the money I take back out into the world but I’m also going to keep plenty. I don’t have to justify myself or my actions. That’s the fun part about being a supervillain. You don’t have to justify yourself. You do what you want, and what I want is to make some noise.”

“
That is a remarkably juvenile view of the world
.”

“Out of the mouth of babes. The only billionaire who was ever worth a damn in this city was Arthur Warren and he died last week, not long before the Nightwalker. It took like fifteen minutes for his heirs to shut down his Foundation and divert the money to golden parachutes for the disadvantaged Ivy League fratboys they hired to replace his social workers.”

“...
yes
.” There was genuine anger in his mental voice, which surprised me.

That was when the lights all over the house went out, plunging the house into darkness. “Oh, for crying out loud. What now?”

“
Well, it could be one of the Nightwalker’s countless supernatural foes. He was Dimensional Guardian of Earth in addition to being an opponent of street crime. The Fear Lord, Mammaloth the Eternal, and so on could all be coming to kill you and steal his cloak
.” Cloak paused. “
Or you could have a short in your wiring
.”

“I’ll choose option two.”

“
Wise decision
,” Cloak replied. “
I’d suggest you study magic but I somehow think the humility and enlightenment necessary to successfully navigate such things is beyond you
.”

“I can’t sell my soul to something for those?”

“
I’m really hoping that was sarcasm
.”

“Probably.”

Turning around in the dark and stumbling around my bedroom, I heard Mandy was still snoring gently in the night. While it was likely the Omega Energy Company was just shutting down again to drive up energy prices like they did every couple of years, I decided to check the circuit breaker anyway. It was unusually cold, which was strange given it was a hot summer outside. I felt like all of the warmth had gone out of the place.

“Why did the Nightwalker fight so many mystic supervillains anyway? Did they just come here to Falconcrest City to take a shot at him? I never understood how so many superheroes ended up getting villains who followed their theme.”

“
I can’t speak for the others but Falconcrest City is a massive convergence of negative energy both in its architecture and ley lines. Those who practice evil magic find it a better place than anywhere on Earth to work their rituals. It’s why Diabloman was so dangerous despite being a relatively minor tattoo mage
.”

“We’re on a frigging portal to hell?”

“
Essentially
.”

“Is that why this town is such a shithole?”

“
More like this city’s misery led to it becoming a convergence for everything bad in the universe
.
It’s why Arthur and Lancel were so determined to fight human evil as well as foster goodwill around the city. They hoped to weaken the malevolent occult forces gathered here to prey on the helpless
.”

“I just thought it was because they were nice.” I searched the kitchen drawers for a flashlight and found it. Turning it on, no beam came out. “Great.”

“
Arthur was a good person. Lancel...was complicated
.”

Deciding it was more likely the batteries were dead than demons from hell were coming to kill me, I headed to the basement door, passing by Galadriel who’d woken up and was moving around in the dark.

They were as close to kids as I’d likely ever have.

“
Should I ask about that
?”

“No,” I said, heading down the stairs with one hand on the bannister. “Don’t ever ask again.”

“
Alright
.”

It was blacker than the already dark house upstairs, verging on pitch black. The stairs were unusually creaky, too. If not for the fact I didn’t think it was within his powers, I’d say Cloak was trying to scare me.

Which was a lost cause. Nothing scared me since Keith.

“
That disturbs me because it seems to be true
.”

“I’m scared of losing Mandy and my friends, but death? No, that doesn’t scare me. I made peace with that a while ago.”

“
May I offer you a piece of advice
?”

“Can you not?” I asked, wondering if I was going to be stuck with a surrogate dad in Cloak for the rest of my life.

“
I advise you to be wary of Diabloman and Ms. Wakowski. Diabloman is affable enough to his friends and those who treat him with respect, but responsible for many deaths. Cindy is a broken woman like so many others who survived the south of Falconcrest City. Anything good in her died a long time ago
.”

“And maybe you’re a judgmental prick.”

“
Perhaps
.”

That was when I felt my costume
slither
over my body as if it was a bottle of ink poured over me. It wasn’t an unpleasant feeling and I enjoyed Cloak’s presence in physical form. Uh, for some measure of the term.

However, I
didn’t
summon him.

“Did you do that?” I asked aloud.

“
No
.”

“Uh-oh.”

Lifting my right hand, I conjured a ball of flame to illuminate my surroundings. Instead of its normal golden-orange color, though. The flame burned a brilliant white. For the most part, what I saw was nothing more than the usual stuff I found in my basement: washing machine, dryer, polybagged comic book collection, unused gym equipment, Mandy’s highly illegal arsenal of weapons in case of P.H.A.N.T.O.M attack or alien invasion, and boxed Hanukah decorations.

Then I turned around.

Greeting me on the other side of the room was a naked blood-soaked Mandy or a woman who looked identical to her except for the eyes which reminded me strongly of Gabrielle’s. Her fingernails were like talons and she reached out to me.

Her voice was like the voice of Hell itself.

“Oh, my Samael,” the bloody figure whispered in the dark. It was like hell itself. “God sent you to me to be my
gevurah
.”

I retracted my earlier statement about never feeling fear. I screamed like a little girl. Actually, no, my sister Kerri was a little girl once, and she never screamed like this. I screamed like a very scared shrieky person.

“Soooooooon.” The bloody figure vanished.

I swore for the next minute. I was still doing so when the basement lights switched back on.

“
Calm yourself
,” Cloak said. “
It is over
.”

“What the bleep was that?” I asked, actually using the word bleep since fuck had lost its power after the sixteenth time I’d used it.

“
Death
,” Cloak said. “
The Master of the Reaper’s Cloak. She’s trying to contact you
.”

“Death as a concept, angel, goddess, force, or anthropomorphized entity?”

“
Yes
.”

“Thank you, so very much,” I muttered. “
Did the Nightwalker deal with her much
?”

“
No, he did not. This could be very good or very bad. Probably the latter
.”

I cursed again. “I was fine with ghosts who look like little girls and bankers. It’s cheating when they look like loved ones.”

Cloak was not sympathetic. “
Oh boo hoo
.”

I cursed at Cloak and dismissed the attire. Taking a moment to calm myself, I sighed. “Okay, this is just one more of the many-many surprises I’m finding out is involved with owning the Reaper’s cloak. I’ll deal with it like I’ve dealt with the others.”

“
Good
,” Cloak said.  “
She used a word to describe you. Gevurah
.
Do you know what that means
?”

“You don’t know something?” I asked.

“
It happens, surprisingly enough
.
Judaism is one of the few areas I’m wholly unfamiliar
.
The Rabbis of Falconcrest refused to teach Master Warren anything due to his past involvement in matters best left unspoken of
.”