The Games of Supervillainy (The Supervillainy Saga Book 2) (25 page)

“
Thirty-two minutes, Gary
.”

I could have brushed Death off with a flippant response. After all, I'd been an asshole to her with relatively few consequences so far. Why buck the trend now? Unfortunately, I had an answer to that. Despite how much I resented having a master, Death had been relatively straightforward with me. She deserved an answer. Even if, you know, she could have asked her question
at any other time in my life
.

Thinking about answer, I wasn't sure what was the case. There were a lot of things which had motivated me over the years. Anger, greed, envy, love, and vengeance were some of my personal favorites. I was a fan of all seven deadly sins, with Pride being my favorite. Yet, what was the central guiding concept behind it all? What, at the end of the day, made Gary Karkofsky run? It then occurred to me, I knew the answer.

It was the only honest answer any mortal could give, I think.

“I have not the slightest idea,” I admitted. “It's pretty much a day-to-day thing. I have no idea what the hell I'm doing nine times out of ten. I'm playing it by ear. I think we all are.”

“Perfect.” Death put her hands on her hips, her fan facing outwards. “Just the answer I was looking for.”

“Seriously?” I said, appalled. “We're letting the world end because you wanted me to admit I have no idea what the hell I'm doing?”

“Your willingness to admit it is what makes me trust you,” Death said, smiling. “Use you scythe, Gary. Use it to cut a hole to your wife and later to where you need to be. It will help you save the world and bring an end to the Brotherhood's ambitions.”

“Arf?” the
Book of Midnight
jumped up in Death's arms.

“Aw, who’s a good book!” Death said, making kissing noises as it yelped happily in her arms. “I'll take care of this if you don't mind.”

“Make sure she gets all of her shots,” I said. “Thanks, Death.”

“Don't mention it.”

Hoisting up my scythe, I swung it around and slashed in mid-air. The weapon tore a hole in the very fabric of reality, creating something where there was nothing. I could see the startled faces of my companions and bits and pieces of the ballroom they were located in. Having no reason to hesitate, I stepped through the hole and left the Nothing Beyond behind.

Hopefully forever.

The moment I stepped through the rift, I tossed my scythe aside and ran to Mandy's fallen form.

I had faith I'd managed to outsmart Zul-Barbas, confidence even. I couldn't shake the feeling that something terrible was about to happen. She was still lying on the ground, blood covering her outfit and her arms crossed over her chest.

Surrounding her like guards were Cindy and Amanda. Both had stayed at Mandy's side the entire time. Diabloman and Angel Eyes, on the other hand, were off to the side as if they'd been arguing. I couldn't have cared less. Right now, all my attention was on my wife.

“Come on,” I said, clutching her wrist with both hands. “Please have worked.”

I could tell her ribs were no longer crushed and
something
had happened to her, restoring her physical form. Her chest was still, however, showing no sign of breath. It was as if she had become a perfectly preserved corpse as opposed to the brutalized one she'd been before.

A far cry from resurrection.

“Mister Karkofsky... “Amanda tried to speak to me.

“Shh!” Cindy snapped at her, over my shoulder. “This is where he wakes her up with a kiss!”

I was actually thinking about trying CPR. Still, magic existed. Maybe a kiss was all that was required. “Eh, what the hell.”

I leaned in to kiss my wife on the lips, imagining romantic music in the background. If this had been a movie, it'd be the big emotional climax.

It was, in a way.

Pressing my lips against hers, I felt the ice cold red ovals quiver and pulled back. I felt a stirring from my wife in return.

“Please God, work.”

Mandy's eyes popped open, her canines elongated into fangs, and she leapt onto me.

“Gah!” I shouted, utterly unprepared for this.

I could feel claws growing from her fingers as they bit into my shoulders, holding me as she savagely attacked my neck. I could feel tears in the fabric of my skin, opening up to an artery as she started drinking the blood pumping from it.

“Holy shit!” Amanda shouted. “She's a vamp!”

“We knew that,” Cindy said, momentarily usurping my role as our resident source of snark. Thankfully, she realized she'd made a horribly inappropriate comment and ran to assist me.

Amanda soon joined in, pulling on Cindy as she pulled on me. Soon, it was Diabloman pulling on Amanda, pulling on Cindy trying to get Mandy off me. It should tell you about how strong a vampire is by the fact all three weren’t enough to pull her off. By the way, as someone with firsthand experience, the whole 'Kiss of the Vampire' thing is crap. Getting bitten on the neck by a vampire
fucking hurts
.

It didn't help that Mandy was chewing while she tried to suck my blood. If not for the fact that I was kinda, sorta, almost invulnerable she probably would have torn my throat out then and there.

“Ugh argh ack!” I shouted, trying to push Mandy off me while Cindy and Amanda pulled.

“What?” Amanda shouted.

“Get some fucking garlic!” I screamed, pushing against Mandy's face. “Mandy, it's me! You don't... want to kill me. Especially not by drinking my blood! You have no idea...what I've been eating. I had Italian a month ago!”

“Gah!” Mandy screamed, releasing me and falling backwards into a pile with the others. Blood poured out of her mouth as she coughed, her face twisted in revulsion.

“
True love wins the day, I see
,” Cloak. “
Either that or your blood tastes horrible
.”

“Not now.” I applied pressure to my neck so I didn't bleed out. Blood still ran through my fingertips and I wondered if I had to go to the hospital.

Mandy stared at her clawed hands, feeling her lips. “Goddess, Gary, what the hell did you do to me?”

“What
I
did to you?” I shouted, glad she was alive but pissed as hell she'd tried to eat me.

“Vampire, Gary,” Cindy chided me. “That triumphs being eaten.”

Angel Eyes walked over and placed his palm on my neck, a sizzling sensation accompanied by some of the worst pain in my life. “There, I've healed the wound. I admit I did it with a bit more cauterization than was strictly necessary. You should be fine.”

Falling to my knees, the agony causing tears to well up in my eyes, I coughed out. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” Angel Eyes stretched out his arms to Mandy as if to embrace her. “It's so good to see you again amongst the living, so to speak.”

Mandy ignored him, instead staring at her hands and padding herself down as if she was checking out a new dress. Angel Eyes looked positively stricken when he realized she wasn't going to respond to him.

Cindy looked to him. “I wouldn't mind it too much, Angel Baby. Mandy and Gary are like gum on a shoe. Stuck together for life. Well, you know, unless Gabrielle or the Black Witch shows up. Really, they should just do the whole Biblical thing and marry each other. You know, only with more gay.”

Angel Eyes rolled his eyes.

“
Gary, we have less than thirty minutes until the end of the world
,” Cloak said, his voice becoming understandably urgent. “
We don't have time to investigate your wife's condition
.”

“My wife's condition? You mean where she's now on an O-positive diet? When Zul-Barbas says there's going to be consequences, I was assuming he meant there might be loss of hearing. I wasn't expecting her to come back
wanting to eat me
.”

There was a dirty joke to be made there but, honestly, now didn't seem the time to make it.

“
And he seemed like a trustworthy eldritch abomination too
.” Cloak sighed. “
Just hurry it up
.”

I wasn't sure how one
hurried up
telling your wife she was now a creature of darkness. “Mandy, you were killed by the dragon. I made a deal with the super-evil bad thing about to destroy the world but I weaseled out of the deal. Hopefully, that's not responsible for your condition. The problem is, well aside from you being a vampire is that the city is going to be destroyed in less than half an hour unless we manage to stop it. Like, pronto.”

Mandy looked at me for several seconds, her stare colder than Zul-Barbas. The changes to her body were immediate and obvious. Her skin had gone from already naturally pale to milky white with her eyes taking on a peculiar cat-like shade.

Additionally, Mandy now possessed of an unnatural grace which exceeded that of her college acrobat years. There was also something missing, something which I couldn't put my finger on, but I felt she would regret losing.

“Alright,” Mandy said, picking up her guns. “Let's go save the city.”

Amanda seemed more than a little upset. “We can't do that. I mean, you're a vampire now!”

“So?” Mandy asked, looking at her. “What of it?”

Amanda looked about ready to object.

I shook my head. “Amanda, you're awesome but shut the hell up. Priorities.”

“Such an obvious place,” Angel Eyes said, sniffing the air as if smelling something foul.

“They're called the Brotherhood of Infamy, Adonis,” I pointed out, thinking how it was centrally located and also the first major construction financed by Arthur Warren about the time his brother started the cult. “I don't think they're shying away from being obvious. Besides, if it's not the clock tower, we're shit out of luck because it's our only lead.”

“Gary's right.” Mandy licked the blood from her now ruby red lips. “Whatever concerns we may have about my condition can wait. We'll try the clock tower as well. It's the center of the city and where the barrier spell was erected. Do you have the
Book of Midnight
?”

I winced, remembering I'd left it with Death. “Uh, the book isn't to be any help.”

“
Yes, yes, it would have been
.”

“
Shut up
,” I thought at Cloak. “Guys, we’re just going to have to stop the ritual the old fashioned way.” Which is probably what Death had wanted from the beginning. Still, I kicked myself for leaving the book behind. I’d been so focused on Mandy I hadn’t realized Death was using our visit as an opportunity to steal the tome. I’d admire her if not for the fact it was potentially screwing the world.

“We’ll never make it to the clock tower in time,” Angel Eyes said, shaking his head.

“I’ve got a way.” Lifting my scythe up, I spun it around and carved a rift through time and space.

This time, it opened up the Night Tower, that place which should have been my base of operations but had been permanently polluted by the smell of dead supervillain. Now, I could see it was covered in blood and mystic symbols etched in the walls.

“Yeah, I think this is the right place.” 

The interior of the Night Tower had changed drastically in the past month. Where once it had been a beautiful monument to Lancel Warren's work as a crime fighter, now it was a shattered ruin.

Most of the Nightwalker's trophies were missing, either looted or destroyed. Every piece of his equipment was shattered to pieces across the ground or broken by other means. The furniture looked like it had been bashed repeatedly with a sledge hammer before being set on fire.

“They did not like you, did they?” I thought to Cloak.

“
No, they did not.”

The Night Tower walls were now inscribed with runes, each crudely chiseled into stone which composed its pillars. I didn't know much about magic, the disaster with the
Book of Midnight
proved that, but I could tell this was the spot they were going to summon Zul-Barbas.

The floor was also covered in bodies, lots of bodies. All of the corpses were recognizable members of Falconcrest City's local supervillain population.  There was the Watchmaker, the Ratcatcher, the Yellow Devil, Mister Sneezy, the Black Dentist, and even the KGB Commando. All of them showed severe signs of decay.

“It looks like someone took care of their supervillain zombie-guard for us.” I guessed aloud, staring at them. I turned the Reaper’s Scythe back into a coin for ease of movement. The weapon looked badass but was pretty difficult for anyone without super-strength to move as a practical weapon.

“Less for us to deal with.” Mandy held her nose as if the already-horrible corpse smell was doubly-offensive to her. “So much blood. Almost all of it rotted. A bit of it is fresh though.”

I tried not to look freaked out and failed. “That’s…neat.”

Three of the bodies were of special note, both elderly men wearing Reaper's Cloaks. The trio had been stabbed in the head with sun-shaped shurikens. The living capes were wrapped around their bodies, flailing as if trying to escape. I wondered why they weren't flying through the air as the other capes had, until I saw a glowing mono-filament cord wrapped around them. 

“Huh. Sunlight killed these guys.”

“
Sometimes heroes will kill. I vowed never to do, even in the name of saving lives. Sunlight was willing to do so in the name of saving others. I wonder if that made him my moral inferior or superior
.”

Behind me, I could hear the rest of my group react with a mixture of surprise and disinterest to the various deceased supervillains. Only Mandy seemed unaffected by the massive number of corpses around us. Cindy, having worked for a couple of the deceased supervillains, took time to kick their corpses.

I checked the three men’s men’s faces. “Know these guys?”

“Yes.
Both of them were friends. All this time, they were playing me for a fool. How much of my crusade against crime was simply the Brotherhood distracting me from their affairs? I spent years battling pick pockets and drug dealers when I could have been smashing this cult to pieces
.”

“Well, live and learn,” I said, snapping my fingers and summoning my powers to dispose of them. “You also fought kaiju, dimension lords, and a bunch of really scary people who might have otherwise killed us.”

The three cloaks burst into flames along with the corpses of the men they were tied to. The flame became a bright silver as three of the final four remaining Brotherhood owned cloaks vanished from this Earth. Now, only the Nightmaster’s remained. I'd have felt a feeling of accomplishment if not for the impending destruction of the world.

“We need to get some lead-in time for the next Apocalypse,” I thought to Cloak. “Any leads on what we'll be facing here? I know you haven't been a member for seventy years but, hey, necromancers. You never know.”

“
Keep an eye out for Lucretia.”

“If I see someone wearing a Reaper’s Cloak who isn’t Amanda, I’ll toast them. Don’t worry,” I muttered, finishing my search of the area. At the edge of the room, curled up in a corner and surrounded by blood, I saw the source of the zombies' defeat. A single figure clad in gold and white was lying broken amongst the corpses he'd created.

Sunlight.

“Merciful Moses,” I muttered walking over to the man's side. “You've got to be kidding me.”

“Mister Warren!” Amanda shouted behind me, swiftly passing me and leaning down beside the fallen sidekick.

Sunlight was wearing ammo bandoliers filled with shurikens, half of them expended and a few dozen gadgets affixed to no less than three belts around his waist. He’d gone super-equipped to the Brotherhood of Infamy and had gone down swinging. He had bled out from ten or more places, the source of all the blood around him. It looked like a couple of zombies had gotten close enough to bite him. One had stabbed Sunlight in the shoulder with a piece of metal, the piece still lodged there. The other wounds had been sustained fighting the cult. Somehow, Sunlight had managed to fight on long enough to take down his attackers. Probably right before he'd dropped. I'd say it was badass if not for the fact I hated Sunlight.

Even so, I respected what he’d accomplished.

Too bad he had to die to do it.

Amanda rushed to his side, checking for signs of life. It was useless. He was already gone. I could feel her grief from across the room and envied Sunlight in that moment. Few would mourn me that way when I passed. Perhaps that was what Keith had been trying to warn me against.

“
Oh Robert...
” Cloak whispered, both proud and forlorn.

“We can hold a funeral later.” I snapped. “We've got a world to save.” I hated myself for saying it.

That seemed to shake Amanda out of her stupor, which was good since we had about five minutes until the end of everything. I promised myself we’d deliver his body to his children. They undoubtedly knew their father was a hero already but deserved to know he died as one—silly as I may have found the old man, I felt like the final joke was on me.

“Anyone got any idea where the ritual is?” I asked, trying to figure out if we had to go down or up or if we'd missed the whole thing. I was about one hundred percent sure that the later hadn't happened but not one hundred percent, which bothered me tremendously.

Mandy herself, meanwhile, stepped over Sunlight's deceased form and took a position beside me. “The ritual is here, I can feel it, but I'm not sure we're on the right floor. We should try the rooftop.”

“Yeah, I doubt Zul-Barbas is going to fit down here,” I said, preparing to summon my scythe to open another portal. “Okay, everybody, prepare to engage in epic combat with a powerful sorcerer or sorceress to save the world!”

“Uh, Gary...” Mandy started to say.

“Hold on, Honey,” I said, not finished with my speech. “Remember, everyone, shoot first and ask questions later. If we kill this Nightmaster psycho, we can prevent the summoning of Zul-Barbas. If we can combine our powers, the element of surprise should allow us to kill them all before they can even....”

“Gary!” Mandy shouted.

“What?” I turned my head.

Practically next to us were about twenty guys wielding futuristic guns in high tech P.H.A.N.T.O.M futureplate armor which looked straight out of
Star Wars
. Standing in front of them was a shapely woman in a long black cloak identical to my own. She was perhaps a foot taller with long black hair and skin as pale as Mandy's post-vampirism. My gaze turned between the troopers’ guns and the Nightmaster. “Oh come on, the whole come up behind the guy while he's monologing is as old as Aristotle. You need to repeat that. Tell your men to leave and come back in about... ten minutes. We'll wait here for you.”

“I'm sorry, Mister Karkofsky, but that's not happening,” the Nightmaster said in a thick Italian accent.

“Lucretia, I presume?”

“
Indeed
.”

“Fuck.” If I hadn’t been run through the ringer tonight, I would have made a Sisters of Mercy reference.

“Gary, I suggest you dial back your usual flippancy. Those weapons are Venusian wave cannons. The kind used by Foundation for World Harmony agents at the United Nations. They can cut through insubstantial flesh the same as immortal,” Angel Eyes said, raising his hands in surrender. “Our powers would be useless against them.”

“I’m too damned stubborn to shut up.” I was barely able to stand, my head hurting from all the trauma I’d endured, and yet all I could think about was this woman was responsible. She’d ruined my home city, killed tens of thousands, killed my wife (even if she’d gotten better), and all for what? To make the world more boring? To take away heroes just to get rid of the villains? Newsflash: Heroes make the world better than villains make it worse. I wanted to scream this at her but knew it was pointless. She just didn’t understand.

“Allow me to speak to her.” Angel Eyes flashed a pearly smile at the Nightmaster. “I'd be happy to be of service to your cult in any capacity.
Any capacity
. Why don't you delay the destruction of the world for a week or too so you can find out what I mean?”

I could feel Angel Eyes’ powers wash over her. He was trying to work his mojo and I wished him luck.

There had been enough killing.

Too bad it probably wouldn’t work.

“
No, it won’t
,” Cloak said.
Lucretia has no interest in men or women
,
only power
.”

The Nightmaster seemed more amused than anything. “I could kill you now, poor fools, but in a few minutes it won’t matter what happens. So I’m just going to let the clock tick down unless you attack first. You will be honored above all other mortals by the arrival of the one true God.”

“Already got one lady,” I answered, trying to figure out how much time we had left. “Two, actually, though I’m not sure if the second is an angel or a fragment or what.”

All of us stood still, unsure what to do. All of us but Mandy. She bared her fangs at the Nightmaster like an animal before launching herself forward with claws extended. It was simultaneously awesome and futile. The Nightmaster lifted a small circular disc covered in a black cross. Shadowy tendrils poured from the object, wrapping themselves around her arms and chest. Her grunts didn’t fire, instead, keeping their guns aimed at us.

“You have transformed your wife into a vampire?” Lucretia asked in a thick Italian accent, one which reminded me of my mother. “I must confess, I am impressed. What I have seen with my Sight told me you were a slave to your bride.”

“Mandy follows her own path.” I stared at the Nightmaster. “Living or dead.”

Lucretia scoffed at me.

Mandy growled the Nightmaster, her eyes turning a shade of red. “You'll die for what you've done.”

Lucretia sneered, looking all too amused with herself. “Perhaps, little one, but it won't be at your hands. No undead can harm me. It is one of the powers of my Reaper's Cloak. Oh and don’t think about trying to incinerate me or my troopers, Mister Karkofsky. I also know how to suppress the powers of you and Ms. Douglas’ cloaks. You are as helpless as newborn babes as long as I live.”

Mandy hissed, hating the fact she was helpless against the Nightmaster.

“Ouch.” I winced. “Mandy, please don't divorce me for making you an unholy creature of the night. It's bad enough that it has a bunch of drawbacks but I didn't mean for you to be stopped from saving the world. Really.”

Yeah, I was stalling for time. Too bad we didn't have any left to stall for.

“I'll
think
about it,” Mandy said, looking outside the damaged clock-face to the city outside. “Gary, the skies are turning red outside the windows. I think I see bloody rain. I think that's a bad sign. If you've got any of your tricks left, I suggest you pull them now.”

“Right,” I stared at her. “Absolutely.”

“You've got nothing,” Mandy said, looking at me with her red eyes. They slowly faded back to their natural brown.

“I'm sorry...” I took a deep breath. “Mandy... I love you.”

“I love you too,” Mandy whispered, the two of us reaching out to embrace as the world ended.

Cindy pulled the Typewriter’s staff from her picnic basket despite the impossible difference in their sizes and shot the Nightmaster in the face with a glowing energy beam. The Nightmaster screamed as her head was seared by the high-intensity of the ray, far more powerful than I’d been hit with. Contrary to all build-up that she was a sorceress without peer, the Nightmaster was as vulnerable to high-tech beams as I had been at the start of all this. The demonic witch fell to her knees, clutching the side of her head which was still on fire but somehow not dying.

“God Almighty,” Cindy said. “I'm almost ready for the world to end with sap like that.”

Doing a triple-take between Mandy, Cindy, and the Nightmaster, I said, “Yeah, that was totally what I was planning. I take full credit for it and also the salvation of the world.”

The soldiers, shocked by Cindy's actions, hesitated for a moment. A moment was all I needed.  Drawing on the latent necromantic power in the air, I released more heat from my palms than I had ever before conjured. The flames melted through them and Lucretia on the ground as if they were nothing more than dry paper before an inferno. Seconds later, two dozen charred skeletons were spread across the floor. It was the single largest act of murder I'd committed since beginning my career as a supervillain. Once more, I found that I felt not a damn thing.