WHERE I TRY TO SELL THE BLACK WITCH ON MY NOT-PLAN
It turned out I was completely wrong. It proved to be extremely difficult to persuade Selena.
“I’m here to recruit all the supervillains for my secret society … “ I trailed off, trying to think of a way to spruce up my presentation. “S.P.I.D.E.R.”
“Spider?” Selena asked, walking over to sit down beside the Red Schoolgirl.
“It’s an acronym,” I said, taking a seat on the couch as the others joined me. “The Special Political Intelligence Something-Something Revenge.”
“Why not just call it Spider and not worry about the acronym?” Selena asked.
“Because if I’m going to have a secret organization, it’s going to damn well have an acronym,” I said. “It’s like calling Blofeld’s organization Octopus because cephalopods are on all their rings and logos.”
“Octopus would be a pretty decent name for a supervillain organization,” the Red Schoolgirl said. “Plus, they’re delicious.”
“Fine, S.P.I.D.E.R is Spider. Except, it should be Spy-der with a Y and a hyphen. Because it sounds cooler.”
“It sounds the same.” Mandy looked at me sideways. “Also, bad spelling is cool?”
“Yes,” I hissed. “Yes, it is.”
Selena felt her face. “Gary, you can’t form a secret society. That’s reserved for archvillains only.”
“I’m an archvillain!” I said, offended. “I’m really, really dangerous!”
Selena raised an eyebrow. “Gary, I’d leave you alone with small children.”
“What, I’m not threatening because I believe in good childcare?”
“If that’s the case, then Cindy should be the greatest archvillain of them all,” Mandy muttered.
“I’m saying you’re a mid-tier villain at best, Gary.” Selena sighed. “You should be out robbing banks and jewelry stores, not trying to take over the world.”
I narrowed my eyes. “I’ve killed superheroes! I mean, yes, mostly the Extreme repeatedly, but they still count!”
“You’re here with a superhero,” Selena said.
I looked at Amanda. “That’s actually the Imposter. I’ve cleverly locked up the real Nightwoman in an elaborate deathtrap back at my underground base, which is real, and replaced her. Say something villainous, Imposter.”
“No,” Amanda said, sipping her martini. “This is stupid.”
“See! Bad attitude!” I said. “She’s a supervillain through and through.”
Selena continued giving me a skeptical look. “Do you even have any henchmen anymore?”
I paused. “Yes, yes, I do. Thousands. You don’t know them. They live in Canada.”
“I think we’re done,” Selena said.
“We know how to cripple Merciful’s organization completely in one blow,” Mandy said, simply. “Gary has located the source of Merciful’s power and has learned how to kill him forever. He’s the Chosen of Death, remember, and is probably the only person on Earth who can kill the Chosen of Life. He also brought me back to life and if you have any remaining feelings—”
Selena sighed and raised her hand. “You don’t have to play that card, Amy.”
“Amy?” I asked.
Mandy looked at me. “Mandy is short for Amanda.”
“No, she’s Amanda,” I pointed at Amanda. “You have the same name!?”
Mandy stared at me.
“Not funny?” I said.
“No,” Mandy said. “We’re trying to be taken seriously here, Gary.”
“Well, that’s doomed to failure,” I said, sighing. “Listen, Selena, I rescued the city from Zul-Barbas and the Brotherhood of Infamy. I escaped from the moon prison and killed a Nephilim doing it. I smacked around Tom Terror—”
“He’s here, you know,” Selena said.
“Gah, where!?” I shouted, looking over my shoulder.
Each woman at the table stared at me in contempt. I’d fallen for the third oldest trick in the book.
“Goddammit.” I winced. “I am the only person on Earth who can take down Other Gary for good. Don’t you want things to return to the way they were?”
“Supervillains rampaging across the world while heroes are powerless to do anything but lock them up until they escape?” Selena said. “Not really. I’m doing a lot better than I ever was as the Crime Boss of Crime Bosses than I was as just another criminal. You forget, I wasn’t a supervillain by choice and tried to keep the worst of our kind in check. I didn’t make it a lifestyle like you did.”
I closed my eyes. “So, I can’t convince you to join with me by appealing to your worse nature.”
“No,” Selena said, standing up. “I’ll protect you while you’re in my club, Gary, but taking down—”
“He’s holding Gabrielle prisoner and this is all an elaborate ruse to rescue her,” I said. “I mean, yes, we’ll screw over Other Gary in the process, but it’s all about her. He’s using her as a kind of battery.”
Selena paused in mid-step. “Goddesses.”
Mandy smiled. “Funny, how we only seem to gain any traction when we do the right thing.”
“I will help rescue Gabrielle,” the Red Schoolgirl said. “I owe her my life many times over.”
“I do too,” Clarissa said. “Because of Other Gary, there’s no reformation for criminals anymore. We’re treated like vermin, fit for slave labor or to be killed. It was bad before, but it’s gotten worse. I tried to atone for my sins, but I’m back here thanks to her disappearance.”
“Tell me where she is and I’ll rescue her,” Selena said.
“Uh-uh,” I said, shaking my head. “This is not a one- or two-person job. This is an actual army-army job. We need the people here to help take down his forces so I can get at the heart of them.”
“You need them as expendable cannon fodder to get at Gabrielle,” Selena corrected.
I shrugged. “Potato, potahto, only Dan Quayle really cares about the difference. Which is, wow, a dated political reference.”
“Supervillains don’t work for free, Gary,” Selena said. “They don’t do missions out of the goodness of their heart and especially not for a man who unironically has said ‘Anarchy in the UK’ is his jam.”
“Hey, it is!” I said. “I’m an anarchist socialist out to take over the world and be richer than God.”
“I don’t think that’s how it works,” Mandy said, staring at me.
I gave a dismissive wave. “Merciless is not bound by the petty ideological distinctions that lesser men abide by. I have transcended them.”
“Gary—” Selena said.
“Stole one point five billion dollars from the Brotherhood of Infamy,” Mandy said, not missing a beat. “That money is yours if you can get the army to fight with us.”
Selena stared.
“Well, half of it,” Mandy smiled. “We’re not stupid.”
I paused. “Yes, we’re not stupid at all. Yeah.”
“Smooth, Gary,” Cloak muttered.
Amanda nodded along with Mandy’s outrageous lie. “Is that enough?”
“Jesus, with that kind of money, why are you a supervillain?” Clarissa said, shaking her head.
I gave her a deep penetrating stare. “Because I’m a bad, bad man.”
Mandy looked directly at Selena. “Help us. You know Gary has an insane ability to kill people ridiculously stronger than him.”
“Mandy—” Selena started to say.
“I think Death wants to fuck him too,” Amanda said.
Mandy glared at her.
“She’s willing to look and act like you! Take it as a compliment!” Amanda said.
“If anyone can kill Other Gary, it’s probably the guy who killed Ultragod,” Clarissa said. “Whichever Gary it was.”
“I don’t know whether to be insulted or flattered by that remark, so I’ll go with both,” I said, suppressing my angry retort. I was horrified and disgusted that they’d think I’d ever hurt Gabrielle’s family.
Selena sighed. “Listen, I can talk to everyone, but the simple fact is you don’t have a lot of respect around here. Any of you.”
“It’s because I devoured half of Falconcrest City’s supervillains, isn’t it?” Mandy said.
“You did what?” Selena said, her eyes widening.
“Wow, we are really not covering ourselves in glory during this conversation,” I said. “I think she means most of the supervillains here think Merciful and I are the same person, as the Human Tank just demonstrated. Also, Mandy, you were a superhero before you became a vampire. Imposter here is impersonating Nightwoman—”
“Let it go, Gary,” Amanda said. “Be like Elsa.”
I tried to think of something funny to say, then decided to focus on the matter at hand. “So, I need to prove I’m a big enough badass to lead this army. Is that what you’re saying?”
“Yes, exactly.” Selena sighed. “You and Mandy both.”
“Well, one of those won’t be a problem,” Mandy said.
“You mean you, don’t you?” I asked.
“Yes,” Mandy said. “Other Gary is an existential threat to this world and the superheroes are on his side. He’s a corruptor and a fountain of lies who has already ruined this earth twice before. He must be stopped, by whatever means necessary. You owe it to Gabrielle to help, and despite what people say … I believe you are all good people.”
“I do too,” Amanda said. “Except Gary. I genuinely think he is insane.”
“Thank you,” I said. “So, do we have a deal, Selena?”
Selena looked out into the club below. “I’ll see what I can do. No promises, though.”
With that, Selena and the Red Schoolgirl departed, the Human Tank following them for backup. That left us alone in Selena’s booth with a bunch of half-drunk apple cider martinis and a host of new problems.
“Spy-der?” Mandy asked. “Really? You hate spiders.”
“Spiders frighten me,” I said, remembering my semi-dark and traumatic childhood. “Kerri used to have a huge collection of tarantulas when she wasn’t much older than Gizmo’s age and dumped them all in my bed once so we could be friends. Their ghosts haunted me for years.”
“And I thought my family was cruel.” Amanda shuddered. “Spiders. Blech.”
Mandy rolled her eyes.
“Where are we going to get seven hundred and fifty million dollars?” Amanda said. “Because they’re going to want a down payment on that.”
I shrugged. “Evil will provide. We only need about seventy million dollars to bring the other supervillains in. About a half-million each will be enough to get everyone to ignore the fact that quite a few of them are going to die.”
“Seriously,” Amanda said. “We need to—”
That was when an open trunk full of diamonds fell from the ceiling, followed by six other trunks presumably filled with more.
Amanda stared. “When you said evil would provide—”
“I was being literal, yeah,” I said, shrugging. “If we were working for a good cause or needed enough money to get out of supervillainy, then Club Inferno would have ignored us. A half-million dollars each means a good hundred and forty supervillains are going to be cheated at the end of the day, but rich enough to help us break Other Gary’s hold on society. It also will be gone within a week, as that kind of money doesn’t last with supervillains.”
“A half-million dollars doesn’t last with supervillains?” Amanda asked. “I was a billionaire and that makes no sense to me.”
“Death rays and armored costumes don’t come cheap,” I said.
“Neither do hookers and blow, which I suspect is what most will spend their money on,” Mandy said. “Because they’re not you.”
“I have no need of such things. My body is a temple and I have you,” I said. “It is the Sith Way.”
That was when something strange, even by my standards, happened. A one-foot-tall teddy bear with a top hat, monocle, and an umbrella walked up to our table. It then spoke in a thick British accent. “Good day, sir, madams, I couldn’t help but overhear part of your conversation. Am I to understand you are the original Merciless?”
I looked over my shoulder and around. “Is this real?”
“This is where you draw the line?” Amanda asked. “After fighting Cthulhu, the president, and your goatee-wearing twin?”
“He doesn’t have a goatee,” I said, “and yes, this is actually my breaking point.”
The teddy bear cleared his throat. “Ah, so you are Merciless?”
“Yes, what of it?” I asked.
The teddy bear aimed his umbrella at me as a knife shot out of the end and he launched himself at my throat. “Then die!”
“Gah!” I shouted, turning intangible only for him to try to drive his knife into my shoulder. Thankfully, I was tougher than a normal human and it only scratched the surface of my skin. I tried to force him off me. Mandy grabbed him and started banging his stuffed body against the table. The little fuzzy thing managed to resist well until I grabbed his umbrella and used it to nail his arm to the table.
Amanda just watched the entire affair with a big stupid grin on her face.
“Curse you! Curse you, varlet!” the teddy bear said. “I shall have your guts for garters!”
Mandy glanced at me. “Gary, what did you do to piss off the teddy bear?”
“Nothing! I didn’t even break my Teddy Ruxpin like every other kid did!”
The teddy bear squirmed and kicked. “You murdered me!”
“Eh?” I said, doing a double take.
“I am Big Ben!” the teddy bear shouted. “Reborn thanks to the Nephilim Gog sending my soul back to do his work! My ghost inhabits this soft plush shell, but in me burns the heart of a supervillain.”
I stared at him.
And didn’t stop staring.
Mandy waved her hand in front of my face. “Gary?”
“Sorry,” I said, taking a deep breath. “Just … if I ever die, don’t let me come back as a combination of Chucky and a Care Bear like this guy.”
“Who’s Chucky?” Amanda said.
“Don’t ask,” I said, taking a deep breath.
I remembered Big Ben, of course. Hell, I’d once admired the supervillain a great deal. He’d been a Cockney-accented London gangster whom the Nightwalker had put away for decades but who had returned to start up his criminal empire again. He’d tried to sell me the Nightwalker’s former base, but it had turned out to be a trap for morons. People would buy the place only for Big Ben to kill them so he could sell it again.
Only, well, I’d dropped the Nightcar off its display on him.
Big Ben growled at me. “You have no idea how long I’ve waited to get my vengeance on you! I’ve built a criminal organization rivaling any in Falconcrest City history! Do you think you’ll get out of here alive? I have more minions than that corseted strumpet and—”
Mandy stuffed a napkin in his mouth as he tried to bite her, so that his fuzzy mouth did no damage. “So, what do you want to do with him?”
I smirked. “Hey, Ben, how would you like to be human again?”
Ben stopped struggling.
“Gary, what are you thinking?” Amanda asked.
I smiled. “I … have a plan.”