Back when Old Man Lacey was alive, the Farmers Market was the most popular family weekend destination in all of Centerport County. After he passed, his daughters were neither farmers nor businesswomen and, when they couldn’t sustain the business, the property was seized for unpaid taxes. Eventually, Greene Genes leased it, converted it into a testing facility, and erected a twelve-foot-high fence around the whole place to keep out the curious. Now, the farm was off-limits to all but authorized personnel. It was here that the trial run of the new pesticide was to take place and, if Thanatos’ threat was legit, the Whirlwind needed to be on hand.
Between the scientists intent on whatever they were intent upon, and the veritable battalion of cops on hand to protect them, the area was an anthill of frenetic activity. I made a pit stop to check in with Gretchen and make sure she knew I’d arrived.
“Keep an eye out,” she said brusquely when she saw me.
“Gee, thanks Gretch. How about, ‘Great to see you! See any good movies lately? Did you ever manage to clear up that rash?’”
She responded with a scowl while she barked commands to her underlings into her walkie talkie.
“I guess I’ll just mosey up to the top of that big old barn to get a better view of the festivities, eh?”
“Water tower’s better,” she noted, and dismissed me by turning her attention back to the walkie-talkie.
I came very close to saying something about being taken for granted but, given the fervor with which she was growling commands, I figured that it was probably best not to provoke her. Instead, I hauled my tightly muscled little butt across the barnyard and up the rusty ladder to the top of the tower. Once there, I paused for a moment to strike a pose with my cape dramatically billowing behind me, and my chest inflated heroically, just in case any of the paparazzi happened to be in the area looking for a photo op.
Standing that way was not only uncomfortable but, since it meant I was fully exposed to attacks from death rays and bazookas, it was also silly. I soon abandoned it and dropped into a crouch before closing my eyes and extending my senses. If Thanatos was on the scene already, it would be a good idea for me to know about it. Unfortunately, all the busy bees rushing hither and yon were distorting any signals I could pick up. Given the interference, I’d be lucky to sense a bad guy at all before he snuck up behind me and yelled, “Boo!
It took less than an hour for the Greene Genes people to get ready, but it seemed like I was perched up there for days. Finally, the hustle and bustle faded and everyone took their assigned positions. I knew that if something was going to happen, it would happen soon. I felt a sense of foreboding and, instinctively, I scanned the ground three stories below to see if I could locate Peter just in case. No matter how many civilians might be threatened by whatever Thanatos had in mind, my first priority was damned well going to be protecting my husband. But I couldn’t spot him. Hopefully, he was tucked out of harm’s way, running things from the safety of one of the big SUVs with the huge dish antennas that were parked some distance from the barnyard.
I’m a city boy at heart. Nevertheless, I’ve watched enough Green Acres reruns, not to mention that cinema classic, Lassoed Young Cowboy Studs, to be able to identify basic farm equipment. You know, tractors, pickup trucks, windmills, cows…that sort of thing. The contraption that trundled out of Lacey’s barn was nothing like any farm equipment I’d ever seen. The top half looked like an antique fire truck, with nozzles and hoses pointing in all directions. The bottom part had treads like a tank. Adding to the impression that Ah-nald was about to burst from the hatch, bare-chested except for some sweat and bandoliers, the driver’s cab was heavily armored. It reminded me of a mobile version of one of those bunkers you see in 1950s sci-fi movies where all the generals hang out to watch the nuclear testing.
It putt-putted toward a small plot of corn that was insulated from the rest of the fields by a tenting of clear plastic sheeting hung on a metal frame. A bunch of people in biohazard suits let it into the makeshift dome and then made quite a production number out of making sure the plastic was securely sealed behind it. A warning bell sounded and, simultaneously, a white fluid erupted from all of the nozzles, thick enough to coat the plastic and completely obscure anyone’s ability to see inside. It continued for quite a while, certainly long enough for me to have drained the hot water heater should I have taken that long of a shower at home. Eventually, the bell rang a second time, and the hoses ceased their hissing.
There was a little square area attached to one side of the dome, also covered in plastic, sort of like an airlock on a space ship. As it turned out, that was pretty much what it was. Someone in a hazmat suit, presumably the driver of the tank-like thing, exited the main part of the dome and stepped into it. Immediately, pressure hoses kicked in from all sides with enough force to knock him to his knees. He hunkered down under the onslaught and was engulfed in a small mountain of disinfectant foam. Impressed, I made a mental note to ask Peter if we could borrow the hoses and give the cars a good wash. Eventually, the spray subsided to a trickle and the man was whisked into a nearby van with a red medical cross on the side.
The test seemed to have gone off without a hitch. If Thanatos intended to pull anything, it would have to be soon. As a precaution, I extended my senses again but, even before I picked anything up, I heard the whirring sound of something mechanical quickly coming up behind me. I spun around fast enough for my cape to twirl. I stopped, stunned.
I felt no fear. I wasn’t the slightest bit intimidated. What I was, was envious. Though the jury was still out on whether Thanatos was insane, or clever, no one could deny that the guy had a marvelous sense of theater and knew how to make an entrance.
In person, his body was even more impressive than it looked in the video. Next to Thanatos’s get-up, George Clooney’s and Chris O’Donnell’s bat suits were barely a step above burlap sacks. And that cape! I lusted for the cape almost as desperately as I lusted to see Thanatos without the cape.
The hell with the cape. If truth be told, I lusted to see Thanatos without anything between him and the brightly shining sun but a thin film of baby oil.
And then I spotted the boots.
The boots were a foot fetishist’s wet dream come true. I’ve never been into feet. Nor am I one of those gay men who has three hundred pairs of shoes in his closet. I’ve got sneakers for the gym, my day-to-day office shoes, an old pair of work shoes that I wear when I’m doing stuff around the house, and a pair of Cole Haan’s that I wear with a suit whenever Peter and I go to a nice place for dinner. Yet, if I’d seen Thanatos’ boots on sale at the mall, I’d have been sorely tempted. Not only did they extend almost to his knees, they managed to highlight that muscled bump in his calves that no amount of squats will get you unless you’re genetically predisposed to it. Sable black, the supple leather was so highly polished that it looked like it had been painted onto him and was still wet.
The pièce de résistance, though, was the scooter. Actually, it was more like a flying surfboard than a scooter, but it had a steering column at the front, and wing-like embellishments extended from both sides to create a batwing effect. Naturally, it was painted as black as molten tar. I gave Thanatos points for consistency even if his color scheme was a bit predictable.
It was decorated with a lot of gears and pistons which, for all I knew, might have actually served some real purpose. In a lot of ways, the design reminded me of Captain Dirigible’s penchant for Steam Punk except that Thanatos’ taste seemed to be more Gothically inspired. Fixed between the handlebars like a ship’s masthead, there was a sculpted mask that was the twin to the one Thanatos’ was wearing.
“A little warm for leather, isn’t it?” I called out.
“Glass houses,” he said. “Spandex doesn’t breathe particularly well either. And what is it with you and that color?” He shook his head with mock sadness at my lack of taste. “Found a parking space for your unicorn, did you?”
I bristled and mimed rolling up my sleeves. “I really do hope those muscles aren’t just for show. It’ll make it that much more challenging to beat you to a pulp before I haul you in.”
There was a long pause during which he seemed to be waiting.
“That’s it?” he finally asked. “I’d expected something snappier from the Whirlwind.”
I felt warmth rising into my cheeks when I realized that he was actually amused by me!
“Will snapping closed the handcuffs be snappy enough for you?”
“Oh dear.” His lips curled downwards in what I thought was a frown. Under the mask, it was hard to tell. “I was really looking forward to experiencing some of that infamous Whirlwind wit firsthand. Now you’ve gone and ruined my illusions.” He made that tongue-clucking tsk sound that always sounds sarcastic…usually because it is sarcastic. “Whatever can we do to restore my faith in you?”
I was annoyed, mostly because the smug prick was right. Usually, I’m far smoother and more urbane. There was something about him–aside from all those muscles staring me in the face–that was throwing me off. It sure as heck wasn’t his voice. The artificial distortion device that he was using made him sound like a kitchen dispose-all. The gizmo he was using was mounted on a little leather collar…
…pressed against the base of the sinewed column of his throat…
…just above the deep indentation between his pectorals…
…right at the place where his chest flared into twin muscled slabs of…
I shook my head to clear it.
“You’re one to talk. A nipple suit?” I scoffed.
Damn, I couldn’t shift my focus from the guy’s spectacular chest!
“Nipples have their uses,” he crooned.
Something about the way he said it made my knees go all watery. I was a married man, dammit! And yet…
He fiddled with a switch and put his devil-mobile into PARK, before he stepped effortlessly onto the surface of the water tower. Thanatos moved like a panther, gracefully, with a kind of power lurking beneath the surface, but not hidden so deeply that it doesn’t let you know how powerful it is. Now that he was only a few yards away, I could see that I’d been wrong about him wearing body armor. The physique he displayed so shamelessly beneath its sheaf of supple leather was genuine. For long seconds, I stood there, drinking in every inch of him and doing my best not to drool. Under different circumstances, the tightness at my groin might have been quite pleasant.
Fortunately, I remembered in time that Thanatos was a fiend who had threatened hundreds of people’s lives. To keep my briefs from getting any tighter, I tore my gaze away from his torso and focused on his face.
In retrospect, that may not have been the best idea I’d ever had.
I’ve always been a sucker for guys with sexy eyes. Peter, for example, has really unusual, dark green eyes. I never tire of looking into them–especially when we’re both naked and breathing really hard. To my surprise, Thanatos’ eyes had a similar effect on me.
Their color was hard to judge. The cowl left bare a small area around each eye, and he’d covered the exposed flesh with make-up that had a weird reflective quality. Because of it, the best I could say was that his eyes were…well…not brown. I leaned forward, entranced, trying to get a better look. They were too dark to be blue, but they didn’t seem green either. Just when I was sure they were hazel, he inclined his head a tiny bit so that his irises caught the light and looked gray. In any case, the way they were stimulating my libido had little to do with their exact color.
The two of us stood there for several minutes, as if caught in some kind of stalemate, until I managed to get both my breathing and my hormones under control.
“You’re cute.” When he finally broke the silence, he sounded surprised.
One hand reached out as if to take my chin. I stepped back. As aroused as I was, I’m not stupid.
“Under that mask,” he continued, “there is some definite cuteness going on. I usually prefer blonds but, in your case, I’d be tempted to make an exception. It’s a pity we didn’t meet under less adversarial circumstances.”
Okay Alec, I thought. Pull yourself together and get down to business.
“I’m told,” I shot back, “there are some very cute guys in the Centerport Penitentiary. Of course, they don’t bathe regularly and they like to be called Crusher or Big Daddy. Maybe you could tell me what’s it like sharing a shower with thirty gang-bangers who confuse spit with KY. Oh, wait!” I smacked my forehead with one palm. “I forgot. You haven’t met them. Yet.”
It was my turn to be surprised when Thanatos burst out laughing.
“Now, that is the Whirlwind I’ve heard so much about.”
“I suppose…” I wanted to keep the guy talking, anything to take my mind off that damned body of his that was making me crazy. “I suppose you have no intention of coming along quietly? You should think about it. So far, you’re only looking at extortion.”
“You’re wrong about that, Cuteness. Don’t forget arson, kidnaping, and a murder or two, though that last couldn’t be avoided. I’m afraid that means I won’t be coming along quietly. I won’t be coming along at all. In fact, the main reason I showed up today was to meet the Whirlwind.”
“I’m flattered.” I kept all emotion out of my voice, but it was rough. He’d called me cute. I’d have preferred being called hot or studly, but cute would do just fine. Especially since he’d said it three times!
“You should be. I confess there’s an ulterior motive as well. I need to be certain that you understand me.”
“Understand you?”
He nodded.
“That I am capable of doing exactly what I threatened to do.”
The attraction dimmed and the chemistry between us–and I was positive it was mutual–soured.
“Roughly twelve hours from now, give or take, some of the ground crew down there will begin to experience distress.” He waved one gloved hand to take in the scientists and cops below.
“Feed the World. You activated the Three-Two-Three variant.”
“I’m impressed. Did you figure that out all by yourself?”
I felt a spasm of what was probably a sympathetic pain in the center of my chest while I struggled to remember the details of what Travis had told me. Understandably, my attention had been elsewhere at the time.
“Except that there is no tainted produce,” I said, maybe a little too smugly. “You haven’t had time to grow any. Snow White can’t eat the poisoned apple if it doesn’t exist yet. As far as I’m concerned, it’s all blah, blah, blah at this point.”
“Suddenly…not so impressed.”
He sounded disappointed and, in spite of myself, I felt like I’d let him down.
“You may want to have someone take a look at this.”
He tossed a small, black plastic cube at me but it fell short. I had to move my foot to keep it from sliding down the curve of the water tower.
“Don’t presume that this is the actual technology.” He wagged a finger. “Wouldn’t want to give you a chance to reverse engineer things too quickly. But it should provide enough evidence that I am capable of following through.”
He spun around, incidentally giving me my first glimpse of his equally incredible butt, and took a step toward the demonic flying skateboard.
“Where the hell do you think you’re going? You’re under arrest.”
“Please…” He drew the word out. “Let’s not be tiresome, shall we? Who’s going to stop me? You?”
“Damned straight,” I muttered.
“Not from what I can tell.”
A click sounded when he locked one boot onto the stirrup that kept him from falling off the scooter. I expected him to rev the engine like a demonic biker in some hellish motorcycle gang and peel off into the sky. But he paused before fixing the second boot into place. He stood there, a midnight specter astride his scooter, so still that it bordered on being spooky.
I got a clear impression that there was something troubling him. It wasn’t compassion, and it sure as heck wasn’t any doubt about doing what he had threatened to do. But I sensed a hesitation nonetheless. The silence lengthened for a good minute or so.
“Stand aside, my friend.”
All the flippancy was gone; there was no more sarcasm. It was a command, but it was uttered softly and with a quiet intensity.
“I’m prepared to take whatever steps necessary to get what I want.” His next words, unless I was mistaken, held some very sincere regret. “I didn’t realize you’d be so attractive. You have a very sweet quality that doesn’t quite translate in your TV interviews. No offense, but you tend come across as a little…” He tapped his temple. “…Dim.”
Before I could think of a clever riposte, he went on.
“In person though…”
Other than my husband, the last person who’d looked at me with that much naked lust was Erica the Eel. When she did it, it was creepy as hell. Somehow, I didn’t much mind when it came from Thanatos.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said. “Or kill you. But that’s exactly what will happen if you persist in interfering. Please, for your own sake and the sake of anyone who loves you, stand aside.”
“Can’t do that.” My muscles tensed. I prepared myself to take him down.
“Pity.”
I launched myself at him. Unfortunately, as I believe I’ve mentioned before, I am not the most graceful person in the world.
I caught him around the waist just as he placed his second foot onto the scooter. What I hadn’t counted on was the vehicle’s inability to support both our weights. It slid down the slope of the tower and keeled over. The next thing I knew, the scooter was hovering upside down in midair; Thanatos was hanging from the scooter by one foot.
And I was hanging from Thanatos.
“Idiot!”
The flirtatious tone was gone. He snarled the word. He grabbed my forearms, and tried to pry my grip loose from around his middle.
I wasn’t having any of it. I shifted position and started climbing up his body which, given that he was upside down, was more like climbing down his body, toward his feet. He wriggled to get free but I managed to hang on, uncomfortably aware of how close my face was to his groin, and vice versa. Thanatos grunted and jack knifed so he could reach the scooter’s controls. He flipped a switch and the engine took on a high-pitched whine. The contraption rose a few feet.
“Get…off!”
The guy packed a really good punch. My solar plexus can testify to it.
“Not so fast.”
Hand over hand, I clawed up his thighs and onto his calves. If I could just reach the edge of the scooter, I could haul myself on top of…well, on top of the bottom. But Thanatos’ costume was slippery. I lost my grip and slid back a little. I glanced down, worried about how far above the ground we were and how much the fall would hurt. As a last resort, I could probably figure a way to knock the both of us out of the sky. I knew that at least one of us would survive the fall. As for Thanatos…would I be the only one who was upset because an arch villain was squashed like road kill?
I pushed aside my regrets, in advance, and readied myself to make my move. I was trying to judge the distance when…
“Holy shit!”
It wasn’t the pain, because it didn’t actually hurt. Mostly, I felt pressure. It was the mental image of what was happening that was so off-putting. The bastard was biting into my crotch!
“Are you nuts?”
I let go with one hand to make a fist and deliver a mighty wallop to return the favor.
My punch had more of an impact than his bite. He grunted in pain and, I suspect, involuntarily did something to the scooter’s controls. The warp drive or whatever kicked in, and the water tower receded behind us as we soared skyward. As we ascended, I found my attraction to full length capes waning; his was tangled around my feet, effectively preventing me from kicking free.
“You fool!”
I’d certainly heard that before, and from far more experienced arch villains than Thanatos was.
Upward we flew, ever upward until we were several hundred feet above the water tower. Over the whining of the scooter, I imagined I could hear shocked gasps from the onlookers below. I most definitely heard shouts of alarm when the engine abruptly overloaded, belched smoke, and cut out completely.
I had just enough time to utter the Oh! part of Oh, shit!
We plummeted like a trio of bricks until all three of us–Thanatos, the devil-mobile, and me–smashed into the water tower. I’d been expecting the bone-crushing crunch of my body impacting with the asphalt parking lot or, at least, that some of my organs would be jellied when I plowed an extremely deep furrow in one of the fields. So, the chilly water closing over my head surprised the hell out of me. The unexpected dousing, the shock of cold, and the several gallons of water I swallowed when I opened my mouth to curse a blue streak, all conspired to make me lose my grip.
I broke the surface, sputtering and coughing. Aside from a shaft of sunlight bleeding through the hole above me, the inside of the tower was murky and dark. I treaded water and thrashed wildly as I spun myself around and foolishly tried to see into all the corners of a round space. All I needed was for Thanatos to jump me from behind–and not in a good way! When I wasn’t instantly set upon, my thoughts calmed and I realized that, unless he’d come loose in the crash, there was a good chance that Thanatos’ foot was still locked onto the scooter. The weight of the thing would have dragged him straight to the bottom. Not unaware of the irony of the Whirlwind needing to rescue a bad guy, no matter how hunky, I took a deep breath, preparing to submerge and look for him.
I needn’t have bothered.
Apparently, the scooter’s engine didn’t like being wet any more than I did.
The force of the explosion momentarily pinned me against the roof of the tower. All around me, the water bubbled and sloshed madly. I had time to grab a single gulp of air before my body was seized by a powerful suction from below. As I was drawn through the churning maelstrom, I glimpsed a large rupture in the bottom of the tank and I realized that I was being sucked straight for it. I was moving too fast to grab the broken boards at the edge and stop myself from hurtling through. Rather than risking the attempt and tearing off a limb, I extended both arms above my head, formed my hands into fists, and straightened my spine. With any luck, I’d emerge from the tank with the grace of a professional high diver, and not with my arms and legs flailing helplessly.
The bad news is that I wasn’t entirely successful. The good news is that there was no one waiting inside the barn with a cell phone to record my shame.
I shot out of the tank at an angle, moving like a rocket. Happily, soaring through the air like that is not a very relaxing experience, so my body remained tensed. More importantly, some instinct told me to keep my fists clenched in front of me like a human pile-driver. It was the only thing that kept me from hitting the barn face-first.
Smashing through the wood siding hurt. Smashing through the thick wooden beams hurt even more. Smashing into the side of the abandoned tractor hurt the most. But that was just my experience. If you ever succumb to a masochistic urge to throw yourself through barn siding, support beams, and rusty farm equipment–in that order–your opinion may differ.
At least, thanks to Travis’ genius, the costume remained intact when it hit all those metal blades. Nudity, even partial nudity, would only have added to my hurt and shame. As it was, I felt like I’d just been forced through a mechanical thresher which, come to think of it, is a fairly accurate description of what happened.
Shortly after I landed, the huge double doors swung open. Gretchen and a small army of police burst into the barn.
“My God! Are you all right? Whirlwind?”
“Ouch.” I muttered.
Given a few minutes to make sure that my intestines were still inside my body and attached at both ends, I could probably have come up with some witty line of deathless prose. But everything hurt, so I took the easy way out.
“Ouch,” I repeated louder.
A half dozen eager pairs of hands helped me wobble to my feet. I had a few bad moments while I waited for my vision to clear because it looked to me like Gretchen was having an epileptic fit or was being attacked by killer bees. Then, it dawned on me that her spastic mime was her way of letting me know that some ancient wisps of hay were clinging to my hair and shoulders, and making me look like a turquoise Phyllis Diller. Nodding silent thanks–a mistake because it started my head spinning again–I brushed away as much of the chaff as I could.
“Where’s Thanatos?”
I’d like to see anyone go through what I had just gone through and not sound like Mickey Mouse. I cleared my throat and tried again.
“Did you nab the sonofabitch?”
I stumbled out of the barn with Gretchen at my side, and with the rest of the cops in our wake. We emerged just in time to see a trail of black smoke vanishing in the direction of Centerport.
“How…?” I couldn’t figure out how he’d gotten away. “I thought the Devil Scooter blew up.”
“The Devil Scooter?”
“That thing he was riding. The skateboard with the…demon thing where the mermaid goes.”
“Are you sure you don’t need to see a doctor?” she asked.
I shook my head, which I discovered gave me the same headache as nodding did.
“Whatever it was, he’s gone now,” she said.
“Dammit.”
“But he left a little gift behind.” She grinned and held up the little black tube. “It fell off the roof while you two were trading recipes and one of my guys snagged it before it hit the ground.”
“You might not want to look quite so happy about it. It’s not some clue you tripped over. He wanted me to have it. I’m pretty sure that we’re not gonna be thrilled by what’s inside.”
My brain eventually stopped slamming itself against the inside of my skull, and I gazed after the fading wisps of the smoke trail with regret. I was disappointed, of course, that Thanatos had given us the slip. I was even more disappointed that I didn’t get a chance for a last look at his magnificent butt while he made his escape.
I tried to focus on Peter. On how much we loved each other. On how the sex between us was always fantastic and often mind-boggling. But thoughts of the way Thanatos’ muscles moved under his ebony costume kept distracting me.
What was it about this guy that stirred me up so?
And what the hell was I gonna do about it?