Even Villains Fall in Love (9 page)

“Here we go,” Evan said, shifting Blessing to
his knee. “The Rainbow Dane, also known as Thane Mitely, raised by
a single mother named Ava Mitely. It’s rumored that his father was
the Roaring Thane, and that’s where his name came from.” He set the
papers down. “I don’t remember the Roaring Thane.”

Hert tilted his head. “I’ve read about him, sir.
He was one of the early super heroes. Super strength, if I recall
correctly.”

“Who did he fight?”

“Everyone, sir. He fought any and all crime. If
he saw a wrongdoing he’d roar, hence the name, and attack.”

“So, what, drug dealers and hippies? Corrupt
cops? What was his MO?”

“Anything, sir. Jaywalkers, clerks giving wrong
change, people who ran stoplights. He said once that he could tell
someone was going to commit a crime even before they acted.”

Evan shook his head. “Sounds psycho to me.”

“The police objected as well, but he helped
enough that they were hesitant to stop him. He was killed in a
fight with the Magenta Fox, who in turn was killed by the Roaring
Thane’s mother. She called herself Lady Grimoire and her super
skill, if you call it that, was potions.”

“Interesting.”

“When the super heroes first appeared in the
public they weren’t under any code of conduct with the government.
The only thing separating a villain from a hero was media
perception,” Hert said.

“I can’t say the registration card scheme has
changed that.” Evan drummed his fingers on the floor.

“Daddy?” Blessing asked. “What does this say?”
She pointed to a caption under a black and white photo of a little
girl on a swing in front of pine trees.

“Zinnia Perl, age four, near her childhood home
of—” Evan gasped, taking the book away from Blessing. “I’d
forgotten all about this. It’s in her book, the one we wrote the
year she was pregnant. Some news reporter kept calling to demand
the official story of her life, so she finally wrote the
autobiography just to keep people from asking questions. It was her
tell-all book!”

“Daddy?” Blessing pulled the book back. “Is this
Mommy?”

“Yes. Her parents took her to Aspen for
Christmas that year. It was a generic snow picture.” He had sorted
hundreds of old photos trying to find the ones that didn’t have
enough detail to unravel her false history. Evan snapped his
fingers. “Hert, listen. I have two theories.”

“Very good, Master.”

“The first is that the Morality Machine breaking
somehow caused Tabitha to lose her memory of everything that’s
happened since I turned it on.”

“A possibility, Master. Although an unlikely
one.”

“Right. The Morality Machine shouldn’t show
precise brain damage like that. Maybe it would affect impulse
control, but not memory. My second theory is that someone has
taken, or suppressed, her memory.”

His minion frowned. “I haven’t heard of anyone
working on memory, sir.”

Evan sighed. “Yes, that’s where it falls
apart.”

Angela walked over and sat in his lap. “When do
we get to see Mommy?”

He studied the girls for a minute. “How does
tomorrow sound?”

Their eyes lit up. “Really? Tomorrow? Promise?”
The cacophony of four piping voices drowned out his reply for a
good minute.

Evan waited it out. When they finally fell
silent, he smiled grimly. “Daddy needs more data so he can prove
his theory. Do you want to be my ice cream minions tomorrow?”

Maria raised an eyebrow in an exact copy of his
favorite cynical pose. “What’s an ice cream minion?”

“It means I pay you in ice cream cones to help
me follow Mommy.” The clapping started. “One ice cream cone per
person. Not multiple cones per kid,” he clarified.

The clapping stuttered away.

“Go upstairs and get pajamas on. Tomorrow we are
stalking a superhero!”

He waited for them to go upstairs before turning
to Hert. “Find out Tabitha’s schedule for tomorrow. It’s a
Saturday. Maybe see if you can lure her to a park or something. I
think that once she sees the girls, she’ll remember them at least.
No woman forgets her children after twenty hours of labor. If this
is some joke she’s playing on me because she’s angry...” He took a
deep breath to steady himself. “She won’t pretend that she doesn’t
know the girls. It doesn’t matter how angry she is with me. She
wouldn’t hurt them.”

Chapter Fourteen

I can only recall one instance before
this where I truly felt nervous: the night I waited to see Tabitha
the second time.

Expectation was pure torture. Every
breeze that brushed past the warehouse door made me turn. Every
noise made me jump. I’d put everything into this one gamble,
wagered everything on getting my machine right the first
time.

In retrospect, I could have tried the
Morality Machine on any number of victims. But at the time, it
never occurred to me. My entire focus was on winning Zephyr Girl
for myself.

When she arrived, words failed me. She
was beautiful. Beyond beautiful. She put Helen and her thousand
ships to shame. She made springtime seem dowdy, and long summer
days plain. Zephyr Girl landed lightly and sauntered toward me, an
unfathomable expression on her face. “Hello, Doctor Charm. Or
should I say Evan?”

I hesitated, holding the control for
the Morality Machine and drinking in her beauty. “I knew you
wouldn’t stay away.”

She laughed, the sound of angels. “Do
you know why I’m here?”

I looked away then, wishing the
burning kiss she’d left me with would lead to more without
mechanical intervention and knowing it wouldn’t. “I can guess.” And
just like that, I flipped the switch that changed her
life.

When I looked up, her eyes had filled
with erotic hunger. “I want you. Against the wall. On the table. I
want a blistering hot love affair that will keep the tabloids
talking for decades.”

“
Really?” Vivid images filled my mind.
I’d never brought a girl home to the lab before her, but it was
years before I could look at some of my machines without picturing
her stretched over them wearing nothing but her thigh-high
boots.

I remember, now, that I fumbled for
the ring. It was the first time in my life I felt truly sinister. I
was taking something I knew no woman as beautiful as Tabitha would
ever offer me.

My hand shook as I held the ring box
out. “Why don’t you marry me instead?”

She froze, and I swallowed a curse,
certain the Morality Machine wasn’t strong enough.

And then she was wrapped around me.
Fingers tangled in my hair, her lips teasing mine. Torso...well, a
gentleman doesn’t divulge all the details. Suffice it to say, I
thought my conquest was complete.

***

Chasing four sticky children around a strange
city on an unbelievably warm October day counted as a torture more
cruel than even the most depraved super villain could devise.
Pitchforks and eternal damnation had nothing on whiny, tired
children who just wanted their mother. Evan collapsed into a park
bench as the girls tore into their third ice cream cone each.

Delila looked up at him with a huge smile ringed
in blue. “I love you, Daddy!”

“Love you too, pumpkin.”

“Can we have cookies when we get home?”

He raised an eyebrow at her. “I thought you
girls weren’t going to give Daddy a heart attack until you turned
sixteen and started driving. All this sugar is killing me.”

Delila frowned at him. “I don’t remember saying
that.”

“I remember it distinctly. Right after you were
born you signed a contract.”

Her eyes narrowed and she turned to her sisters.
“Did we sign a contract with Daddy?”

“In sparkly purple pen,” Evan added. “I
distinctly remember the ink was sparkly purple.”

The girls fell into earnest discussion, giving
him a moment to breathe. Across the park, something caught his eye.
A familiar silhouette in the afternoon sun. Tabitha.

Blessing gasped. “Mommy!”

“Wait!” Evan caught her arm before disaster
struck. “Mommy is undercover, remember?”

“Ooooo.” Four innocent, ice cream-smeared faces
turned to him.

“We’re going to go play catch, and Mommy is
going to give us a sign. But you have to pretend you don’t know
her. Okay? We don’t want the bad guys to find out about Mommy.” He
looked each of the girls in the eye. “Do you understand?”

“Yes, Daddy,” they chorused.

“Good.”

He watched Tabitha for a moment, heart in his
throat. This was the only way to know. Even if angry with him,
Tabitha wouldn’t ignore the girls. If the Morality Machine had
erased her memory, well that was a bridge he would burn later.

“Come on, girls, let’s go play catch.”

They played with an over-sized pink softball.
Delila tossed it to Angela, Angela tossed the ball to Maria, and
Maria tossed to Blessing, who tossed it to Evan.

Tabitha sat down in the grass, talking
animatedly with her friend while she flipped open a psychology
textbook.

A few more times around the circle and Evan
growled in frustration. “New plan!” he told the girls. “Let’s make
teams. Blessing and Maria against Delila and Angela.”

“Whose team are you on, Daddy?” Angela
asked.

“I’m going to be the monkey in the middle. If I
catch the ball I get to throw it anywhere in the park.”

Delila put her hands on her hips.
“Anywhere?”

“Anywhere. Even up a tree!”

“Not fair!” Maria protested.

Evan shrugged. “I suppose you better keep the
ball away from me then.”

They threw the ball around him, rolled it
between his feet, and once Angela threw it so hard he had to duck
or risk a serious head injury. All the while, Tabitha talked
blithely on as if her four beautiful daughters weren’t mere feet
away.

Desperate for some sign, Evan jumped after the
ball. He grabbed it, twisted away, and rolled the softball so it
bumped against Tabitha’s foot.

She looked down at the pink ball in surprise,
then smiled brightly as Blessing went running up. “Is this your
ball?”

Blessing stared, and finally nodded. “Uh-huh.
Daddy bought it for me.”

“What a nice Daddy you have,” Tabitha said. She
handed the ball to Blessing. “Here you go.”

Blessing moped back to the circle. She looked
back at Tabitha. “Daddy, why didn’t Mommy say she loves me? She
always says she loves me.”

Tears and fear choked him.

“She’s undercover!” Angela said in exasperation.
“Weren’t you listening?”

Blessing nodded. “I forgot. I thought she was
going to wink at me.”

Evan struggled to find his voice. “Undercover
agents don’t wink,” he lied.

They played ball for a few more minutes, but the
girls had lost interest. They wanted their mommy. The one that
didn’t recognize them anymore thanks to him.

Eventually, Evan caught the ball and steered
them away from the park. Back at the rental house, he served a
dinner of ramen noodles and grape juice. Everything reeked of
failure.

He read the girls their bedtime story, tucked
them in, and slunk off to the improvised lab.

Hert looked up as he entered. “Good evening,
Master. I have excellent news.”

Evan raised an eyebrow as he collapsed onto an
up-turned crate.

“The latest Election Ray results are very
promising. I believe we have the calibration 95 percent
perfected.”

He nodded wearily.

“Sir?” The minion looked confused. “Isn’t that
good news?”

“What about the Morality Machine, Hert? Where do
we stand with that?”

“Um.” The warty minion checked his clipboard.
“Not finished, sir. We’ve inspected all the components and run all
the tests you specified. There is nothing conclusive.”

Evan covered his eyes, well aware that he was
too exhausted to move, but unwilling to give up. Failure wasn’t
something he could accept. There had to be a way to fix this.

Hert cleared his throat. “If I may say, sir, it
would help immensely if you were in the lab during the day.”

“I can’t be in the lab! The girls need me!”

Hert gave him a flat stare. “Sir, I am
genetically programmed to point out personal inconsistencies that
hinder your work. Sir, you did nothing today.”

“I took the girls to see Tabitha.”

“No, sir. You walked around the city eating
unhealthy amounts of frozen non-dairy concoctions mooning for a
woman who left you.”

Evan surged to his feet. “She didn’t leave me.
Tabitha wouldn’t leave me. She wouldn’t leave the girls.
She...forgot who we are.”

Hert cleared his throat again. “Sir? The
Morality Machine doesn’t work that way. I can think of no way the
Morality Machine could affect a person’s memory. The magnetic waves
specifically target the posterior pituitary gland to excite
production of vasopressin.”

“She’s a super hero. No one really knows how
their body chemistry works. It’s a mix up. It’s just...just...” He
paced in the tiny rat-trap of a basement. Swallowing back a lump in
his throat, Evan took a deep breath. “I need some fresh air. I need
to think. Watch the girls.”

He walked out of the garage, not quite sure
where he was headed. While his mind swirled with all the
possibilities and implications, he found himself walking under the
looming shadow of the university library.

A few late lights dotted the campus buildings.
The students were off partying, or sleeping, or visiting family.
Anything but studying, if he remembered college correctly.

A chill wind stirred the pine trees, bringing
the first scent of winter. How had it all gone so wrong?

He had a timetable. He was supposed to be a few
days away from the single greatest achievement any American could
have. The world should be unfolding at his feet. Nothing on the
timetable mentioned Tabitha storming out, or—the word he’d danced
around—divorce.