Supervillainess (Part One) (11 page)

“You have a gathering with work friends at
nine,” Igor said.

“How –”

“We bugged your phone and locker.”

Keladry knew nothing about boundaries.
Kimber clenched his jaw hard enough for the muscles of his cheek to
tick. “Whose house did I sleep at last night? Keladry’s?”

“One of her homes, yes.”

I knew it was too good to
be true.
Kimber rubbed his mouth, eyes on
the dead men. By his count, eight people had died since he met
Keladry. That was eight too many. “Will you take me anywhere I want
to go?” he asked.

“Yes.”

He started forward and got into the car.
Igor closed the door and slid into the driver’s seat.

“Take me to Keladry,” Kimber directed.

“Boss may not like that.”

“I’ll deal with it.”

“All right.” Igor pulled away from the scene
and turned the next corner, seconds before two police cars with
blaring sirens raced down the street.

Kimber twisted in his seat to see them. His
heart still raced, and the image of the men with their heads blown
off was seared into his brain. He watched out the back window until
he could no longer see the bright lights of the police
vehicles.

“You should put your seatbelt on,” Igor
advised.

Kimber faced forward. He obeyed absently,
uncertain how to digest what he had just been through. The idea any
supervillain-wannabe was targeting him seemed too farfetched for
him to accept, and yet, he had been confronted by four armed men
who didn’t appear to be there for a chat.

“Are you injured?” Igor asked in the pensive
silence.

Kimber glanced down at his hand. He thought
it had been cut when he fell, but no wound was present beneath a
thin layer of blood. He wiped his hand on his pants.

“No,” he said. “Are you stalking me?”

“Yes, Mister Wellington.”

“Your name really is Igor?”

“It is.”

“And you’re … what exactly? A professional
bodyguard?”

“I’m a nanny.”

Kimber’s sudden laugh of surprise caught
them both off guard. He cleared his throat, hoping to pass it off
as a cough. By Igor’s raised eyebrows, he wasn’t buying it.

Kimber didn’t know what to say at first.
Keladry had literally assigned him a babysitter.

“Do all nannies in Sand City carry guns?”
Kimber asked after he’d recovered from his surprise.

“They do when they’re raising
supervillains.”

“So you’re Keladry’s nanny?”

“I raised her, yes. Now I serve her in
whatever capacity she requires.”

“How can you work for someone like that?”
Kimber questioned. Keladry was a psychopath if not completely
insane.

Igor glanced at him through
the rearview mirror once more. “Like
what
?”

Kimber heard the lethal edge in his voice.
“A villain. Supervillain,” Kimber answered.

“Because I have hope for her.”

Kimber’s brow furrowed.

“Her brother is a lost cause, but Keladry
has a chance to be something her father and brother could never
be.”

“Which is …”

“A good supervillain.”

“Not following,” Kimber
said. “
Good
as in
effective? As in more diabolical than her father?”

“Villainry is a business and an art. On the
business side, someone has to be in charge of the criminals, to
keep the police from interfering and getting hurt, to invest the
revenue from illicit activity and to maintain order on the streets.
The art side determines how it’s done - whether or not collateral
damage is permitted - and establishes the rules of engagement. Good
supervillains can balance crime and money and fuel the local
economy.”

“You believe villains are necessary for the
economy.”

“Supervillain t-shirts sales are double
those of sports teams, and the Savage family draws billions of
dollars in tourism every year.”

The entire city is
insane,
Kimber thought. It was, by far, the
most ludicrous explanation he had ever heard. For whatever reason,
Sand City residents believed this shit. How had supervillainry
become so ingrained into the populace that they accepted any of
this to be true?

“Humans have a choice between good and
evil,” Igor continued. “Most choose good. Do-gooders don’t need a
handler. The handler can structure those who generate evil for the
greater benefit. You don’t want to cross the gray, do you?”

“I don’t even understand what that means!”
Kimber exclaimed.

Igor rolled his eyes. “Anyway, no one wants
chaos, not do-gooders or villains.”

“Okay, assuming all this is
factual, and not part of the deranged reality existing in Sand
City, how can a villain be
good
?” Kimber asked.

“By making do-gooders off limits. By
structuring evil responsibly and in such a way that chaos is not
allowed to ensue and innocent lives are not lost.”

“And you think Keladry can do this.”

“Yes. Keladry can control minds. She’ll make
sure criminals do what they’re told and nothing else.” Igor was
smiling. “She and Jermaine were raised under the same horrible
conditions. He eventually snapped, but she’s becoming
stronger.”

“What do you mean?”

“She said you rescued her?”

Kimber nodded.

“Then you saw the scars,” Igor stated.

“I assumed she’d been in more than one
altercation.”

“She’d never been bested in battle before
that night. Her brother betrayed and ambushed her,” Igor growled.
“Those scars were from her childhood. She and Jermaine are twins.
Their father tortured them, starved them, twisted their minds. From
the time they were two until they came of age at eighteen, they
knew only evil and pain.”

Kimber listened, not expecting to feel his
stomach twist at the information. He had seen her scars. Should it
matter that they came from her father instead of during battle with
some other villain? Why did his protective instinct stir at the
idea of her in danger when she could clearly protect herself
against almost anything?

“
They were isolated, aside
from contact with us nannies. We were permitted to feed them and
bandage them. They never experienced kindness and were never
exposed to normal people. They depended upon each other to survive
their father’s brutality, until last year, when Jermaine …” Igor
drifted off.

“Jermaine what?” Kimber prodded, intrigued
by the insight into Keladry’s background.

Igor was silent.

“Igor, what happened?”

“Their father found his weakness and broke
him. He hasn’t been the same.” By the clipped tone, whatever had
happened stuck with Igor still.

Kimber didn’t want to know what made the
imposing nanny – who had witnessed the torture of the child he was
rearing – found disturbing enough he wouldn’t talk about it.
Keladry’s sorrow at losing her brother’s loyalty had been real, and
Kimber wondered if she had also lost her only friend in the
extremely isolated world in which she lived.

“Why did you stay with the family? Why
didn’t you report child abuse?” he asked, bothered by the image in
his head of a young Keladry crying in pain.

“Report to whom?” Igor chuckled. “The
Supervillain Council would’ve given him a Father of the Year award
for how he raised those kids. Cops know better than to
interfere.”

“But if there are supervillains, aren’t
there superheroes, too? Someone you can call when you need
help?”

“We haven’t had a superhero in two
generations. General Savage’s rule over the city has been
uncontested.”

“What about their mother? Or some other
relative?” Kimber asked.

“General Savage killed their mother after
they were born. In order to take over the city, he had to murder
his father – his predecessor – and his brother, who was his only
competition. Those kids had no one but each other.”

Kimber was quiet once more, troubled by both
Igor’s account and the idea Keladry hadn’t known better than to
behave like an asshole under his care.

“You’re the first person she’s asked me to
watch over,” Igor added.

Why does this make me feel
bad?
Kimber didn’t know. If anything,
Igor’s explanation clarified Keladry’s path to insanity. Somehow,
eight murders later, Kimber couldn’t help feeling sorry for
her.

“We’re here.”

“Why am I not surprised?” Kimber murmured,
peering out the window.

Igor had taken him to a set of warehouses in
an industrial area near the river. Kimber exited the vehicle and
looked around.

Igor led him into a warehouse guarded by two
men in black. Kimber glanced at them as he passed. His step slowed
when he saw what exactly was going on inside the massive, open bay
of the warehouse.

She really does have an
army of ninjas,
he thought.

Dozens of men in black were involved in
combat arms training. They all wore facemasks that gave them the
appearance of ninjas. They were spread out at several different
stations: some sparring with weapons, others hand-to-hand, while
others raced through an obstacle course or participated in heavy
calisthenics. A small gym area was tucked in one corner, and one
entire wall was packed from floor to ceiling with weaponry
retrieved by a mechanical arm hanging from the ceiling.

Keladry had an army and military grade
weapons. Why did it surprise him to discover she wasn’t entirely
insane in her claim of being a criminal mastermind of some
kind?

A pathway marked by yellow lines wound
through the different activities. Kimber followed Igor through it,
stunned by the level of activity occurring around him. Igor led him
to a corner containing wrestling mats. Keladry was in the center,
sweating and dressed in a black unitard that hugged her shapely
body, from her lean thighs to her rounded hips, slim waist and
large breasts. She wore a mask as well.

Kimber caught himself staring a little too
long at the beautiful, deranged woman who claimed to be a
supervillain. He told himself he was evaluating a former patient
for any lingering issues. Nothing more. This was professional.

But it wasn’t. This was something else
entirely and very unlike any attraction he’d ever experienced for
anyone. This was … deeper. As if their paths were meant to
cross.

Fate. Destiny. He didn’t know, except he
couldn’t look away from her.

Why are the pretty ones
always crazy?
He thought.

As if expecting them, Keladry’s gaze settled
on Igor then Kimber. She lifted her chin, and the four men on the
mats with her moved away.

She frowned and tilted her head, as if
trying to listen for something.

Igor stopped at the edge of the mat. Kimber
drew a breath and approached her, noticing the scars on her exposed
skin and recalling how she had gotten them.

“I appreciate you sending your babysitter
after me, but I don’t need the protection.” After Igor’s story,
Kimber’s words were much kinder than he had anticipated. “I don’t
want to be involved in whatever this is.” He motioned to the
warehouse around them.

“Interesting,” she replied, gazing up at him
intently.

“What’s interesting?” He folded his arms
across his chest, preparing for more of her nonsense.

“I can’t hear you.”

Kimber recalled the familiar words. “Because
you read minds,” he said.

“Most minds. Apparently not yours.”

“I find it convenient you can’t do it when
I’m around.”

She rolled her eyes at him. “Request denied.
Igor will stay with you.” Keladry spun and walked away.

Kimber’s gaze fell to her shapely backside
before he started forward. “It wasn’t a request, Keladry!” he told
her.

“Around here, I’m called Reader,” she
snapped back. “And you don’t get to make that decision.”

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me.”

Tired of a night that was quickly spinning
out of control, he halted. “I’m not staying in your house, and if
you send Igor after me, I’ll call the police.”

“Good luck with that,” she snapped. She
faced him. “My brother knows who you are. You’ll be dead by dawn,
if you don’t accept my protection.”

“I don’t want any of you involved in my
life.”

“Then you shouldn’t have rescued me!”

“If I had known this would’ve happened,
maybe I wouldn’t have!” he retorted.

“Whatever, Doc. You ran into a burning
building to rescue complete strangers. I don’t need to read your
mind to know you weren’t going to turn your back on me.”

Kimber bit back his response. He wiped his
mouth, seeking a way to talk some sense into her. If everything
Igor said was true, then Keladry didn’t understand what boundaries
or respect or consideration were, because she had never experienced
any of those things. Did he have the patience required to teach a
supervillain how to be more sensitive to others?

He moved closer, so only she could hear
him.

“You have a problem with boundaries,” he
started. “Take this as a lesson in compassion. If someone says they
don’t want your help, then you have to respect their decision and
allow them to face the consequences of their actions. If you want
to help someone, help those people who are homeless because you
decided to burn down my apartment building. They’re the ones who
need it.”

“You’re welcome for saving your life
tonight!” she exclaimed. “I already learned a fucking lesson in
compassion from you, Doc! What would you do, if you knew someone
was going to die, if you didn’t help them?”

“Finding you dying in an alley and you
assigning me a babysitter are not the same.”

“From where I stand, they are. The only
difference is that I’m acting pre-emptively so you don’t end up in
an alley bleeding to death.” Her eyes blazed with anger. “Look,
Doc, I know what you’re doing. I know you have this bizarre
tendency towards self-destructive behavior. You walked into the
fire at your apartment building and probably told yourself it was
so you could help those people, but the truth is much more selfish.
You’re punishing yourself for something in your past. Nothing you
could’ve done could have possibly been that bad. So, I’m going to
protect you from yourself, while you attend your little pity
party.”