Waiting for a Miracle - Chapter 3

I looked up the stairs to find Wallace waiting for me. Excited to hear how his plan worked out, he rubbed his hands together as he descended the steps to meet me halfway.

“So,” he began in an eager tone of voice. “How did it go?”

Staring at his broad smile, I almost felt sorry that I would destroy his sunny disposition. Well, almost anyway, as it was just a tad irritating after the dreary night I’d had.

Taking a deep breath, I looked down at the steps as I climbed them and stepped around Wallace. “In a word, it went badly. Yes, all things considered, I’d say my night went very badly.”

“But—” Wallace began.

“Look,” I said, cutting in as politely as I could manage. “Just, let me get another drink first. Then I’ll tell you what happened on my trip.”

I had just sat down when Leona came through the door carrying a painting without a frame.  I still recognized it as a part of the Dan Boch collection on display at the City Museum.

She set the impressionist oil painting beside the door, her gaze seeking the floor to avoid Wallace’s questioning stare. Taking the drink meant for me, she drained it and handed the glass back to Wallace.

“You might need to make one for yourself if you want to hear how my evening went, Doc,” she stated in a pessimistic voice as she sat down beside me. “Cause it really sucked if I was supposed to act like a hero.”

“I made a fresh pitcher while you were out, but I didn’t…” Wallace filled all three glasses. He drained his and refilled it before looking at us. “Do you mean to say that both of you failed to act heroically?”

“Understatement of the century, Doc,” Leona said and took a long drink.

“Really,” I agreed wholeheartedly. “Why, I dare say that your plan was the dumbest idea in the history of mental health professionals ever.”

Leona nodded her agreement. “I second that motion.”

Wallace sighed. “Duggan, you should go first. What did you mean your mission went badly?”

“You told me to start off small, right?” I said, waiting for him to nod. “So when I saw this little girl trying to get her kitten out of a tree in her front yard, I figured heroes always do small things like rescue kittens.”

Wallace’s face instantly conveyed his confusion. “How could something as simple as that possibly go wrong?”

“I cut the tree down with a light blade,” I said.

Groaning audibly, Wallace looked at his drink, turning the glass in his hands. “Why didn’t you just fly up into the tree to get the kitten?”

“Oh,” I said, searching for what I hoped was a good excuse.

I couldn’t tell him the truth, that it never occurred to me. “I didn’t want to blind the girl or frighten the kitten by turning on my suit. My light blade isn’t nearly as bright, so I thought it would be okay.”

Wallace nodded, taking a sip from his glass. “So what happened to the kitten?”

“The tree fell on it, and it got squished,” I said. “I would have been crushed as well, but at the last instant, I turned my suit on and let the tree pass through me. It really is a shame about that poor kitten.”

I maintained a straight face and waited for Wallace to take another drink. “The tree also hit the girl,” I added, laughing as he spewed his margarita through his nose.

I’ve always wanted to do that. I don’t know, it always just seemed so evil to me.

Wallace coughed for a moment, and then looked at me with glassy eyes. He gave me a thin-lipped smile and turned his attention to Leona.

Pointing to the painting by the door, he took a deep breath. “I’m guessing that you stole that portrait, didn’t you?”

“Yep,” she replied, her frown becoming indignant when he whimpered. “Hey, I didn’t do it on purpose!”

“Really,” Wallace said. He didn’t look like he believed her.

“Yes, really,” Leona said. “I went to the museum to patrol around it, just to make sure no one was robbing it. Obviously, I don’t have keys, so I had to use a skylight to get in and check the interior. I didn’t see anyone at first, but that painting just didn’t seem right to me.”

“In what way?” Wallace asked.

“I just felt like someone was going to steal it that very night, and it occurred to me that it would be safer in my apartment.” Leona noticed the doctor’s incredulous expression. “I was just holding it for the night, for safe keeping.”

“Fine, whatever you say. So, that was it then?” Wallace asked. “You just stole the painting and came back here, right?”

Leona’s face fell. “Not exactly. On the way out, I ran into a burglar. That was really odd, since I’ve never run into another soul in my entire career there at the City Museum…well, I mean any other criminals. Anyway, he had a bag on his hip rattling like it was full of jewelry. I remembered that there was a display of the Drag Queen’s Ensemble this week. I was going to stop him, but there I was with a painting under my arm. I decided to let him go, seeing as how it would have been hypocritical of me.”

“Good point,” Wallace conceded without much conviction.

“So then I killed the—”

“Killed?” Wallace asked, quite obviously dismayed.

Leona nodded. “Yeah, I had to kill the burglar because he laughed at my ears. I tore him up a little, and then I opened the pouch. He had taken the best pieces of the queen’s collection, so I put them back in their proper place, in the same order even.”

Wallace asked, “How did you know the order that jewelry went in?”

“Oh, I was, um…hell, why not be honest with a shrink, right? I had already been casing the museum yesterday when the jewelry arrived. I wasn’t planning on being good until tonight.”

Wallace waved at her. “Fine, keep going.” He sounded a lot more irritated by Leona than he had been by me.

“So anyways, in the process of putting the jewelry back, I tripped the silent alarm.” Leona paused to sip her drink. “I heard the electrical current go from the trigger to the panel, so I knew what I’d done the second it happened. I was leaving right then and there, but the night security guard rounded the corner and started firing at me. He didn’t give me a chance to explain myself, so—”

“No, don’t tell me,” Wallace said, cutting her off. “Let me guess. Did you kill him?”

Leona scrunched her face up in a grimace, crinkling the sides of her nose. “Yeah. I turned around the corner to jump up to the skylight when the curator arrived with a squadron of police officers.”

Wallace’s eyes seemed dangerously close to bursting out of the sockets, and he’d been shaking his head back and forth for a while.

As he went to rub his forehead, I laughed and play-slapped Leona’s arm. “Don’t lie to the man,” I said, looking to my psychiatrist. “She has a habit of understating what she’s facing.”

Wallace took a few seconds to absorb this tidbit of information before he leaned over and grabbed the pitcher. He drained his glass and refilled it before sitting back. Yet it was still several minutes before he could speak. “How many people did you kill?”

“Not including pets?” Leona asked, her expression completely serious.

“W-what?” Wallace sputtered, his expression quickly becoming annoyed. “Yes, I want you to include the damn pets!”

Leona looked up in thought, ticking numbers on one hand as her lips silently moved. “Forty-two,” she said at last. “I was ready to quit at forty-one, but forty-two is such a nice round number. So when this little old lady asked me to help her across the street, I broke her legs and threw her under a street sweeper.”

Wallace gagged. “Good lord,” he muttered. Looking sick and miserable, he shook his head at both of us. “I thought I told you to be good.”

“Hey, you just hold on a second!” Leona shot back as her ears flattened along the top of her head. “I was good, damn it! Otherwise I would never have made it past the SWAT team outside the museum.”

I laughed at that and gave Leona a hug, who beamed at the attention. She stuck her tongue out at my shrink, and then lifted her drink to empty it in one gulp.

Looking at Wallace’s downcast expression, I sighed. “Hey, I told you it wouldn’t work out, so why are you worrying over it?”

He nodded, but it was obvious that he was feeling tired by that point. He said, “I may have been off the mark by suggesting that you two could be heroes, since it appears that neither of you can walk to the grocery store without killing someone.”

“I did it once,” Leona whined.

Wallace ignored her, still looking at me. “I think retirement is out for the same reason. How do you even make it to your mailbox without setting off a massacre?”

“Very carefully,” I said.

“Yes!” Leona agreed, her ears perking up.

Wallace drained his glass, and then the pitcher. “It seems obvious to me that without a hero, the two of you need to consider moving. Why not go to San Francisco and kill Devastator? You could take his turf, or you could join him, whatever turns you on. Just go somewhere that you can be stopped in your schemes and feel complete.”

“Bad idea, Doc.” Leaning over, Leona set her empty glass on the table. “First of all, I don’t want to go back to San Francisco. I’ve beaten the Rocket so many times that it’s pathetic.” She gestured at me, adding, “Duggan wouldn’t take his crap for more than two seconds before killing him, so we’d just have to move again. Besides that, I want my kiss before I go to jail.”

“And I want my nemesis, not some poor substitute that doesn’t respect my accomplishments,” I said. An image of those two perfect M’s drifted through my mind. My shoulders sagged when I came to the conclusion that I might never see them again.

Dejected by this admission, I said, “My only option is retirement.”

“No Duggan,” Leona said. She patted my shoulder and tried to fake a reassuring smile. “Please, don’t talk like that. There has to be something else we can try.”

I said, “The only alternative is to track double M down and find out why he quit.” I was just grasping at straws by that point. “Maybe we can find a way to convince him to come out of hiding and return to his old job.”

“Maybe one of the other villains killed him,” Wallace said. Leona and I burst into laughter, causing him to scowl in agitation again. “Would one of you care to clue me in?”

I got myself under control and waved a dismissive hand at him. “We’d never hear the end of it from the villain who killed Miracle Man. We were laughing because none of the losers in this town are smart enough to pull something that big off. I mean, most of them are barely smart enough to outwit the City Police.”

“Then perhaps Miracle Man has suffered some kind of loss of self-esteem like Leona,” Wallace offered.

“What do you mean?” Leona asked. Her voice carried a trace of indignation, and she started to stiffen beside me.

Rolling his eyes, Wallace heaved a derisive snort. “I’m not even a very good criminal,” he said, mimicking her in a whiney voice. “You’re a freaking one cat-woman army, but you keep downplaying your abilities. Why is that?”

“Is modesty such a terrible thing?” I asked.

Leona looked at Wallace with an uncertain expression. “I just don’t like being alone. I’m more like a pet than anything else. I need someone else to handle the planning in my crimes. All of my plans suck, and they all end with me getting surrounded by the police. Sure, I can kill them, but being a ‘notorious cop killer’ lost its appeal after the first five hundred kills.”

 “Where do you live?” Wallace asked.

The question seemed to come from nowhere, but Leona didn’t hesitate to answer, “In an apartment complex up the street from here.”

“Then you’re clinging to Duggan,” Wallace said, causing Leona to stiffen beside me again. “You’ve probably never considered how your idol worship of both Duggan and Miracle Man has perpetuated this idea that you’re worthless.”

Leona  bristled, and I felt a twinge of panic. Leona can move a lot faster than me, even with my suit’s circuitry engaged. If she decided she didn’t care for the tone of Wallace’s voice, she could kill him before I could warn him once again that he was dealing with a pair of certified serial killers.

His death would be messy too, and he was sitting in my favorite recliner, the one I took from my mom’s living room. I also took her stereo, but only because it was better than mine.

I digress, Leona was livid, her ears leaning forward as she came up off the back of the couch. “Are you saying I’m the problem in this love triangle, Doc? Should I be the one to leave?”

“Far from it,” Wallace said, oblivious to the danger he was in. “I mean you should respect yourself more than you do. Clearly, you are one of the deadliest killers on the planet if your trip to the museum was any indication.”

“Heck, on a really good day…” Leona trailed off and leaned against me as his point became clear. “I guess maybe I have been downplaying my abilities to avoid scaring people off. The number of people I can kill even scares off really bad guys. Take Devastator as an example. He could almost keep up with me, but he was using two Vulcan cannons. I always felt like he was cheating, you know?”

Leona leaned her head on my shoulder, and I decided to let her have her fun for one night. I was just grateful that she hadn’t killed my shrink.

Leona said, “Duggan can beat my score if he’s trying hard enough, but he isn’t interested in competing with me. I actually like that lack of competition, and the fact that he just wants to be my friend. Until double M split, I hadn’t killed more than two or three people a day. He was my diversion, so he kept most of the people safe from me. But since double M split, I haven’t felt right without killing twenty or thirty people a day. That takes a lot out of me, and I’m not getting much rest without my kiss good night.”

Chuckling, Wallace joked, “Don’t let her out. She might rape the first man she sees.”

My eyes went wide with dismay, and before I could say a word, Leona sat up, her ears perking at a jaunty angle. “Wow, what a concept. Hey thanks, Doc!”

And then she was gone. With my vision augmented by the suit, I saw her get up from the couch and run out the door, closing it quietly behind her.

Wallace didn’t, as he was still looking at her outline on the couch beside me. When it faded, he gasped. Looking around, he glanced back at me. “Where did she go?”

“To rape the first man she sees,” I said. His ghastly grimace radiated guilt, but I couldn’t feel sympathy for him. “You’re lucky it wasn’t you, dumbass.”

Looking down, he swallowed hard. “You mean I’ve just condemned some poor man—”

“To six hours of the most violent sex she can think of,” I said. “The last idiot to suggest that Leona needed to get screwed got out of the hospital after six months. She agreed to screw him, and she did it in his house with his own drill.”

“Jesus, what have I done?” Wallace moaned, half rising from his chair. “We should go after her.”

I laughed at him. I know it made him angry, but I couldn’t help it with how he just kept saying one stupid thing after another. “We can’t go after her, Wallace. I can barely see her when she’s running, and you wouldn’t see a damn thing, not even a blur. If you head outside to look for her by yourself, she might decide you’re just the kind of guy she’s looking for. Have you considered that?”

Wallace didn’t answer, but I didn’t expect him to. Not while he was still busy turning green again.

I sighed, shaking my head. “No, you just said what you’d say to a hero, didn’t you?”

“It was only a joke,” Wallace protested.

“I think she took it seriously,” I said. “There is a silver lining in this.”

Wallace put his head in his hands. “What’s that?”

“She won’t be nearly as agitated when she gets back.”

“What was she agitated over? Was it something I said?”

I shook my head. “She’s low on her quota. Leona told you she kills thirty or so people a day to feel right, but she was understating her score again.” I paused, letting my words sink in. “If we don’t find the big guy soon, she could begin to take out whole neighborhoods.”

“Wait,” Wallace said, holding up a hand. “Do you mean to tell me that you, the most vile and most feared criminal in City, wants to save the citizens from you and your friend by finding its hero?”

“No, I want to find double M before Leona kills every man, woman, and child in City,” I said in a cold, emotionless voice.

Wallace nodded, but he couldn’t speak for quite a while. “Why don’t you stop her?”

“How? I can either kill my only real friend in this town, or find a way to calm her down. If she got angry at me for trying, she might kill me. She’s fast enough that she could do it before I could turn my suit on. Her only problem is, she loses her balance at high speeds and bumps into things. That’s not enough to inspire confidence in me about facing off against her. Try to remember Wallace, she’s far more dangerous than her diminutive frame suggests.”

Wallace nodded, grabbing the pitcher. He got up from my recliner and walked across the room to my wet bar. “Tell me something,” he said as he mixed another batch of margaritas.

“Shoot,” I agreed.

“When I said I had a crazy idea, why did you immediately assume I wanted the two of you to sleep together? Is this something that’s been on your mind?”

“No, but it’s been on hers since she met me,” I said.

“You don’t want her as a lover or as a sidekick, but you keep bailing her out of jail. Why would you do that?” Wallace asked.

His voice was returning to its usual soothing tone. I took it as a sign that he was recovering from shock.

“I told you already. Besides the big guy, she’s just about my only friend in this city.”

Smirking, Wallace commented, “Now you’re calling Miracle Man your friend?”

Shrugging, I draped an arm over the back of my couch. “I guess it’s the way we acted toward each other every time we met. He always compliments my plan before he foils it, and I always say goodbye before escaping. I thought he enjoyed our game enough to keep doing it. He gave Leona the impression that he enjoyed his encounters with her, and now that he’s gone, she’s been hounding me to at least make out with her.”

“Okay, so who else is your friend?” Wallace asked.

“There is this one girl. She’s a real sweet kid, though her older brother is a jerk. I don’t suppose she’s really a friend so much as an acquaintance, but we’re cordial to each other whenever we meet.”

“When was the last time you took a lover?”

I huffed in exasperation. “Wallace, I’m offended you would suggest that I ‘switch teams,’ as she calls it.” I was annoyed, though I still took the drink he offered.

Wallace sat back down on the recliner. “I didn’t. I asked when you last took a lover. That could be male or female. But of course, there hasn’t been anyone, has there?”

Calming down, I shook my head. “No.”

Wallace said, “I’m not suggesting you have sex with her Duggan,  rather I’m merely recommending a way to calm her down. She’s willing to accept you as a substitute for Miracle Man, and all he did was kiss her. One little kiss from you could save whole neighborhoods of children.” His eyes lit up with merriment and then he laughed. “Come on Duggan, do it for the kids.”

I chuckled and took a sip from my drink, mulling the idea over. I had to admit that he could be onto something. It made sense to me, anyway. Besides, how bad could kissing Leona be?

I’d never tried it before. Dad wasn’t into kissing, and I’d never found the nerve to approach anyone to try it.

“All right, I’ll try it,” I said. “Tonight, after she gets back from her...love fest...” I couldn’t suppress the shudder that ran up my back. “I’ll give her a kiss to see if it helps. You must realize that you are dooming me to even more pleading from her for sex.”

Wallace snorted. “Like you mind. It’s obvious how she feeds your ego with her constant invitations.”

I gawked at Wallace, surprised by how accurate he was. “Just like I fulfill her need for a mentor,” I said, realizing what he’d been talking about with Leona.

“Yes.” Wallace emptied his drink. “We still need Miracle Man,” he said as he refilled his glass. He sipped from it at a slower pace, and he watched me with an intense expression that made my heart feel funny.

He asked, “What would you be willing to do to get him back?”

I smirked at a stray thought, which I gave voice to. “I’m glad you didn’t ask that with Leona here.”

“Why is that?” Wallace asked.

“She would have answered that she would tear the whole city apart to find him, and then she would have left to do it.”

Wallace nodded his agreement. My irritation with him flared, and I said, “You’ve got to remember to be more careful about what you say around her, Wallace. You aren’t dealing with the good guys anymore, okay?”

“I’m coming to understand that,” he said. “I have to admit, I’m now far more terrified of Leona than I am of you.”

“Yes, well you aren’t part of one of my plots,” I said. “You might feel different if you were.”

“You didn’t answer my earlier question,” Wallace reminded me. “What would you be willing to do to find your hero?”

I allowed an image of Miracle Man to form in my mind and took a drink from my glass, even though I knew my answer. “I would do anything.”

 “Then you must plot for him,” Wallace said, pouring the last of the margarita mixture in my glass. “Not a massive, ‘kill the whole city plot.’ You just need a small scheme to find out where he went.”

Wallace took the empty pitcher into the small kitchen adjoining the den, and from where I sat, I could see him washing it in my sink. As he put it away, I allowed a fantasy to form in my mind.

He was handsome enough to excite my passions, but it was how nice he was, his goodness that suddenly made him more desirable. Wallace returned to my den and started cleaning the glasses, unaware that I was daydreaming of corrupting his body and mind.

Oddly enough, I was reaching the climax of my fantasy when a plan to find double M formed in my head.

“A nanite search!” I shouted, jumping off the couch and startling Wallace. I took off to the door at the far end of the den, which led to my lab in the main warehouse.

Wallace followed me, still absently drying a glass with a hand towel.

As I walked down the stairs to get to the main floor of the laboratory, I began outlining my plan. “I can program a group of nanites to search the entire city for anyone matching double M’s physical dimensions. I’m sure it would take a little over three days to search the entire city, but once they’re in place and they’ve located him, Miracle Man couldn’t let his dog take a shit without me knowing about it.”

“There’s a pleasant thought,” Wallace said, looking around for a place to put the glass.

Then, as if he were my butler instead of my psychiatrist, he walked back to the stairs and up to my apartment, where I imagine he put the glass back in its proper place.

Against my better judgment, I was developing a fondness for his company.

Wallace appeared at the top of the steps, and as he came back into the lab, I followed his progress the whole way. A mental scene unfolded in my head, detailing all the things I wanted to do to him once he was standing beside me. I pushed the dirty thoughts away, figuring they would at least make good masturbation fodder later on that night.

I said, “Don’t come back until I send for you, Wallace. You’ve failed to see how Leona’s poor self-esteem is the only thing keeping her in check. After we get the big guy back in business, you can encourage her to your heart’s content. But I’ll urge you to keep in mind that you’re telling an assassin to be proud of her work. She doesn’t have any faith in her abilities, and she could still destroy us all. Completely focused, she could drain the planet of every living creature in just a few years. Do you want her to find her inner strength before we find double M?”

Wallace’s face was pale, but he nodded his understanding. I patted his arm. “I’ll let you know when I find him.”

Wallace nodded again, his intense thoughtful look returning as he regained his composure. “I must advise that you come to me before making contact with Miracle Man. It would be better for everyone if I had a chance to observe him to determine his lack of motivation. We’ll need that information before we try to convince him to return to ‘the game,’ as you keep calling it. You can understand that, can’t you?”

I smiled at his naivety before nodding, lying through my teeth. “Of course. I’ll take you home now.”

“I’ll have to drive home tonight.” Wallace looked down at the tiny pistol I had just taken from my suit. I placed it in his palm, and he turned it over to read the engraving on the other side.

“Shrink ray gun. Pretty basic name, isn’t it?” he asked sarcastically as he handed it back.

“It has a pretty basic function,” I retorted, slipping the gun back into my pocket. “We can fetch your car, and then I’ll fly you home. Hopefully Leona has found her victim by now.”

Wallace’s guilt returned, dropping the confident volume from his voice. “She won’t kill him, will she?”

I decided he’d had enough shocks for one night. “No, most likely she won’t.”

The real condition of her victim living through the night would be whether he had the stamina to satisfy Leona. If the poor bastard didn’t last long enough, she would kill him and find another victim until she was sated.

I must have shuddered at that thought, because Wallace asked, “Is something wrong?”

“No, I just thought up an evil plan to use once double M gets back,” I said, now lying freely in an attempt to put him at ease.

Nothing more was said as we went to his car. I shrunk it and put it in my chest pocket before flying Wallace home.

I had him rest on my back with his arms wrapped around my waist, using the excuse that I didn’t want to crush his car. In fact, the car was protected from such damage by the same force field that kept me safe from high speed impacts.

I felt him pressing against me, and I was enjoying the weight of his body on mine. His chin went over my shoulder, and I wished I wasn’t wearing my mask so I could feel his cheek against mine.

Still the contact we had was enough to make me pant, though I tried to control myself and make sure Wallace wouldn’t catch on. It was a guilty pleasure, but I don’t think he would have minded even if I had told him.

So I didn’t.