Death by Cliché (25 page)

And with that, he swept her up and carried her to bed.

Chapter
Forty-Five

“If you lived in this book, you’d be home right now.”

—Bob Defendi

ou don’t get to know what happened next. If you
must read about it, you have the entire internet to satisfy you, and several online bookstores will deliver adult material right to your phone. Anyway, if Carl has to be in the dark, you don’t get to peek in the window.

Later that night, they lay tangled in the sheets, the musky smell drifting languidly in the air. Damico smiled and stared at the ceiling, lazily considering waking Lotianna up for another go.

A bump and a curse echoed in the hall. He smiled. Another patron heading for bed, drunk. It wasn’t that the walls were paper thin—the plaster was so thick it splintered under its own weight—there was an inch gap below and above the door.

He rolled over and studied the vertebrae of her back, each one outlined under the skin, following one after another from her lustrous hair to the triangle of her pelvic girdle at the edge of the blanket. That small-of-the-back spot women in the real world liked to cover in tattoos.

The creamy skin gleamed softly in the moonlight from the window, and he traced the vertebrae carefully with the tip of his finger… one and then another and another. They felt warm and hard under his touch. A braille map down the axis of her body.

She stirred slightly and moaned. He reached up and stroked her hair, and she went back to sleep. He smiled again. He must look like an idiot.

The door shattered inward, and the latch hook whipped across the room, striking Damico in the eye. He screamed and reached up in pain, and so it took him time to realize men flooded the chamber. He didn’t notice until the pitchfork slid between his arms, catching him under the chin, in the throat.

“Isn’t this pretty?” a voice said.

Damico glared at the peasant that stood above him. The man had a beard like pre-ginned cotton, filled with little bones, chunks of food and bits of wood and seeds. His face resembled a stress map of the San Andreas Fault, and the reek from his rotting teeth was enough to cauterize wounds.

“What the Hell?” Damico managed. Had he lost his eye? Would it heal? It hurt so damn much he couldn’t tell.

“Look at the two lovebirds,” the man said.

Damico tried to see Lotianna, but the fork pinched at his throat, pressing painfully into his Adam’s apple. He reached under the cover and found her hand, she must have rolled over on her back. She squeezed.

“What do you want?” Damico asked with more bravery than he felt, wondering if his Dodge class ability would save him if he made a move. It wouldn’t save
her
though. He had to think.

His tunnel vision widened now, and he could make out at least six men in the room, all brandishing makeshift weapons. Either that or they thought he needed a good hoeing.

“We want to
stop
you, stupid,” Dragon Breath answered.

“Too late,” Damico said. “We’re already done.”

The pitchfork brought water to his one good eye, and he realized the other bled quite freely. At least he wouldn’t get an infection.

“You’re smart, aren’t you? The lady’s a mage, right? You think she can cast a spell if we puncture her voice box?”

Damico searched the room with his good eye, too busy trying to figure out a way out to answer.

“We’re stopping you from overthrowing Hraldolf, you idiot,” the peasant said.

Wait. What? “Why?”

“Because he’s the best thing that ever happened to us. He’s giving out extra food. He’s offering health plans. He’s set a minimum wage.”

“We aren’t giving that up!” one of the other peasants spat.

He actually spat it. Damico felt the splash on his cheek.

“Then what happens next?” Damico asked.

“That’s for the Overlord to decide.”

Damico’s heart sank. They couldn’t be on Hraldolf’s side. That just didn’t make any sense. They were off book now, and they weren’t
supposed
to go off book.

Son of a bitch.

Chapter
Forty
-Six

“Your ad here.”

—Bob Defendi

point of light. Perhaps it’s a star in the heavens.
Perhaps it’s a torch in the distance. Maybe it’s the fiery streak of an angel cast out of heaven.

Next to it a curve, a field of white, like porcelain. A concave shape, the play of light and shadow. Let’s pull back. The camera’s too close.

Another curve, a slope. An eyehole. Another. As we zoom back, we can see it for what it is. A mask. Hraldolf, his posture brooding. Pull back farther.

His chin on one hand. His furred cloak and crown. He is the evil overlord, like Conan on his throne. You know the movie I’m talking about. But that is another story.

Watch. He stirs.

Hraldolf rose from his throne and crossed the room, the plastic matting sliding beneath his feet. He walked over to his mirror and examined his hair. It was perfect. Everything about him was perfect. Too perfect. He didn’t seem real.

He mussed his hair, hung his tunic a little sloppier, moved the cloak’s brooch off center. There. Now he looked a bit more like a real person. Maybe he wouldn’t comb his hair tomorrow. Maybe he’d put on an artfully aged tunic. Hmm. That might be nice. Maybe he wouldn’t
polish
the mask either.

“Not Beaver,” he said before he even realized the fat man had entered the room.

“Yes, Your Majesty?” The tiny fat man hovered so far back in the distance that he might have been wall art.

“What do you want?”

“I want for nothing, Your Majesty.”

“Then why are you here? I thought you were researching those workers’ rights laws. I want to know if workers are more productive with ten minute breaks. I was thinking also of some sort of central location where they can take these breaks. A room of some kind. Perhaps… with free snacks.”

“Very forward-thinking, Your Majesty.”

“The only thing I can’t figure out is why I want to call their wives ‘life partners.’”

“I’m sure you’ll figure it out, Your Majesty.”

Hraldolf admired himself in the mirror a bit longer then turned away.

Not Beaver was a furry pile of fidget. Either he had to use the garderobe, he had something to say, or he had a wicked case of the crabs. “Not Beaver?”

“Yes, Your Majesty?”

“Speak.”

“We’ve captured your brother, Your Majesty.”

Hraldolf’s eyebrows rose under the mask. If this were a comic book, the brow ridges of the mask would have risen too. And there would have been emotion lines radiating from his head. And the women would have been as top-heavy as an after-hours board meeting.

“Why the ants in your pants?”

“Your brother was injured, Your Majesty.”

“They hit him?”

“I think he was caught in the eye with a rupturing lock, Your Majesty.”

Hraldolf nodded. There should be rules about building in his empire. Maybe a set of codes.
Building
codes. That was it.

“Will he be all right?”

“He might lose the eye, Your Majesty.”

Hraldolf nodded. “Take me to him.”

They walked down the hall and down the stairs, past the guard who slept with his key within easy reach of the cells, his sword conveniently on the table. Even evil overlords had cousins and domineering aunts who tried to get them jobs.

Past this lay the real dungeons. The ones where the keys weren’t even kept in the same room as the guards, where the bars were electrified and the secret doors in the cells led to shark-infested wading pools.

They walked into these dungeons, through three sets of valve-like doors, each requiring two simultaneous keys, carried by guards with clearly identifiable faces. He had done some work since their last escape.

The hallway was dark and both dank and dusty at the same time. They’d needed to bring in an interior decorator to get the right effect. The spider webs were imported too.

He stopped at the door. They replaced the heavy oaken doors with gates of bars after last time, so he could have a civil conversation without a prisoner tearing his mask off. It was strange. In the old days, he’d never seemed to learn.

He stood there for several seconds before Damico and his friends noticed him. Damico wore a large bandage over one eye.

“So we meet again,” Hraldolf said.

“You’ve been reading the villain’s quote book,” Damico said.

Hraldolf smiled. Damico thought
Hraldolf
was the villain.

“Brother,” he said, “I’m an honest ruler. I work hard. I toil for my people.
You
are the rebels trying to overthrow my just empire.”

“Your
evil
empire,” Damico said. He lay along a bench, his head in the lap of the pretty mage.

“Just because it’s evil doesn’t mean it isn’t just. My people love me. I’ve improved everyone’s quality of life.”

“And Hitler loved his mother and made the trains run on time.”

“Now, Damico,” Gorthander said. “The first person to mention Hitler in any argument loses.”

Damico shrugged and contemplated the ceiling. This left his blind eye on the side of Hraldolf.

“Why, brother?” Hraldolf asked. “Why do you want to destroy me? The throne could have been yours. I would have willingly destroyed your enemies for you.”

“Because I’m the good guy.”

“Don’t get down on yourself,” Hraldolf said.

“No,” Damico said with a sigh. “I’m the hero. You’re the villain.”

“I’m afraid you have it backward,” Hraldolf said.

“Really?” Damico asked. “Then how do you explain this?” He pointed at the bandaged eye.

“Building codes. I’m working on it.”

“No,” Damico said, his one eye penetrating. “I’m scarred.
Branded
.”

“So?” Hraldolf asked, confused.

“The hero always gets branded by the end of the second act.”

Hraldolf blinked, opened his mouth to speak… closed it again. Damico was right. It wasn’t always a physical brand, but in every good story, the hero
was
branded.

But no. This was just a trick. This was fast talk to bring down Hraldolf’s resolve. Damico was the villain. He was. He
had
to be. And yet, something tickled in his memory. Didn’t he used to think of himself differently?