Nightshadow hated those types of places with their slick superficiality and drunk, drugged-up horseplay. However, making an appearance there was good for his public image and made him look like a too-rich-for-his-own-good playboy always on the hunt for attractive women. Also, Piper’s flexible, energetic bed play tended to make enduring such a hellhole worth it, especially after a long night of patrolling.
She’d probably wake up around noon and let herself out. If she tried nosing around, the cameras or housekeeping would catch her and security would throw her out. Nightshadow had personally interviewed and investigated every single person on his staff. He ensured their loyalty with ironclad contracts, extravagant pay, and ample vacation time. He trusted them to do their duties, not ask too many questions, and respect his privacy. Of course, he’d rechecked all their backgrounds again after the Death Reaper’s demise. He had to be sure they hadn’t been planted there to strike at him when he least suspected. So far, he’d found nothing, but he’d keep checking and rechecking in case he’d missed something. After all, it only took a simple slip-up and a hidden enemy could bring his whole world crashing down.
He called for his driver and rode the elevator downstairs. In the lobby, the receptionist was dozing off at her desk. Upon seeing him, she shot straight up and said, “Good morning, Mister Risen!”
Waving to her, he trod across the posh, golden-trimmed lobby and decided that poor girl deserved to be taken off the midnight shift. She did a good job, but going without sleep was wrecking her looks and probably playing havoc with her social life. He made a mental note to speak with her supervisor after he’d investigated her again.
Outside, the morning had begun brightening and freshening up. Early risers slugged up and down the street or stood, waiting for buses and cabs, trying not to nod off. Nightshadow’s driver held the limo door open for him. He wore slick black treads along with a nifty cap and was far too old to have ever been a child kidnapped by the Death Reaper. Nonetheless, Nightshadow had investigated him to be absolutely certain.
“
Didn’t get much sleep again, sir?” the driver asked.
“
Only less diligent people rest, Wally,” Nightshadow responded, yawning and climbing into the backseat.
***
Through the limo’s blue-tinted windows, Nightshadow watched Salome City roll past. Limber, neoclassical skyscrapers packed in together and lumbered up into a sullen sky. Old train lines arched over the streets, giving off sparks as the early express girded by. In the distance, Lake Toll’s marshy-green waves blistered and churned. Haunted-looking homes, swampy parks, and musty little shops dominated the neighborhoods, though a few newer, more modern-styled homes and stores stood out. Rain came down in a light mist, but the sun still poked out of the clouds here and there. The entire city smelled like brittle, ancient paper. Risen Tower spiked above it all, a gleaming postmodern marvel of steel and glass.
The Risen family had helped build the city, though they were thought to have died out a couple of decades ago. Fifteen years back, Mark Risen had abruptly appeared and immediately made waves. His wild, unpredictable business moves soon catapulted Risen Real Estate to new heights. He invested in properties people thought were worthless and turned musty, abandoned buildings into thriving stores, gyms, and art galleries.
By all accounts, Mark Risen was a major success story. However, Mark Risen was only one of several false identities Nightshadow currently used. Each one immersed him in a different scene, allowing him to keep his finger on the pulse of the city, gathering information and getting to know all the major players. However, the Mark Risen identity had also helped Nightshadow aid his city in a way his vigilante activities never could. Mark Risen’s fortune had even proved invaluable to funding his war on crime and also in building up Nightshadow’s invaluable network of informants, agents, and spies.
While Nightshadow centered his own activities in Salome City, his actual reach extended out much further. He had operatives scattered all across the world, following his precise instructions on how to complete their missions. While he’d never save everyone, he’d do his damn best to try, if only to prevent the tragedy that had struck him from ever happening to somebody else.
A lifetime ago, his parents and younger brother had died when a suicide bomber brought down the Mortem Bridge. He’d somehow survived and had been found in wreckage floating across the dirty Culling River, bleeding and crying. Various group homes and orphanages passed him around, but he soon grew tired of that. He ran away one night and lived on the streets for a time, surviving on his wits and willingness to fight dirtier than most. Eventually, he stole away on a boat to distant lands and scrounged through most of Europe, Asia, and Africa.
He stumbled onto some of the old masters and others found him. For most of his youth, they taught and trained him in the ancient arts of shadow-fighting, detection, and escapology. Using a variety of fake names, he took classes at the top universities to study biochemistry, psychology, forensics, engineering, computers, robotics, and more. Soon, he surpassed even his teachers and perfected the skills needed to return home and begin his crusade. The underworld didn’t know what hit them. He proved more than a match for any criminal, except the Death Reaper, whoever he really was and wherever he had come from. Nightshadow had never been able to find out.
No other maniac ever challenged him as much. Over the long years, their frequent conflicts had improved each other immensely. Without the other, neither would have excelled to the heights (or depths) they were known for. It was an epic rivalry with the biggest stakes imaginable, playing out across the city’s underworld and, occasionally, even on a more global scale. But one night last week, it had all abruptly ended.
How had the Death Reaper’s heart just stopped? He couldn’t have died like that! It hardly seemed fitting. Deep down, Nightshadow had always thought he and the Reaper would die together fighting over the fate of the world. Yet, Nightshadow had performed the autopsy himself. Hyperman, Dynamo-Man, and the Silver Seraph also scanned the body. Paul Wrath and his science spooks at S.I.L.E.N.T. had even poked around with it before cremating it. There was no doubting it. The Reaper was dead.
There wasn’t going to be a legendary final battle. Just like that, their feud had ended and without an actual winner. Nightshadow would never know if he could have ever truly and ultimately beaten the Death Reaper and made him pay for the lives he’d destroyed and the mayhem he’d caused over the years. He’d never learn who the Reaper really was and why and how he’d become what he was. The questions would lurk at the back of Nightshadow’s mind forever, jabbing at him in the dead of night when he should be focusing on other things.
Somehow, he had to move on with his life.
***
Wally slammed the limo door shut after Nightshadow climbed out. “I’d wish you good luck at all your meetings today, Mister Risen,” Wally said, “but I know you make your own luck.”
“
We can’t give bad luck the chance to find us,” Nightshadow replied, brushing down the creases in his suit. “Take the rest of the day off, Wally. You’ve earned it. I’ll call the garage and tell them to rearrange their schedule.”
“
Certainly, sir!”
They shook hands, and Nightshadow pushed through the glass revolving door into Risen Tower. The sleek lobby glistened silver and clean with a pristine waterfall splashing down at the back. A team of receptionists manned the front desk. Businessmen hurried in and out the elevators. Many stopped what they were doing to say hello to Nightshadow or did so in passing. Nightshadow nodded back to acknowledge them.
He liked and appreciated everyone who worked for him, but he was investigating them all. Any one of them could have been a reaper child and could now be plotting against him. He needed to be certain of who they all were, not only for his own safety, but for that of the company and everyone in it, as well as the city itself.
Two guards flanked him over to his private elevator. After his ascent, he breezed into his penthouse-sized, top-floor office. The wall-sized windows gazed out on the thin, stringy clouds snaking around the city’s heights. Priceless black-and-white abstract paintings hung from the walls and flush oriental rugs covered the smooth hardwood floor. A slick, expensive-looking computer sat upon a mountainous desk. A wall of TVs opposite the desk showed the stock market, news, and weather.
For the next two hours, Nightshadow held meetings that saw his guests making good use of the comfortable chairs and mini-bar. He talked them into investing into this, signing off on that, and promising to look deeper into a few new properties. That completed, he sat down at his computer and spent a few hours going through tedious paperwork. Proposals needed his approval, contracts required his signature, and invoices had to be double-checked.
Once finished, he stretched and cracked his knuckles before getting up and grabbing some coffee from the mini-bar. Cup in hand, he flipped aside a painting on the wall to access a vault. After typing in a series of pass-codes and giving his handprint, the vault door swung open, and he took out a small, compact notebook computer. Back at his desk, he perched the computer on his lap, sipped his cinnamon-flavored coffee, and began clicking through his agents’ personnel files. He repeatedly speed-read each profile line by line over and over, trying to catch any hint that they weren’t who they claimed to be. He went over everything eight times and vowed to check everyone’s backgrounds again later before finally turning to his agents’ most recent reports.
Ghosteyes and her boyfriend the Briar Bowman had tracked the money counterfeiter Paper Doll down to Argentina. The Red Scoundrel had arrested the Hound, Belfast’s most famous IRA bomber. In the American Southwest, the Answer was hunting the cannibalistic Wendigo monster that had wandered down from Canada. Nightshadow sent data concerning an alien gun smuggler to Areva, Earth’s Silver Seraph, since that was her area of expertise. For the same reasons, he forwarded a list of high-tech terrorist suspects to Gilgamesh.
After putting his notebook computer away, he changed into a black karate gi and gave an hour over to meditation and yoga. Afterwards, he retreated into his private gym for weight lifting, swimming, and martial arts practice. Sweaty and sore, he still slaughtered a heavy bag with roundhouse kicks.
Now punching and jabbing, he mentally mapped out the rest of his day. Once he ducked out of the office, he had to put on facial prosthetics and attend rehearsals of Macbeth at the Green Eye Theater where he was playing Duncan. Paul, who was starring as the title character, had promised to introduce him to some big-time drug dealers who worked exclusively with artists and actors. Later on, Nightshadow had to don a blonde wig and fake tattoos while working an evening shift as a bartender at Torchlight, an old uptown rock club. The Glow, a fluorescent-skinned, supposedly retired, super-criminal mob boss owned the joint, making it a prime hangout for cartels and assassins. Working a few shifts there allowed Nightshadow to check out who was in town and working together. After that, Nightshadow planned to throw on some filthy, putrid-smelling clothes and beg down in Triangle Park. Pretending to be homeless was a fantastic way to overhear gossip and tail suspects. The homeless blended perfectly into the background of almost anywhere.
Once all that was done, he’d put on a wing-suit and patrol. If the city was quiet, he’d head back to his Triangle Park lair to once again try taking apart a helmet he’d found at the Death Reaper’s hideout after ransacking through the place. It looked far more high tech than anything the Reaper had ever used before, and Nightshadow felt certain it had been used to alter and warp those poor reaper children’s minds.
The ones he’d caught now all resided in psychiatric hospitals across the country. He footed the bill, though they were all drooling, catatonic lost causes that weren’t responding to any medication or treatment. The other kidnapped children had returned home, but none of them had gone back to school yet and all were in therapy. Nightshadow knew they’d never be the same again, and he’d be watching them as they grew up, year by year, making sure they toed the line.
***
“
THERE!” the Bride pointed as Nightshadow burst out through the ventilation shaft and crashed down onto her men. He tackled them all down to the floor and somersaulted away before they could grab and fire their old-fashioned tommy guns. He dove for cover behind a far table.
“
SHOOT THAT FUCKER!” the Bride yelled in a spoiled brat’s loud, whiny, temper tantrum tone. She even pouted and stomped her heels. The sounds of her men’s guns rattling filled the entire room. Nightshadow scampered along just ahead of the bullets slamming into the walls, destroying tabletops, and knocking over chairs.
The banquet hall had been made up for a wedding dinner with fine china and starch white tablecloths set out. A piano in the corner automatically played “
here comes the bride, here comes the bride
” over and over. A giant multi-tiered lime-green wedding cake with a candy bride and groom poking out on top stood upon a platform at the front of the room. The Bride lurked about before it on the platform.