#menace2

‘Celestial Candlelight’

“Hey, I’m back!” Nate called walking through the front door of his house, onto the carpet draped over the hard-wood floor. It was almost seven in the morning on a Saturday, meaning that no one in his house was awake, which, coincidentally, was just the way he liked it. He unstrapped his boots, leaving them on the carpet, and walked through the foyer into the living room: a blue-carpeted room with a couch against the north wall, a small table just in front of it, and a television atop a cabinet on the other side of the room. A small staircase in the corner of the room led up into the second story of his house, and he stripped off his shirt and threw it on the first step. Now in just an undershirt and dress-pants, he fell onto the couch and flipped on the television. He looked at the TV just long enough to register that it was some sort of news channel, but that was all he could figure before he fell asleep on the couch.

He woke up three hours later, his mother towering over him with a firmly set scowl. She was still in her pajamas — fuzzy blue pajamas covered with drawings of ducks — which completely contrasted her stature at the moment. Her feet were planted and her back was perfectly strait, her arms crossed. Now, Nate had faced many threats to the world in his three years as a hero, including erupting volcanoes, invading aliens, an army of zombies, and many more, yet he still considered the woman before him a larger threat than all of the others combined.

“Where have you been?” She puffed, almost fuming from every orifice.

“I had to take the late shift on hero duty last night, covering for a friend.” He lied. He was at the cube the entire night, as he had been every night this week. Courtney’s parents were having fights again, which meant not only that she wanted to be far away, but that her parents couldn’t care less where she was anyway.

“I checked the online hero catalogue and it said you were off-duty until today!” She yelled down into his face. “Are you doing something I should know about? Are you seeing someone? Is it drugs?”

“Mom!” Nate stopped her. “Chill, okay? The people who run the website don’t account for shift switches, especially ones so last minute. Now, I’m back on shift at noon, and I’d like to get a few hours of rest in.” He said, yawning, and his mother seemed to buy it. Mrs. Coplin was a busy woman. Her children knew she was a busy woman. Her husband knew she was a busy woman. Her profession was her drive, her lifeblood. Of course she cared about her kids, but as long as they had three square meals a day, were healthy, and didn’t complain, they might as well have not existed. She hadn’t noticed her son had been missing from his bed for the last four nights. She hadn’t been up sick worrying. She would not have even noticed he was gone had she not walked past his open bedroom doorway to get to the bathroom when she had woken up in the night. Even then, she figured everything was fine, and went back to bed until morning. Thus, Nate got away with what he needed to, as often as he needed to, and his mother, intentionally or not, gave him the space to do so. “This shift is gonna be a bitch.” He moaned, covering his eyes with his gloved palms before drifting back to sleep.

If the shift could be personified, it would certainly have been a woman, and, of all subcategories and typings that spanned the entirety of the women sex, this specific shift was, without doubt, a bitch. Nate normally did not mind hero duty. In fact, it was the favorite part of his day during the school year; but, as spring turned to summer and the days went from roaring lions to lazy dogs, Nate began to find hero work a bit tedious. The summer sun beat down on him harder than any villain could, considering he was in practically all black layers. His clothes would stick to him, his goggles would fog up, and he smelled terrible. He normally liked to stick to the night shift during the summer, as most heroes did. If villains realized that no hero wants to be on duty during a hot summer day, Nate thought, crime would skyrocket. Luckily enough, villains seemed to be conquered by the heat as well, and so the majority of Nate’s shift was occupied with patrol duty.

Th sun was insufferable. Nate found himself dozing as he walked the streets, searching for villains or criminals or air conditioning. He had been operating for the past few days on a couple hours of sleep each night, and he knew that it was about to catch up with him. His wanderings took him to the town square, a square of brick surrounding a small grass plot, with benches on every side, each one dedicated to some donor or hero. A small collection of shops surrounded the square, all of them quaint, as if they had not been renovated since the conception of the nation. A man dressed in white and pink stood at the nearest corner of the square, selling ice-cream from a small booth. Nate, figuring he hadn’t much else to do, purchased a cone and took a seat on the recently renamed Ultraman Memorial Bench.

Now, this was the first summer that Nate could work full-time as a hero, and thus the first time he had an all day shift. He was on shift until eight, when another hero would take over. There were not that many heroes in New Monmouth City, even less since Ultraman had died, who had taken the three or four shifts-worth of the workload. Maybe the Gentleman was right, Nate thought, maybe we have had it too easy. He thought this as he enjoyed an ice-cream cone while sitting on a bench in the town square; a few of the more senior heroes had informed him that any expenses made during your shift were reimbursed by the state, and, while officially heroes have to speak out against abuses in the system, Nate figured that an ice-cream cone on a hot summer’s day was not unreasonable as a necessary expense. As he enjoyed his slight abuse of the system, his mind could not help but wander to another that the senior heroes often spoke about.

There was a large mansion just off of Newman Street, an ornately decorated palace hidden on some backroad in the middle of nowhere. It was an entirely isolated building, nothing spanning for miles on either side, and shrouded in one of the sparse forests that decorated the state. It’s isolation and elegant nature lent itself to some mystery, and so, soon after its establishment, a small group of heroes went to investigate it. As the story goes, the heroes returned with wide grins and empty wallets, and suddenly, whenever a summer day shift was too tedious, a hero would venture there to loosen some of the strain. Nate hadn’t been told much, but from what he had learned he knew to go there with his hero identification pinned to his shirt (a gesture otherwise considered rather tactless), and to write of the expense as a “massage” on his records. His ice-cream cone was almost finished and there was no crime to be seen, Nate figured he’d do some investigating of his own, more out of boredom than curiosity.

He had expected the building to be run down, disgusting, or, at the very least, antiquated, so when Nate arrived at a giant ornately decorated (and surprisingly colorful) palace hidden on the backroads off of Newman Street, he was dumbfounded. Giant flashlight-looking objects were planted on either side of the front entrance, pointed upwards towards the sky, perhaps to make guests feel rather special as they entered the services. The front door was colored in a bright orange hue, which almost blended with the light brown archway that stood around it, but, for the most part, simply created a disorienting effect. The majority of the building seemed to be crafted of silver stone, which surrounded the archway of the door. The mansion was constructed vertically to a sharp point that brushed the top of the tree-line, with castle-like turrets planted on each end. From the front, Nate could not imagine how far back the palace ran, or how far down one might go once inside. He secured his hero ID on his shirt, walked slowly to the front door —attempting not to trip on any twigs, cigarettes, or garbage on the ground — and opened the front door.

The inside was just as miraculous as the outside; to begin with, there was no artificial light, only torches that lined the foyer, which consisted of a small front desk with the attendant picking at his fingernails, two staircases — one on either side — and a hallway in between them, leading beyond Nate’s line of sight. He was intrigued and entranced by the artistry of the building, turning his head straight up to see an ornate, diamond-encrusted, black chandelier, lit entirely with candles. The stairs were lined with velvet carpet, but looked to be of black stone underneath, the railings of gold. The walls held many small paintings, mostly of women in decorative clothing, some of just the costumes themselves, and one large oil painting of a man, with his name encrusted in gold plating underneath. The writing below the picture informed him that this was Count Drake from Transylvania, which gave Nate pause, trying to remember if Transylvania was actually a country, or rather a figment of Bram Stoker’s imagination. In the end, he decided it didn’t quite matter. The man in the painting was dashingly handsome, but in a modern way. His hair seemed loose and untamed, and somehow the artist captured the brightness in his dazzling blue eyes. He was wearing traditional garments, but Nate figured that must have been a formality.

“Can I help you?” The attendant at the front desk, who, Nate figured, must have finished picking his fingernails, asked. He did not look like a pleasant man; for one thing, he had no neck. His chin faded into his shirt, as if his Adam’s apple were simply a sack of fat. In addition, his beard solely covered his neck, and no other parts of his body, and, on top of that, looked greasy and wiled. He was wearing a valet vest over a white button up shirt, and chalk around his eyes, but Nate couldn’t tell if that was required by his employer, or simply his own ascetic (as this man struck Nate as a self proclaimed “child of the night”). His hair was slicked back so that the bottom of his hair grazed his shoulder, and the man smelled like he hadn’t bathed in weeks.

“Yes,” Nate put on his best hero voice, “I am here doing some investigating as a hero on patrol.” Something seemed to click in the child-of-the-night’s brain, and he made a loud, understanding, “O” sound.

“I see, you must be here for your, er, ‘massage.’” The man nodded. “Normally we get them a lot older here, but I suppose the audience could do with some fresh young blood. It’s a small fee of some fifty dollars to get in. Or, rather, for you ‘massage.’” Nate handed him the money. “Go on in,” the man checked his ID, “Menace. Hope you enjoy the show”

Nate followed the black-stone hallway for quite a distance, he figured. The torchlight was hardly enough to lead his way, and, in addition, after the conversation with the attendant, he was not feeling particularly comfortable. The hallway eventually opened up into a giant tavern-like room, with a stage pressing against the back wall. Men, mostly elderly men, sat around the stage in tables, with varying amounts of alcohol in front of each of them. The bar hugged the wall, and the bartender, a young, blonde woman with hair to her waist, seemed perfectly at home in dealing with the drunken slurs of the older men. The room was murkily lit by torchlight, except for the stage, where a spotlight shone on both the band — which consisted of an old (and possibly blind) saxophone player, a talented young drummer, a man with a towering bass guitar, and a trumpeter who looked like he’d rather be anywhere else — and the woman dancing. The woman was undeniably beautiful, with red hair flowing down past her neck, and she was dressed in an ornate feathered jacket, and was dancing elegantly to the music. Her movements were slow and calculated, and the woman was smiling with a wide grin. With the cool air, the nice music, and the dancing, Nate could understand why many heroes came here during longer shifts. Then, suddenly, the jacket was off, and Nate nearly choked on the air he was breathing: the woman was naked save for two small tassels across her breasts and thin, practically see through underwear. Nonetheless, the woman continued her dance as though nothing had changed, still with the same grin. Nate looked around at the older men, wondering if anyone had a problem with what was going on, but, aside from some aggressive whooping, they seemed to have not taken notice of the development, or at least not have a problem with it.

Nate looked around a little more worriedly, as he realized he’d stumbled into a situation he’d rather not be in, and, in his panicked fervor, he accidentally made direct eye contact with  a man across the room, who smiled, and waved him over. Nate uncomfortable took a step forward towards him, wondering whether or not he should commit to the walk, but eventually succumbed to the pressure and continued his walk. Upon closer inspection, he noticed that the man who waved him over was, in fact, Count Drake, who’s painting hung over the wall in the foyer.

“Welcome, welcome!” The man said in a heavy accent, making his w’s sound like v’s. “I trust you are liking my establishment?” The man’s accent was fake, Nate could tell, but more curious than that was that the accent did not seem to be from any particular country. It sounded almost like a blend of a heavy Russian accent and a light French accent. Perhaps, Nate joked, this is a Transylvanian accent. Suddenly, he realized that he had made the same joke before. He recognized the voice. It was The Count, a villain who operated solely in the night time, stealing, harassing, and abusing women. Nate stared up at the stage at the near-naked woman who was still dancing, and racked his brain trying desperately to think if her face was that of one of the missing women.

“Yes, I am.” Nate awkwardly lied, wondering why the Count had not simply attacked him yet, nor showed any sign of knowing him. Everything about the man seemed vivacious; the Count normally appeared dull, faded even, like a man from the dead. Nate noticed the medallion that hung around his neck. A small golden circle, imprinted with what looked like the head of a bat whose jaw was wide open to clasp onto whatever was immediately in front of it.

“Well,” the Count continued, “please come to me with any problems you might have. I am always happy to serve heroes here in this establishment.” Nate thanked him, abruptly leaving the conversation and the establishment.

“What do you want, Nate?” The Mutation asked impatiently.

“I need your help.” Nate said, calling from just outside the Burlesque House of Count Drake. “I found the Count, where he is during the day, what he does. We can nab him now, we can get him.”

“How did you find him? Is he attacking you?”

“Never mind how I found him, and no he’s not attacking. He didn’t even seem to recognize me.” Nate said, realizing now how silly his story sounded.

“Alright man, listen.” The Mutation started. “I’m not on duty until eight tonight, so if you want to wait until then, I’m game. Otherwise, you’re on your own.”

“Thanks, what a hero.” Nate said, pissed. He hung up his phone and slid it into his pocket, staring up now at the sky as the top of the sun just grazed over the the trees. It was a beautiful sight; the sky was painted a dull orange just around the sun, but the rest of the sky was a faded, dark blue. He wondered why the Count didn’t seem to recognize him, and was far more composed than Nate had ever seen him. He went over in his head everything he knew from having to read Bram Stoker’s Dracula in the ninth grade, and he concluded that it must have something to do with the time of day. Dracula can’t use his powers during the day, Nate remembered, he only operates at night, fleeing from the castle to wreak havoc. Nate yawned, and said aloud to himself, “Well, I guess here is as good a place as any to wait for him.” Nate sighed as he rested up against the silver walls of the Burlesque House. He allowed his eyes to shut for a brief moment, and drifted off to sleep.

Something large burst out the front door of the establishment, and the sound of the doors slamming against the wall jolted Nate out of his slumber. A creature ran from the building, out towards the tree-line. Before Nate even knew what was happening, he called out, “Stop!” and then, realizing “freeze” sounded more professional, called out “Freeze!” The creature had stopped the first time, and turned to look at whomever called to it. Nate saw the large, blue eyes of the creature staring back at him and recognized two truths: it was the Count, and he was about to die.

The Count stood to his full height, and now, against the night, stood as an entirely black six foot six monster. Wings had sprouted from his back, black and leathery, and the man had grown fanged in the brief period since Nate had seen him inside the mansion. His hands were grotesquely large with sharp fingernails, his feet had grown out from his leather shoes, destroying them. His entire body seemed to be cloaked in leathery fur.

“Okay.” Nate said, as it was all he could think to say, as he activated his powers. His senses went into overdrive, and suddenly he could smell the beast too, an awful, repulsive smell that was unbecoming of a predator, as it would surely drive all its prey away. He strapped his goggles around his eyes, and squared himself; he could not explain why he did this, he knew that if the beast charged he could not stop it. The beast charged, and Nate dove forward, barrel rolling under the creature as it slammed against the silver-painted bricks behind him. He turned now, to face the creature as it made efforts to stand again, though it was dazed. Nate noticed the same gold medallion hanging from his chest. Menace ran towards the beast now, thinking to take advantage of its confusion, and brought his fist hard against the Count’s head. He fell back a step against the wall, roaring in pain, straight into Nate’s face, the odor making him gag and step back.

The Count reached to his full hight and slammed into Nate, dragging his claws against the Menace’s chest. He yelped in pain trying to throw the beast off of him, but the Count persisted, clawing down to his stomach, leaving a bloody trail in his wake. Nate leaped backwards, but the Count, anticipating this, flew forward into him as he landed, knocking him to the ground. Before Nate could stand, the beast landed atop him, slamming himself onto his pelvis, so that Nate could not stand.  “Menace.” The Count said in a low growl, affected by his heavy Transylvanian accent.

“Count.” Menace responded as politely as he could, as the Count was effectively squeezing the air out of him. Nate had arranged his powers into stages, so that his body would have time to prepare for the stress his powers induced. In the first stage, he was given acute senses, a sped-up metabolism to augment the healing process, and strength to match a body-builder. In the second stage, his powers increased exponentially, and so on. In a minute or so, Nate could move into the next stage of his powers, and so he made a desperate grasp at stalling. “How are you today?” He said, trying not show that he was in pain.

“Hungry.” The Count responded, and he slightly lifted himself from the seated position. Nate took the moment to grasp for air, and failed to realize that the Count was moving closer. By the time he had, it was too late, and the creature’s fangs pierced his neck. He howled in pain as the creature began to suck; Nate could feel the blood leaving his body, he could feel himself growing weak.

“Get off me.” Nate moaned. The Count continued to suck. Nate felt a snap inside himself. The colors of the night became more vivid above his eyes, he felt his strength return in a surge, and he could acutely feel the fangs of the Count lodged in his neck. “Get off me!” He shouted again throwing the Count off of him, onto the ground in front of him. He slowly stood, still dizzy from the blood loss, and fell atop the count. The Count made a clawing swat at him, and scraped across Nate’s arm. The Menace lifted himself into a sitting position atop the Count, hoisted his fist in the air and slammed it into the face of the beast, shattering it’s jaw, and spurting blood across the road. Nate let out a sigh, and stood up, off the beast. He pulled out his phone to call the Mutation.