parts of the room like solar flares from the sun. It got more and more out of control until fire had filled the deeper part of the room.
“Run!” said Grim, already leaving the room. Mortus flung Mercy over his shoulder and followed Grim, Patience close at his heels.
As they ran, she could feel the heat attacking her skin. The flames trailing after them as they made their escape. There were screams behind them, and in front of them. Charred corpses lying in the paths which were blocked by the raging infernos.
Finally, they broke out the fire escape and into fresh air, rushing forwards just in time before a mighty explosion rattled the entire building, causing it to collapse in on itself. She could hear fire engines in the distance.
“What was that?” she said, breathing heavily.
Grim was checking on Mercy. “I’m not sure. That looked like something I’ve seen before, magically boosted powers.”
“How can you magically boost magic?”
“Well, think of it like inserting more magical particles into your body than it can handle. But as you can see, it often has catastrophic outcomes because the sorcerer can’t control it.”
Mortus stepped in. “If you two are done chatting, Mercy needs medical attention.” They nodded and put her in the car, before driving off towards the Imperium.
15
PLOTTING FOR REVENGE
Kensuke
It was sometime in the middle of the night, at least that’s what Kensuke thought as he looked out the window. Stars filled the sky in a scene of utter beauty. He might have enjoyed it if he wasn’t so angry.
He turned to face the metal bars that blocked his path. It wasn’t nice being on this side of them, he was used to being on the other side, looking in on the helpless prisoner that he would soon be torturing. Now he was just outright lying to himself. He had never successfully captured anyone, or tortured anyone. He hadn’t even killed anyone, not really. His first victim slipped over and cracked their skull open, but that was only because they had failed to observe the ‘wet floor’ sign that had been so obviously placed in his path. He hadn’t had anything to do with it, not really.
A part of him always wondered if he would ever end up locked away. Although, whenever he had thought about it, he didn’t mind. At least he would have been locked up with the knowledge that he had made a difference in the world, that they were keeping him behind bars to protect society from his deadly wrath. And yet here he was, in a mortal prison, locked up for inappropriate public disruptions, whatever that meant.
Needless to say, confinement wasn’t all that it had cracked up to be. In fact, he was swiftly becoming aware of a new fear of small spaces that he was developing. At some points it felt like the walls were closing in on him, which of course they weren’t. They were mortals. Far too dumb to come up with innovative methods for torture. Unlike him, they were bound to the laws of physics.
There had already been a few times when he considered using magic to escape from the bars, but he knew that if he did, within moments that Grim fella would come swooping in and throw him into a magical cell for the rest of his life. He had heard stories of the man, terrible tales of his anger. He would much rather face a mortal prison than the likes of him, he who isn’t constrained by anything apart from the leash the Luminary has on him, and even that has the potential to snap. It wouldn’t be the first time.
His thought processes were broken by a guard patrolling past him. Kensuke rushed forwards, wrapped his fingers around the metal bars and pushed his face through the gap. “Excuse me,” he said, trying to get the guard’s attention, “yes, hi. You there, can I talk with you?”
“Stand back,” ordered the guard, his hat was hanging low over his face, though Kensuke could imagine the glaring eyes beneath them, “shut your trap, or I’ll shut it for you.”
Kensuke puffed out his chest and pulled his shoulders back, trying to reach up to as far a height as he possibly could. “You can’t talk to me like that. I am Kensuke Addington, you cannot address me in that manner.”
“You’re a pathetic little man,” said the guard, “and I’m not paid enough to sit here chatting to the likes of you.” He wandered off, leaving Kensuke standing there with a bright red face which flushed as soon as the guard was out of sight. He bowed his head and sat down on the hard bed in the corner of his cell.
He should have known what a cliché he was before he tried to get into the ‘villain scene’. Young boy who is given no respect grows up wanting people to appreciate him for who he is, finds a thrill in killing, or trying to kill and watching the guy fall over to his death, and then sets out for a quest to become the most terrifying man in the history of the universe. Yeah, pretty cliché.
Maybe he should make a new origin story for himself. It was only a matter of time until he had his own movie adaptation, so it might be a good idea to alter the story now before the reviews pour in.
As time went on, his thought processes seemed to become more and more scattered. He couldn’t think a clear thought without gearing off in some other direction, often his quest for revenge. Grim and that girl might not have got him here, and may not in any way be to blame for him being ‘inappropriate’ in public.... but it was a hell of a lot easier to blame them than to admit his own incompetence. As the idea festered in his mind, it seemed to blaze like a fire. Although, like all fires, it eventually fizzled out until he was left with depressing, ashen thoughts.
There was a knock on the cell door. He shook his head and escaped back to reality, realising that it was morning already. Once again, the guard stood on the other side of the bars, huge bags under his eyes and a bored expression on his face as though he wanted Kensuke to hurry up.
“Come on,” he said, “it’s time to get you out.”
Kensuke frowned. “You’re not going to torture me, or lock me away for my lifetime, or take me out into the middle of nowhere and dump me in a desert where I can slowly dehydrate into a withered corpse?”
“Unfortunately not, as much as I would like to. You’re getting out.” A smile spread across Kensuke’s face. He knew that bars couldn’t hold him for long. While this wasn’t how he had imagined his escape, being willingly released, it was good enough.
He strolled down the corridor, waving at all the sullen looking criminals, real criminals that had killed real people, before heading into the office and picking up his stuff. It felt good to have a coat again, it was awfully cold in there, and his tie – his glorious tie.
“See you soon,” he said to the woman behind the desk, though quickly correcting himself at the raised eyebrows of the burly policeman, “well I hope not. I am done with crime, yep, never again.” His last few words were filled with sarcasm. The guards didn’t seem to notice though, probably because they didn’t possess his level of wit, and couldn’t comprehend what he was really trying to say.
He stepped out into the fresh air, feeling it beating against his face. It relaxed him, but at the same time it felt too peaceful. He was a villain, he couldn’t like things such as fresh air or pretty stars, he was supposed to like blood and death and darkness.
As he walked, his hand slithered into the pocket of his coat. His eyes grew wider as he grabbed onto the solid object, which he had completely forgotten was there.
The mobile phone.
He opened it up, surprised to find there wasn’t a password lock. Who doesn’t have a password?
It defaulted onto some strange game where you throw birds at these circular pig creatures, strange. Then he closed off it and scrolled through the phonebook and information. His eyes lit up. Everything was on there, including a calendar, detailing where the girl, Patience Gillespie, would be and when. Oh, this was too good. Convenience was the meanest deity of them all, when it worked in his favour, that is.
He carried on down the path with a glowering grin harbouring on his face. He had been given the key to his revenge, or whatever the hell he was justifying her murder for. It didn’t mat
ter. It was time that he became a real villain. It was time he won himself the label of dangerous, deadly and dastardly.
Kensuke left the outside of the police station, setting off on a quest for revenge. And he was going to enjoy every single moment of it.
16
THE MOONLIGHT HOTEL
They all waited in silence as the doctor made her analysis. She leaned over Mercy, pushing various instruments such as a stethoscope against her chest before sighing and shaking her head. Grim kept patting Patience on her shoulder, reassuring her that Doc Remedy had fixed far worse than a simple loss of memory.
“It’s not that simple,” said the doc, “Miss Mercy put up a memory block in her mind to stop even her from accessing the information. The complication is that as she was beaten, she lost control of it. The block grew wider until it filled her entire memory system.”
“You’re going to be able to fix it though, right?” said Patience, her mouth becoming dry as she stepped forward, and her eyes remaining fixed on the sedated body of Mercy.
Doc Remedy brushed her maroon hair over her ear where a pen lay. “Possibly, but it will be difficult. It is no longer about the mind, even the best clairvoyant would be unable to break through.”
“So,” said Grim, “what do we do?”
“She will need immediate surgery, I have to go inside her and manually cut off the