Rapscallion

The End is Sooner Than I Thought

You might be wondering how us villains communicate. Secret messages slipped under each others doors? Henchmen sent with coded notes? Flashing morse code into each others windows at 2 a.m.?

We text, obviously.

Me: Meet me at the rocky steps tomorrow morning at 10. If you don't show, I'm coming knocking disguised as a traveling clown.

Her: so bossy ; ) do I get a choice?

Me: nope. wear your street clothes. please.

Her: since you asked so nicely.

As much as I hate going anywhere without my dog, I leave Edgar at home this time. I kiss his head, apologizing for the seventeenth time as I slip out the door and pull my jean jacket on over my hoodie.

It's not snowing anymore, but the sky remains heavy and gray. My boots crunch in the snow and I follow the tracks of other pedestrians, careful this time to walk like a normal person and not drift through mailboxes and telephone poles. Even in this cold, there's a lot of red-nosed people out here to explore the day after Christmas. I follow the stream of tourists toward the Steps.

She's not hard to find. As I'm skirting around the water fountain I see her—standing right smack in the middle of the stairs where she makes tourists part on either side of her like the sea flows around a pillar.

It's entirely her type of power move. The fact that her position gives me no choice but to climb up to her like I'm approaching her throne doesn't escape my notice either. I bet you ten bucks that if I tried to shake hands with her she'd wrestle for the top hand.

Even from this distance, her green eyes pierce me. Her "street clothes" consist of a gray jacket, tight jeans, and thigh high boots. More than one glance is attracted to her, and she knows it.

I shove my hands in my pockets and miss the warmth of Edgar by my side. I don't blame Void for chickening out and making me do this.

Mckella Reed is the most intimidating person I've ever met. Perhaps the most dangerous as well.

When I'm six steps away she calls down, "I don't suppose you called me here to wish me Merry Christmas?"

I force a grin. "Happy holidays, Mckilla."

When she smiles back, I half expect a forked tongue to flick out. "Very clever, Gray."

"I'm quite proud of that one, actually," I reply. I tilt my head down the stairs as an invitation for her to walk with me and she does so with the grace of a panther. Her hand slips through my arm even though I hadn't offered it. I let her calloused fingers rest there—for now. I need to be firmly on her good side for this chat.

"This weather looks good on you, Gray," she says, her eyes blatantly sweeping over me. Her fingers flutter on my bicep as we stroll down the sidewalk.

"Aren't you married?" I return drily.

"Doesn't matter," she says, eyes lingering on mine. "We're history."

We are. We'd worked together for a few months back in the day, and were romantically involved for a few weeks. This was before she remarried though, so I suppose her point is that I was around before her husband. In her head, that means flirting with me doesn't qualify as being unfaithful. When it comes to the Clairvoyant, I don't argue. Much.

"So," she continues breezily, "as romantic as this walk is, I have children to get back to so pray tell; what made Void so concerned he sent you as the diplomat?"

I snort. The diplomat. In many ways, I am. I know more about each Philadelphian superhero and villain than most of them combined, and they know very little about me. I couldn't tell you how this came around; maybe because my life before the virus was torn into shreds and now I'm just a villain. Very little of Ben Cooper is left, and Gray is who took his place. Gray, the robber that knows everybody but nobody knows; Gray, the guy that floats in the gray area between good and evil; Gray, the one who successfully robs banks but lives in a dumpy apartment.

I gaze up at the overcast sky and watch my breath drift away. "Because he's scared of you," I tell her.

I'm not surprised she knows Void sent me. The Virus affected her mind and gave her the ability of Sight. Most of the time though, I think her "glimpses into the future" are often heavily aided by an observant eye and sharp mind. It doesn't take much snooping to find out Void and I aren't quite the enemies the media claims.

"Scared of moi?" She places a hand on her chest. "Why is that?"

I decide to cut to the chase. "He thinks you're up to something big and dirty," I say, studying her expression carefully. "Are you?"

She huffs out a little breath and looks ahead, a small smile painting her face. "I'm the Clairvoyant," she says, puffing out her chest in a surprisingly feminine fashion, "of course I'm up to something."

"Something that involves the harm of hundreds of people, perhaps?"

Her green eyes flash with something deadly. "What made him suspicious?" she asks, her fingers tightening on my bicep minutely.

We walk along the side of Eakins Oval, Washington and his horse both graced with white snow caps. A nearby tourist squinting through his disposable camera says to his buddy, "quit smiling like a dork!".

"I think you know," I say. "I think you want him to be suspicious, and while he's busy being suspicious about one thing, you'll be hatching a plan somewhere else." I stop at the front of the statue and step away from the Clairvoyant. Her hand slips through thin air when I go intangible for a second and she crosses her arms, pouting.

"And—forget Void—that made me suspicious. So tell me, Mckella," I say, refusing to let her break eye contact, "what crazy thing did you see this time? What made you think that it's time to play God again?"

Her eyes narrow until only a sliver of emerald green is visible. "I saw our end, Gray." She grips my arm again with iron strength. "The virus isn't over yet. There's another phase, and this one... it kills us."