The Rules of Supervillainy (The Supervillainy Saga Book 1) Read Free Page B

conservative Jewish parents had, of course, had a hissy fit but they’d overlooked their first son being a supervillain and I eventually won them over.
    “I...” I tried to think of a way to respond to her accusation. “Kind of?”
    “You’re out of your mind and you’re an idiot to boot.”
    “I thought you’d be happy.” That was a lie, of course. I’d been pretty sure she’d be pissed off.
    “You robbed a bank!” Mandy gestured to the television set in the living room, which was tuned to the local news. They were covering my earlier escapade with the Malt Shop Gang. Well, that and a dog which had learned how to dance. The reporters in Falconcrest City were just slightly more competent than the police.
    “Eyewitnesses report a terrifying masked man interrupted a robbery by the Malt Shop Gang,” Sally Sutler said. She was a pretty Chinese American in her thirties and on-site at the bank. Rumors were she was dating the Prismatic Commando. Reporters loved raising their profile that way. “It has been suggested he may have been using some form of magic.”
    “Which is true.” A block of ice appeared in one hand while a bit of flame shot out from the other. “I’m all sorts of magical now.”
    “Don’t do that in the house,” Mandy snapped before turning back to the TV. “You’re scaring the dogs.”
    Our snow-white bull terriers, Arwen and Galadriel, were hiding underneath the kitchen table. They hated when we fought.
    “Fine, fine.” I used my flame powers to evaporate the ice in my hand.
    “I thought we’d agreed you wouldn’t be a criminal. That was one of the conditions of my marrying you.” Mandy was right, of course. I’d given up my college career of hacktivism and petty sabotage upon graduation.
    It was the worst mistake of my life.
    “Being an unemployed bank teller isn’t working out for me. Opportunity knocked and I couldn’t help but let her in.”
    Mandy tried to calm down but it was difficult for her. We didn’t fight often she was a very passionate woman. “We don’t know where this costume came from.”
    “Obviously, it came from the Nightwalker.”
    “ He had nothing to do with it .”
    Sally’s report on the television was less than flattering. “Alternately described as the ‘most terrifying man they’d ever seen’ and ‘somewhat goofy’, the supervillain calling himself Merciless beat escaped serial killer Charles Creamley a.k.a the Ice Cream Man to death before helping himself to fifty-five thousand dollars in cash. Spokesmen for the Malt Shop Gang have called for vengeance against this newly-debuted figure in the city’s underworld.”
    “He died? Huh. I guess it is a reign of terror.”
    It was strange how little the revelation of my killing the Ice Cream Man affected me. He wasn’t the first person I’d killed, there had been... one other. That time, I’d been an emotional wreck for almost two years. The Ice Cream Man, by contrast, felt like I’d done the world a public service. Maybe that first murder had drained anything objectionable about the act from me, at least with fellow killers.
    Mandy put her hands over her face. “Goddess, Gary! You’re guilty of murder now!”
    My wife is a Wiccan, by the way. Sadly, that didn’t come with supernatural powers, unlike some witches I knew.
    “Hey, killing people doesn’t count if they’re bad! Hollywood taught us that.”
    Mandy glared at me.
    I grimaced. “Okay, that sounded psychotic even to me.”
    “I was thinking stupid.” Mandy sighed, gesturing to the bags of money sitting in a corner. “You can’t keep this money, we have to return it.”
    “I can’t return it!” I choked out, horrified. “That would ruin my rep!”
    “You’re not a supervillain!” Mandy shook her hands in frustration. “You’re Gary Karkofsky.”
    “Why can’t I be both Gary and Merciless?” I asked, spreading out my arms. “Didn’t you once date a supervillain?”
    I shouldn’t have done that, as that was