No-show

A quiet mission for once

"They're not gonna show."

"Hm?" Malevola half opened her eyes and kept her feet on the balcony of their stakeout spot.

"We're wasting our time here." The superhero formerly known as Invisibitch, but recently re-branded Invisigal, looked down on the Suspicious Building. "They're not gonna show."

"Why not? There's a lot of money there."

"One of their boys ran into Coop and her knives. They know we're watching this place."

"These are simple folk." Malevola stood up, raised herself to her full impressive height, stretched her arms above the elegant horns on her head. "Gang members. Born and bred on the street. With instincts as sharp as a baseball bat." She gave Visi a sweet smile. "You know. Morons."

"Least one of 'em has to have a few brain cells."

"They're crackheads. Any brain cells they have left are hiding in the back of their skulls begging for mercy. All those wankers are thinking when one of them disappears is Woa man, more for me."

Visi reached for her radio. "I'm gonna call Robert."

"Remember babes, red button is for content, green is for orgies, blue is for pillow talk."

"Fuck you." Visi pressed the blue button.

"Speaking of. You guys rooting yet?"

Visi let go of the talk button and snorted with laughter. She grabbed her inhaler from her pocket and took a hit of delicious Salbutamol. "Shut the fuck up Mal."

"Hey, not judging. He's cute. And pretty big for his size."

Visi gave Mal a dirty look. "The fuck would you know that?"

"House warming party? That bulge in his undies?"

"Never saw a thing." Visi keyed her radio. "Ey, Boss Man? We're growing old here and nobody wants to play. How long till we can come home?"

Robert's voice sounded in their ears. "Hang on. Getting fresh info... oh."

They waited a few moments. Nothing happened.

"Bobbie-boy?" Malevola's voice dripped like honey onto the team channel. "Talk dirty to us."

"Right." There was some furious clicking of keys on the keyboard. "They've been spotted about five miles north west of your location, heading to the harbor. Looks like the party's off. I'll send Sonar to intercept and observe. You two can RTB. Or call it a night, your choice."

"It's a night," said Visi. "Talk to you later."

Visi smiled as Robert whispered something in her ear alone. Malevola picked up her magic sword and put it on her back.

"I can portal you straight into his bedroom if you want."

"Nah I'm good. Gonna go home change into something less safe for work."

"What's the point? No matter what you're wearing, it's gonna come off the moment you step in the door."

"Mal. Get off my case will you? Or I swear to God, I'll tell Flambae you're packing."

Malevola laughed. "If you want to convince him to try it on with me, you're gonna have to swear to something that actually exists."

"Oh for..." Visi frowned. "Hang on. You're an actual demon from Hell, and you're an atheist?"

"I'm not from Hell, I'm from Australia."

"Same thing. And still you believe there's no God?"

Malevola sat down on the balcony railing. "Never seen any God, never heard any God, never smelled any God, never touched any God. Only sign I've ever had is people telling me Jesus loves me." She sneered. "Or else."

"Don't mean there ain't nothing there."

"Oh there's something there alright. People who want to tell you how to live your life."

"I mean..." Visi sat down, waved her arm round at the Universe at large. "All this stuff. Gotta come from somewhere don't it?"

"Sure."

Malevola turned round and looked at the sky. It was a clear night. The stars were out. Light that had started its journey before the pyramids were built fell into her pale yellow eyes and turned into memories.

"Just look at it. We're tiny specks on the third rock from a small star. Stars you can see are so far away that it takes the fastest thing in existence, a beam of light, travelling at three hundred thousand kilometers every second, years to get here." Malevola pointed. "That one. Betelgeuse. The shoulder of Orion. People are going on about how it's going supernova next week. It went supernova hundreds of years ago and we're just now finding out about it. You want to know where those stars are now? There ain't even a now that's the same everywhere. That's how big this place is."

Visi stood up and moved next to Malevola, looking up as she was.

"And then..." Malevola glanced over at Visi. "There's people who try to tell me that they know the guy who made this all, he's talking to them, and also he cares deeply who you're in bed with. Have some fucking sense of perspective."

"The sky and the stars He made also," said Visi. "Easy."

"And here we are. In this city, on this balcony, looking at a place where a pile of cunts are cooking chemicals to blast their brains into oblivion."

"Yeah." Visi leaned on the railing. "And all because one bitch picked a fruit she shouldn't have. God knows..." she glanced up. "No I know I've done worse than that."

"We all have, babes."

"That's why we joined this gig isn't it? Tip the scales."

"How many kids' balloons do you have to get out of trees for one dead asshole?"

"Too many." Visi chuckled. "Do you think it counts if you help the same granny across the street and back a hundred times?"

"Doesn't matter what we do." Malevola looked down on the street below without seeing. "We're still scum. Nothing's gonna change that."

"Repent your sins and accept Jesus as your Lord and Saviour." Visi reached for her inhaler. "And all is forgiven. All washed clean. Innocent again."

"I can see the appeal," said Malevola. "Just can't see the truth of it. I still cut that fucking dope dealer open. Saying I'm really really sorry in my head ain't gonna change that."

"That what got you arrested?"

Malevola said nothing for a few long moments, then nodded.

"Did he have it coming?"

Malevola slowly turned to Visi. "You asking me to confess?"

"Maybe."

"He was the guy who got Victor onto drugs. Thought it was funny. Watching a guy with a bat head snort crack cocaine." She waved a hand at her face. "Big nose. Lots of room. Nearly killed him. And Victor loved it. Still does."

"So you killed him."

"Didn't want to kill him." Malevola's stare burned with all the intensity of her Demonic parentage. "I wanted to hurt him. I wanted him to be in pain for the rest of his stinking life."

Visi reached up, put her hand on Malevola's shoulder. "How's he doing?"

"When he's good, he's good. When he's bad, he's awful." Malevola sighed. "Gotta talk to Robert. Don't send him on drugs busts anymore. He can't help... helping himself to the evidence."

"I heard."

They stood leaning on the balcony for a while, silent.

"Told you mine," Malevola said. "What's yours?"

Visi reached into her back pocket for a pack of cigarettes, lit up. The smoke drifted on the wind.

"Just lots of small stuff. Hold-ups, beating people up, I'm really good at sneaking around stealing shit." Visi watched the glowing end of her cigarette, a little smile on her lips. "Held up a donut shop once. Cops made me state enemy number one for that."

"Heh. And?"

"Working for... bad people. Doing bad things." She looked up. "You know how it is."

"I know. So what was the thing that finally made you turn yourself in and join the Good Guys?"

A piece of ash fell from Visi's cigarette. "Nothing... special. Just woke up one morning and hated myself. What I'd become." She flicked the half-finished cigarette away. "Let's go home."

Malevola stood up and pulled out her sword. "Where to, babes?"

"My place." Visi looked up at her, quickly looked away. "Thanks."

"You got it."

Malevola raised her sword, concentrated a moment to get her bearings, and ripped an impossible hole in the space-time continuum. Visi's apartment appeared on the other side.

"See you tomorrow." Visi stepped through the portal and was gone.

 
The portal shrank and disappeared. There was something. Not exactly nagging, just... noticed. Something Invisibitch might have bragged about, but Invisigal was not ready to come out with. A ghost in her past. A secret. Not exactly surprising in a bunch of reformed supervillains.

Malevola took out her earpiece and put it in her pocket. She turned her pale yellow eyes to the building below. On the other side of the steet, a chemical factory was making Sonar's, Victor's, favorite poison. She had known him before he took up the habit, and watched it turn him into a shadow of the man he was. A stab to the heart every time he relapsed. Every time he looked at her with just a glimmer of remorse for letting himself, and her, down. Heaven has no fury like love to hatred turned, nor Hell a fury like a woman scorned. Whoever wrote that, had clearly never met Malevola Gibb.

She slowly pulled out her large sword.

Time for a little freelancing.