Strange Candy (Vampire Hunter 0.5)

“Oh, that’s wonderful. I’ll just go get dressed.” She raced up the stairs, trailing some floral perfume behind her.

Captain Housework sniffed. He preferred the cleaner scents of household air fresheners. Pine was his favorite.

He sighed and walked into the living room. For a moment his heart beat faster; surely such destruction could only be the work of the Dust Bunny Gang. Sofa cushions were scattered across the floor. A vase had fallen on its side, spilling water.

Dying flowers made a sodden mess on the gray carpet. The fireplace was choked with ash and the partially burned carcass of a doll. Toys covered nearly every inch of the floor. Children. The only natural disaster that could rival Dr. Grime. Perhaps children weren’t as deadly, but they were just as messy.

This was the fifth time in a month that he had been called in and found no archvillain but only bad housework. His name was being traded around like that of a good maid. He, Captain Housework, had been reduced to drudgery.

He, who had fought the great dust invasion of ’53, would have no problem with this mundane mess. His superhuman speed would make short work of it all. But that wasn’t the point. People did not call the Purple Avenger to change a tire. They called him to save their lives.

Once they had called Captain Housework for the same thing. Dr. Grime had nearly engulfed St. Louis in a giant rain of grease. All cars, trains, and planes had come to a slippery halt. Pedestrians caught in the first greasy rain had melted into puddles of sizzling goo. They had called for Captain Housework then, and been glad to have him. But that had been ten years ago.

Dr. Grime had retired. The Dust Bunny Gang had split up over contractual differences. There just weren’t that many supervillains who specialized in true dirty work.

It wasn’t really the mundane cleaning that bothered him. It was the repeat business. People had been calling him back; again and again to clean up after them. He’d get a house spotless, perfect, and they’d mess it up again.

It was a never-ending drudgery. Even with superpowers over dust and dirt, he was tired of it. They were taking advantage of him. But without any supervillains to fight, a superhero had to fill some need. It was in his contract that he had to be useful to mankind, just as a supervillain had to harm mankind. If all the villains needing his special powers to thwart them had retired, he had to answer the call of need. Captain Housework sighed and waved a white-gloved hand. The sofa cushions danced back in place, fluffing themselves before snuggling down. “I am a glorified maid,” he said softly to the empty room.

The kitchen was the worst. Dishes were stacked nearly to the top of the windows, thick with grease and moldy food. He conjured a super-scouring wind and cleaned them with the force of a hurricane without cracking a dish.

When every room was spotless, he appeared before the woman who had summoned him. “The house is clean, madam.”

“Oh, gee, thanks.” She held out money.

Captain Housework stared at the offending hand. “I am a superhero, not a servant. I don’t need your money.” His voice was very tight, each word bitten off.

“No offense. I’m grateful.”

“Be grateful and don’t call me again.”

“But I want you to come back after the party and clean up,” she said.

“You what?”

“The maid can’t come tonight at all. I thought you’d clean up after the party. The superhero hotline said you would.”

“They said I would?”

She nodded. “The operator on the hotline said you would be happy to be of service. She said something about superheroes needing to be of service to mankind.”

Captain Housework stared at the woman for a few heartbeats. He saw it all then, his future stretching out before him. An eternity of cleaning up after parties, repairing the damage of crayon-wielding tots and unhouse-broken dogs. He saw it all in the blink of his sparkling eyes. It was intolerable, a hell on earth, but the woman was right. A superhero had to serve mankind. If all he was good for was maid service, then so be it.

The woman had been putting on red nail polish. She reached back to tighten the lid, but was unwilling to grip it with her wet nails. The bottle went spinning. Bright red liquid poured out onto the white carpet, trickled down the newly polished vanity.

“Oops,” the woman said. “You’ll get that, won’t you? I’ve got to finish getting ready; the guests will be here any minute.” She stood, waving her nails to dry them. She left him staring at the spreading red stain on the carpet he had just shampooed.

His tiny hands balled into fists. He stood trembling with rage, unable to utter a word. An eternity of this—it was intolerable! But what else could he do? Talk Dr. Grime out of retirement? No, the villain had made millions off his memoirs.

Memoirs of the Down and Dirty had been a bestseller. Captain Housework stared at the slowly hardening stain, and a great calmness washed over him. He had an idea.

The police found fourteen skeletons at 11 Pear Tree Lane. The bones were neatly arranged, sparkling with polish, lacquered to a perfect finish. The house had never been so clean.

THE CURSE-MAKER

I would set myself goals of magazines, or editors, to sell to. Dragon Magazine was one of those goals. They published only one fiction piece an issue, so it was a tight market. I made it with this story. It’s the second appearance on paper of Sidra and her semifaithful magical sword, Leech. You’ll get to meet most of her small band of mercenaries in this story. They are her family, and she theirs. I still have a soft spot for Sidra and her gang, and Leech was always a lot of fun to write.

MILON Songsmith was dying. Brown hair clung to his face in limp, sweat-soaked strands. His skin was gray-tinged, like dirty snow. Breath was a ragged choking sound, his body trembling with the effort to draw air into his lungs.

Sidra Ironfist stood looking down at her friend. Her strong, callused hands gripped the hilts of her swords until her hands ached. Sidra’s solid gray eyes stared down at her friend and willed him to live. She ran a hand through long yellow hair and turned to the wizard leaning against the wall.

Gannon the Sorcerer was tall, as tall as Sidra. His hair was yellow, his eyes the fresh blue of spring skies. But his face was set in cynical lines, as if he had seen too much of the world, and it all disappointed him. Today his eyes held anger and sorrow.

“I will not let him die like this,” Sidra said.

“It is a death curse, Sidra. You cannot stop it. The bard is a better friend to me than any man alive, and I am just as helpless,” Gannon said.

“Can nothing stop it?” Her eyes searched his face, demanded he give her some hope.

“It is the most powerful death curse I have ever seen. It would take days for another curse-maker to remove the spell. Milon has only hours.”

Sidra turned away from the sorcerer and his compassionate eyes. She would not let Milon die. He was her bard. They had ridden together for eight years. Even with a bard’s safe conduct, accidents could happen. If you rode into battle, unarmed, you took your chances. But this—this was a coward’s way of killing. By all laws, Milon should have been safe in the tavern. Harming a bard, save in self-defense, was punishable by death.

Someone had hated him enough to risk that. But who? And why?

Sidra Ironfist knelt by the bed. She reached out to touch Milon’s forehead with one scarred finger. She could feel the heat before she touched his skin. The magical fever was eating him alive.

She whispered to him, though he could not hear her, “I will not let you die.” She turned to the sorcerer. “What of the curse-maker who placed the curse?”

Gannon frowned. “What of him?”

“Could he remove the curse?”

“Well, yes, but why would he?”

Sidra smiled, tight-lipped. “I think we could find ways to persuade him.”

Gannon nodded. “We might at that, but how to find him in such a short time?”

There was a knock on the door. Sidra pulled her long sword from its sheath and called, “Come in.”

A woman hesitated at the doorway. Her hair was streaked with gray, and she wore the robes of a white healer. “I was told you had an injured man.” She caught sight of the bard and stepped into the room past Sidra’s bare steel. “That is not a wound.”

Sidra sheathed her sword. “Tell her, Gannon.”

He explained briefly. Outrage showed on the healer’s face, then anger, a white burning anger that Sidra found comforting and frightening all at the same time. “By all the civilized laws, bards are sacred. A death curse on one such as this is an insult to all we hold dear.” The healer asked, “Who has done this?”