Chapter 11

At 8:50 Tuesday morning, I knocked lightly on the girls’ door. I had returned to my hotel room earlier to shower and change for the new day and was now returning to pick them up after giving them some privacy.

“One minute.” I heard Julie call out from her side of the door.

I shooed off the bellhop with a tip. At my request he left the trolley behind for us to transport our luggage. Both women brought more than enough clothes to last a few weeks since, after spending two days in Montreal, we were headed to Franco to deal with their self-made mess.

“Good morning,” I offered, when Julie opened the door.

“Morning, Leopold.”

Ah. Miss Perkins was not at all happy with me.

“Can I help you with your bags?”

“They are next to the television, Lea’s not quite ready yet.”

“I can wait.”

Lea was ready exactly on time, and she too was angry at me, at least her face and body expressions said so. Her eyes said something different. I wasn’t quite sure what they were saying, but anger was not part of their emotional composition.

...

“The Franco delivered your 30-day exemption to the Secretary General this morning, Bach.” Julie duly reported once she got comfortable in the bucket seats of my UN provided airplane.

“I wager that wasn’t all that was in the exemption.”

“I’m reading the translation now.”

Lea moped while Julie read over the exemption, she still wasn’t saying much. I could wait for her to tell me what was on her mind. I had breakfast to eat and my news to read. Unfortunately, the news were on my computer and not in physical form.

The online versions of all of the major newspapers were too cluttered with advertisements to read efficiently, thus wasting my time and lessening my enjoyment.

“Cake for breakfast?” Lea asked after the reserve pilots brought me a plate with a large slice of multi-layered cake on it. Petit fours were mostly reserved for the Club.

“Dessert. The omelet was breakfast.”

“Do you always eat sweets for breakfast?” she asked.

“With. I do try.”

“Won’t you get fat?”

“I haven’t in the last fifty years of doing so.” I responded absently, while scanning the latest news out of eastern Franco.

“You got me drunk last night.”

“I did. You were too tense; I gave you an out.”

“Leo!”

Looking away from my online news at That tone, “Yes?”

“Don’t do that again!”

“Yes, Dear.”

“Don’t, ‘yes, Dear’, me. I mean it.”

“Yes, Dear.”

“Bach, you aren’t allowed within a hundred kilometers of Paris,” Julie butted into Lea’s chastisement with the expected exclusion to Franco’s exemption to my presence on their soil.

“We can’t go to Paris?” Lea altered the direction of her complaints.

“They can’t stop Bach from going there. But the fine will still accrue,” Julie clarified.

“Why are we going to Franco again?” Lea was upset at their treatment of me. Something she would have to learn to get used to.

“Because only Bach can quell the riots in Purgatory and keep the worst from escaping.”

“What happens if the prisoners run to Paris?”

“I chase them and get fined or let them go.” Something felt off about her question. “What are you thinking, Lea?”

“What happens if groups of escapees head to Paris?”

“I let them go and quell the other groups first. I am only one person. Besides, the EU’s Heroes will also be there to assist and not all of them follow Franco’s Point of views on Super Villain retention.”

“You meant that other groups will kill the escapees?”

“Some will, some won’t.”

“Why don’t you work with those that will then?” It sounded as if Lea’s heart was wavering when it came to letting the Super criminals live.

“Because all of the European state sponsored Super Groups want Bach out of the way, Lea.” Julie frowned after reading the fully translated exemption. I’d worry about the whole exemption list later.

The what-ifs and worries from Lea were discussed for the rest of the trip to Montreal. With not a single instance of Lea’s Foresight even hinted at. I could wait. Sooner or later, she would tell me.

Our plane was diverted to a small airport fifty miles west of the city proper, my target was on the move. My informant deduced that the Vigilante was heading to Toronto and concluded that I had enough time to land and intercept him, if I hurried.

The ancient travel chest containing Agent Orange’s latest victim was discovered by the local police when they arrived after being alerted by his neighbor’s 911 calls. Hopefully, the officers wouldn’t send someone with a weak stomach to the scene.

Knowing my quarry’s abilities, I rammed him off the road in my rented pickup truck. Stopping him from fleeing wasn’t hard and putting an end to his insanity was even easier.

The best way to permanently stop a high-ranked Regen was to destroy the heart. Yet doing so was messy.

On my return to the serial killer’s house, who also happened to be one of the stronger Super Regens in North America, I washed off the blood in his master bedroom shower. His blood splattered more than it should have if I properly restrained myself. My reflexes were good enough that, other than a few Supers with the ability to change their size or with extremes in speed, I had not had any blood touch me in years.

That I didn’t and it did, was cause for concern. I was getting stronger and faster again.

...

Dressing up for a decent opera, Hansel and Gretel, followed an excellent dinner with the girls. I preferred musicals myself, but they seemed to love it. The girls were beautiful and, along with the hundreds of Opera goers in the Montreal Opera House, both Julie and Lea released their cares of the world before the fairytale had even begun. For centuries, I have been a firm believer in dressing up women to make them joyful. This was just another instance of that belief in action.

Once she wore the fitted gown, along with the Lea chosen accessories, Julie quickly overcame her reluctance of me spending ‘too much’ on her attire. She couldn’t stop smiling all evening. Looking at herself in the mirror, wearing a fifteen-thousand-dollar dark purple gown specifically tailored to her petite, yet athletic frame, had removed the last vestige of resistance from the sensible Midwestern woman.

Bracketed by two lovely women in the theater, I sat and reminisced throughout the play. It had been too long since I had actively dated, even longer since I enjoyed a social evening out with a woman and friends.

I’d have to work to make sure that Lea’s Foresight didn’t lead her astray. Reluctant to deal with Marianne on a personal level again, I gave in and chose to call in one of the markers I had been holding on to from the times I aided her Grande Plan.

After the opera, we walked across the street to the restaurant that Rebecca had made reservations for the three of us, to enjoy a nightcap and a dessert while discussing Hansel and Gretel.

“Leo, didn’t you enjoy the opera?” Lea asked at the table.

“I prefer musicals and plays. Operas tend to be too slow paced,” I replied while enjoying an excellent Columbian coffee.

“You have no taste. What did you think of it, Julie?”

Julie may have enjoyed the pageantry but she didn’t sound too enthused over the singing of the leads.

To continue with Lea’s ruse, I slept on the sofa inside the adjoining suites of the girls.

...

We landed in Loraine, Franco, took possession of our UN assigned SUV, and headed south to a little-known town in the north-eastern part of Franco. Sur le Vert became world famous with the construction of the Super-Villain Supermax penitentiary twenty-five kilometers away. Our destination.

We were the last ones to arrive, even Marianne had already parked her mobile headquarters a kilometer from the EUHA gathering site. Julie flashed my credentials to the French Army enlisted men guarding the checkpoints on the way to the Heroes designated areas. According to Julie’s intel, each country was responsible for keeping watch over the LID in a rotating basis.

Outside of teleportation and strong earth-boring abilities, exiting through the 11,000-ton LID was the only way out for the prisoners. Supposedly. The authorities that monitored Purgatory had discovered that they were wrong. Escapees had been discovered in central Europe in recent months, causing concern as to the integrity of the penitentiary.

Once her trailer was in sight, instructed Julie to head over to Marianne’s. The Heroes could wait.

“Bach...” Julie slowed once she saw Marianne’s personal symbol on the side of her gray and red transport. “Isn’t that the Shadow Queen’s symbol?”

“It is. Marianne is expecting us,” I replied.

“The SHADOW QUEEN!” Lea shouted from the back seat. “Are you here to arrest her?”

“No, you two will be under her care while I deal with the rest of the idiots.”

“Please tell me you are kidding,” Lea pleaded.

“She owes me a favor or two. Besides, remember what you told me in the hotel? She is here to make sure it does not happen.”

Grumbling, “She is more likely to kill us than the Heroes.” Lea wasn’t completely against my idea. Yet I didn’t have a better one or someone that I could trust with the lives of these two with this many Supers around.

“Trust me. Do you think I would leave you in the care of someone that would harm you?” I sincerely offered.

“No,” Lea admitted. Julie remained quiet after her first outburst.

“Besides, she might surprise you. She isn’t as bad as you think.”

“She only wants to take over the world,” Lea snorted.

“She would have my vote,” I replied. “Really, she isn’t evil. I see her coming to meet us. Shall we?”

Lea was worried and Julie stoic during their first meeting with the world renown Arch-Villainess. Marianne never went as far as to draw my wrath, and had even crossed the Atlantic to visit me and explain her actions ahead of time on three occasions. I agreed with her goals, just not necessarily her methods.

But she was more political than physical and so too was her organization. She made no bones about wanting to rule Europe first and then the rest of the world after solidifying her position. Meticulously, she put all her significant power and influence into building an organization that rivaled the Illuminati at its prime. Her associates were scatted throughout the upper levels of nearly all of Europe’s governments and, in two cases, occupying the Prime Minister’s seat.

Just how far her influence stretched only a select few knew. On her last visit three years ago, Marianne outright explained who and why to me. Openly admitting that she believed that it was the only way that I would let her plan flourish. And she survive.

She remained for nine days at my house, while I decided whether or not to act.

“Bach, you brought me sweets to enjoy,” Marianne smiled lasciviously, seeing the casually dressed women with me. Entirely for their benefit.

Lea took a step towards me and Julie halted in her tracks at the power radiating from the influential woman.

“Be nice, Marianne. This is Julie Perkins and this is Lea Billingsly.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you both.” Stepping forward, each woman received a brief kiss on the cheek. Marking them with her power in case something happened later. “Please come inside, we can speak without our watchers listening in.”

I received the lightest of touches on my lips from Marianne, her usual greeting. She said she was in love with me, and maybe she was, but our paths and plans were not meant to exist side by side.