Martin Greenberg - If I Were an Evil Overlord

A knife blade glittered in the flickering light.

The blade slipped into the nest of wires and smoothly plucked one out, pulling it tight and cutting it with a snap…

1…

1…

1…

I sagged against the console, the diagonal cutters slipping from my cramped fingers.

Rudy jumped into the air, letting out a victory whoop. “Dudes!”

Dudes? I turned to look at our mysterious rescuer.

He stood, a titan in gray coveralls and a baseball cap. He hoisted up his tool belt, sniffed, and rubbed his bushy mustache with his index finger.

“Who,” I said, “are you?”

He folded his pocketknife and slipped it back into a holster on his belt. “I’m the electrician,” he said. “Somebody called about a busted fluorescent.”

Dr. Longbeach appeared at the door, a black plastic Radio Shack bag clutched in his hand, and surveyed the scene. “Oh, thank God you’re here. I was afraid this time I was actually going to get away with it.” He shuddered. “ Peanut butter. Eeew.”

Okay, so the men from HVAC didn’t save the world.

Not that time, anyway.

But we helped.

“Dude,” said Rudy, looking at the electrician in admiration.

“Hey,” I said to the kid, “you’re my apprentice!” I turned to address the stranger as an equal. “You have skills, my friend, as do we. We should team up.”

And that, as you’ve surely guessed by now, is how the Justice League of Contractors was born.

The city of Riamo was neither so large nor so grand as the five other city-states that graced the Ardechi River. Its marble palazzos were small and compact as were its cathedral and its single monastery. Its market piazzas were neat and well laid out and its harbor sturdily constructed. It was known for the skill of its weavers and its dyers and the guilds that oversaw these industries were both prosperous and progressive. While not large enough to boast a necropolis like its great neighbor Cerchicava, it nonetheless housed five cemeteries within its ancient walls, one each for the nobility, the merchant class, the military, the Church, the trades, and the poor. Even its heretics’ graveyard, built outside the western wall, was tidy, well-organized, and decently protected by a complement of city guards who took their duty seriously. The necromantic trade, so rife along the Ardechi, had never gained much of a foothold in westernmost Riamo. A fact that both the Church and the governing council were justly proud of.

Standing on the ducal Palazzo de Gagio’s fine marble terrace, Luca Orcicci stared out across the river, his cold, blue eyes carefully hooded. Known as Luca Preto, a reserved foreign aristocrat with a modest fortune, he had lived in Riamo for nearly twenty years, ever since his master, Lord Montefero de Sepori, the premier Death Mage in Cerchicava, had sent him here to gain a very substantial foothold for the necromantic trade. Whatever the Church and the governing council might like to believe, far more of its citizens were damned then they would ever have imagined.

Turning his head slightly, he listened as the cream of Riamo’s nobility fluttered about the palazzo’s main audience hall like so many agitated geese. The Duc Johanni Gagio had been murdered in neighboring Pisario, the second largest and singlemost aggressive city-state to the east. The duc of Pisario, Cosimo Talicozzo, had immediately closed the harbors, arresting anyone even remotely suspicious while denouncing the act as loudly as possible. The public belief was that the deed had been committed by the fabled Huntsman, a mysterious crossbow-wielding assassin of consummate skill who had terrorized both Cerchicava and Pisario in the last year. But the older members of Riamo’s court held to a more insidious conviction, that Talicozzo himself had been behind the murder. It was not so long ago that Pisario had cast a covetous eye along the entire length of the Ardechi River, going so far as to wage full-out war against Cerchicava itself. Riamo could easily be next.

That no one had even whispered the suspicion that the necromantic trade might be involved struck Luca as both amusing and irritating. But such was the way in Riamo; egotistical, political squabbling with no clear understanding of the real clandestine powers that flowed beneath their lives like an underground river. It was a belief that Luca did his best to promote but lately he was beginning to wish that the complacent nobility and wealthy merchants of Riamo might, just for once, come face-to-face with reality. The tedium of security was beginning to make him restless. No doubt that was why the Huntsman had chosen Gagio in the first place. He always did have the uncanny ability to read Luca’s mind.

The thought transformed his expression from one of contempt to consideration as he made his way inside. He was not fond of crowds, palazzos, or the nobility; the first clouded your thinking, the second hampered your vision and the third… He caught sight of Piero Bruni, his manservant, standing patiently in the wings by the great double doors and nodded his head to indicate that they would be leaving shortly. The third would betray you faster than your heart could stop beating beneath a cutter’s knife. But unfortunately all were necessary evils at the moment. He would have to remember to thank the Huntsman when he finally returned home. Schooling his expression, he headed for the knot of people standing beside the ducal throne.

The Bishop of San Salvadore had a firm grip on Johanni’s son, Eugene ’s, attention-no doubt lecturing the new duc to do nothing either rash or impolitic regarding Pisario-when Luca approached. Resisting the urge to bare his teeth at the bishop, Luca gave the young potentate a sympathetic bow before moving on with a modicum of satisfaction. Condolences having been given, he was now free to retire before the desire to see the churchman laid out on his dissection table got the better of him.

At the door, he paused a moment to speak with Dante Corsini, a long-distance trader of powerful influence in legitimate as well as illegitimate affairs. Although untainted by the necromantic trade, he was nonetheless deeply involved in all other aspects of the city’s unlawful activities. The two men treated each other with a guarded respect, so when Luca gave the other man a formal nod of greeting, Dante caught up a glass of wine from a passing servant and raised it in response.

“A bad business this, Preto,” he stated before the man had moved out of earshot. “Terrible for trade with Pisario.”

Luca frowned at him. Most of the wealthy merchants in Riamo treated their servants as if they were blind, deaf, and mute, but generally Corsini was not so careless; such thinking had led too many men of both their acquaintances to the gallows. All of Luca’s servants were members of the trade and carried binding spells so strong that their very skulls would explode if they even considered betraying him, but Corsini did not have that luxury. No matter how powerful a Court Mage he was reputed to be, only the Death Mages were capable of such precautions. The servant who had brought him his drink also carried Luca’s binding spell, but Corsini could not have known that when he spoke. Outraged grief or stunned disbelief were the only safe reactions at this time and Luca said as much with a dark glance at the other man.

Corsini dismissed his concern with a wave of his hand. As he lifted the glass to his lips, Luca saw the tiny flash of a discreet, blue purity spell scatter throughout the wine and nodded inwardly. At least Corsini wasn’t completely stupid. It paid to be careful, even in pedantic, law-abiding Riamo.

“I wonder if they’ll linger over the funeral arrangements now that the cold weather’s here,” he mused, steering the conversation to a slightly less dangerous topic.