Almost Infamous: A Supervillain Novel by Matt Carter

would have done this. He was a good man. He’s sad to have died, he’s sad that he will never see his family again, and to have died without anyone knowing his name.”
    Suddenly her name made a lot more sense.
    “You see ghosts,” I said.
    “I see lots of things,” she said.
    It was quiet by our fire as we took in what she said.
    Then the crystal boy spoke, “Felix Platero.”
    “Nick Nesbit,” Showstopper said.
    “Helen Campbell,” Firewall said.
    “Emma Hendriks,” Ghost Girl said.
    At last, they all looked to me. Sighing, I said, “Aidan Salt. Just don’t go spreading that around too much, ’kay?”

    I barely slept that first night, as I was afraid of what was ahead. What if I screwed up? What if I freaked out? What if I failed? That’d all be a one way trip to the Tower.
    I couldn’t handle that.
    Those thoughts were rough. Almost as rough was realizing just how much I missed.
    I missed having a bed that wasn’t rock hard and swarming with mosquitoes and other weird bugs that kept trying to burrow beneath my skin.
    I missed technology.
    I missed all the familiar sounds of home.
    I think I might have even missed my family some, though there’s every chance that was just some side effect of missing home.
    I missed having dreams that didn’t include people dying. Since I didn’t sleep much, there weren’t many of them, but the few minutes I caught here and there were full of them. Icicle Man. The people on the boat. Iron Bear. Even the scaleface.
    But most of all I missed sleeping in a roomy bedroom, and not having to share it with forty other guys. They were always moving, tossing and turning. Some snored. Some wept softly. Every so often we’d hear something horrible in the jungle and everyone would wake up, cursing.
    And the sex…
    They started meeting up around one in the morning, when they thought everyone else was asleep. Usually it just meant a girl sneaking in, meeting up with a guy, and them heading out to do their business. Some were less discrete, getting busy on a cot.
    Most of them kept it down.
    Some didn’t.
    So mixed in with all the tossing and turning and snoring and crying you’d occasionally hear the low and not-so-low moans and grunts of people fucking.
    I tried to block it out by wrapping my head in my pillow. But it’s easier said than done when there’s a couple screwing right next to you.
    “Yeah, tell me how amazing I am!” Artok whispered, his voice still somehow shrill. So, I guess one of the girls bought his shtick.
    “You’re all right,” the girl said.
    “Just all right?” he asked.
    “That remains to be seen,” she said, her accent foreign and sultry.
    I could focus, tilt his bed over, and mess things up for him. Atlanteans were supposed to be good fighters, but he seemed weak and there was no way he could take my power.
    It’d be easy. Fun. Maybe even help me sleep.
    I rolled over, ready to take him down a peg.
    Then I saw her.
    She was completely naked, straddling the Atlantean’s hips and riding him slowly. Her skin was pale white, practically glowing in the moonlight, offset by a large number of ornate tattoos that covered her back and arms. Long, perfectly straight jet-black hair rolled down her back, with a few odd locks spilling over onto her amazing breasts.
    This was the first time I’d seen a naked girl in person.
    It looked better than it did on the Internet.
    She turned to me. Her face was serene, unlike Artok, who kept grunting and shrilly muttering about how awesome he was. Her lips, painted black, matching her goth goddess look, curled into a confident smile.
    Then she winked at me.
    She winked at me!
    Arching her back and rocking her hips, she gave a hell of a show. Then, before anything could get real good, she stroked a tattoo on her arm. Briefly, it appeared as though all of her tattoos had come to life, dancing about her body before a swirling flock of black birds burst from her arm, surrounding their bed and blocking it from