The Invincibles by Michael McNichols Read Free Book Online Page B

played “ here comes the bride, here comes the bride ” over and over. A giant multi-tiered lime-green wedding cake with a candy bride and groom poking out on top stood upon a platform at the front of the room. The Bride lurked about before it on the platform.
    “ The countdown is on, asshole!” the Bride yelled, holding up the detonator as her men sprayed the room with bullets. “You better believe I’ll give everyone in this hellhole of a city malaria and AIDS and Ebola!”
    She wore a tight, revealing, fluorescent blue slip of a wedding dress. Wild neon blue hair spilled down onto her light fairy-blue painted skin. Silver-blue lipstick and eye shadow also unhinged her young, pretty face.
    Her men had on loud red tuxes and were having trouble hitting Nightshadow with bullets as he kept moving from table to table and dodging their fire. However, they did a fair job tearing up the place. Nightshadow snagged a flash grenade out of his utility belt and flung it up into the air near the dizzying, dazzling disco ball hanging from the center of the ceiling.
    “ NO! YOU IDIOTS! STOP!” the Bride screamed, realizing what was happening before her men did. She ducked and covered her eyes as her men ripped through the ceiling with gunfire, obliterating the disco ball and hitting the flash grenade. Light exploded and rippled through the air, flickering whiter and brighter with each subsequent burst, and getting right into their eyes.
    With them all temporarily blinded and reeling, Nightshadow pounced, cutting through the whole gang like a scythe with his escrima sticks. Once he’d pummeled them, he bounded up onto the platform and menacingly stalked toward the Bride. She cowered back against the wedding cake. Her nervous, jittery hand tightened around the detonator.
    “ Back off!” she snapped. “I’ll do it! I’ll kill everybody!”
    Two hours into Nightshadow’s patrol tonight, her threats had come through on the news. She demanded twenty billion in diamonds and for every married couple in the city to be legally divorced. If she were denied, she’d trigger a series of plague bombs hidden throughout the city. Nightshadow knew those bombs well. They used to be one of the Death Reaper’s favorite toys.
    “ Give me the detonator,” he growled, with his mask distorting his voice.
    The Bride wiped her hair out of her face and gritted her teeth. “You think you can boss me around like my dad and every other man?” she asked. “I can do whatever I want! That’s why I was glad that rich loser ditched me at the altar! Glad! My dad loved him, not me! Fuck him! Fuck everyone! I took the immunization shot! I’ll be fine, but you, him, Dad, and everyone else will suffer!”
    She made to press down on the button, but Nightshadow lunged forward and snatched it right out of her little hand. “BASTARD!” she hissed, but a swift slap sent her tumbling back into the cake and almost half of it collapsed down on top of her. “Go to hell!” she shouted, lying in a pile of messy cake and frosting. Tears smeared down across her face and smudged her makeup. Cake covered her, and she had to bat chunks of it away to sit up. “Who are you to stop me? You’re not my husband!”
    Nightshadow tossed the detonator away. “I already disarmed all your bombs,” he said.
    “ You did?” she asked. “And so you’re here for what? My spanking? Go ahead, pervert!”
    She spat at his mask, but he grabbed her by the hair and pulled her roughly up to her feet. Holding her by the shoulders, he forcefully shook her.
    “ WHERE DID YOU GET THE BOMBS?” he roared.
    Shock and fear flashed across her face. Her mouth gaped open.
    “ WHERE?” he barked and cuffed her across the face.
    She cried out in pain. Her nose and lip bled.
    “ THE BOMBS!” he shouted. “DID YOU GET THEM FROM HIM?”
    “ W-who?” she asked.
    He backhanded her.
    “ WERE YOU ONE OF HIS CHILDREN?” he shouted.
    “ What? What are you talking about?”
    “ TELL ME!”
    He