Chapter 147 Two.

Chapter 147: 147 Two.

Agreeing to let an energetic, highly tactile succubus move into your evil lair comes with a unique set of physical consequences.

I needed a break from Sunset Oakland. Actually, what I really needed was a stretcher and a saline IV, but I settled for a drink.

It had been a while since I’d set foot in McLaren’s. Between overseeing the lair renovations, managing three highly volatile supervillainesses, and dodging a black-market arms dealer who couldn’t take a hint, my social calendar was practically non-existent.

But after surviving Lilith’s version of "celebratory unpacking," I was only mortal. I needed a beer, and I needed it fast.

I parked the Crown in a dismal, graffiti-stained alleyway downtown and slipped through the heavy steel door concealed behind a fake dumpster.

It was always a relief to step into the subterranean tunnels and see that McLaren’s was still standing.

When you lived in a city where neighborhood layouts changed weekly—usually because two morons with the power to crack tectonic plates decided to have a dick-measuring contest in a residential zone—you learned to appreciate consistency.

McLaren’s was exactly that. A subterranean after-work haunt for blue-collar villains.

We had one rule: no starting shit inside. You break that rule once, you get thrown out. You break it twice, you don’t wake up.

Something people didn’t talk enough about was the backup that came with being a bartender, McLaren and his daughter practically had the entire villain network of Metropolis as protection.

Pushing open the heavy oak doors to the main taproom, I couldn’t suppress a sigh of relief.

The air was thick with the familiar, comforting scent of stale beer, cheap cigars, and lingering ozone.

It smelled like home. Which was a tragically depressing realization, but when you moved around as much as I did, you took what you could get.

I didn’t have anything like this in my previous life, our bartenders were scared of us, and we were scared they laced our drinks.

It was early, so the crowd was thin. Shockjock was leaning over the pool table, trying to keep his shoulder-mounted Tesla coils from catching the felt on fire as he lined up a trick shot.

In one of the corner booths, Blue Balls (please don’t ask me) was having a muted argument with Iron Lung, whose massive, pneumatic life-support suit was currently wedged disastrously tight into the faux-leather seating.

I gave them a nod as I made my way to the bar.

McLaren grinned when he saw me—or at least, he tried to. The guy had the face of a prizefighter whose prize was getting beaten with a bag of wet doorknobs. Before he bought the bar, he’d been a career villain.

Once his baby mama gave him a kid daughter that was it for him, he finished his stint in federal lockup, McLaren decided that taking superpowered right hooks to the jaw was a young man’s game and retired to pour drinks.

I’d asked him why a couple times and he always replied no matter how much he loved the game, he loved his kid a million times more.

Anyone could respect that.

"Miles," he grunted, setting down a whiskey glass he’d been polishing with a questionable rag. "Been a minute. People were starting to wonder if a cape finally put you in the ground."

"Nope. Still kicking," I said, sliding onto a barstool and wincing slightly as a phantom cramp seized my lower back. "Besides, dying doesn’t keep most people in this industry out of the game for long anyway."

He snorted a laugh that sounded like grinding gravel. "Too true. You flying solo tonight? No wildly destructive women hanging off your arms?"

"Not tonight," I sighed. "I just finished some... administrative onboarding at the lair. Thought I’d stop by and see how the real world is doing. Got a beer?"

McLaren reached into the cooler and slid a bottle across the scarred wood. The glass was so cold it was actively sweating. With a subtle flex of my magnetism, the metal cap popped off and clattered onto the bar. I took a long, desperate pull. God, that hit the spot.

"Heard you’ve been real busy," McLaren noted, leaning against the back counter. "Getting into organized villainy?"

"Something like that."

"Been a while since we had a proper syndicate operating in this zip code. Looking for henchmen?"

"You looking to get back into the game?" I countered.

He barked a rough laugh, tapping the side of his ruined face. "Not at my age, kid. I can’t take a kinetic blast to the ribs like I used to."

"I’m keeping things small for now," I explained. "Just me and a select crew."

McLaren nodded slowly, picking his rag back up. "Sure. Sure. But... you might want to watch your six, Miles."

I lowered the bottle. "Careful?"

McLaren glanced around the taproom, his eyes lingering on the shadows before he leaned in, dropping his voice to a low rumble. "I hear things down here. Nothing concrete, you get me? But I’ve been hearing some chatter about that new girl of yours."

That didn’t narrow it down much. "Which one?"

"The punk one. Pink hair. Mind control."

"Psyren," I said.

He nodded. "Yeah. Her. Word on the street is, there’s been some questions going around."

I frowned. To be honest, I’d have been more surprised if people weren’t talking about Psyren. Her debut at the Omnidome had been specifically engineered to grab eyeballs. And it absolutely had, even if the promised superfight with Golden Boy had been slightly derailed by me dropping a two-ton lighting rig on his head.

But I had a feeling McLaren wasn’t talking about teenage hype or Reddit threads analyzing her Edna-designed costume.

"What kind of questions?" I asked, my grip tightening slightly on the cold glass.

He shifted his weight uncomfortably. "Nothing public," he admitted. "But someone’s been asking about her in the underground. Poking around, talking to other villains, trying to figure out her connection to you. I don’t much like the smell of it."

I took another slow sip of my beer, my exhaustion suddenly evaporating into cold, professional paranoia.

That made two of us.