Chapter 233 - 228 Altercation.

Heroes could get away with just running in and smashing shit, but when you’re a villain, you need a scheme.

The more diabolical, the better. And it’s got to have plenty of moving parts. You can’t just tie a damsel to the train tracks and call it a day.

You have to check the regional rail schedule, make sure you know the right knots so she doesn’t squirm free early, frisk her for hidden lockpicks, and double-check her ID to make sure you actually grabbed the right damsel for fuck’s sake.

A hero’s whole job is riding in at the last second and cutting the rope right as the whistle screams and the No. 9 to San Francisco comes barreling down the line. A bad guy has to handle the logistics.

Villains act. Heroes react.

And not just any half-baked plan was going to cut it for Vanessa. I had the basic framework mapped out, sure, but now I had to actually build the stage.

Fortunately, I hadn’t spent my career just taking punches. You build a Rolodex in this industry for a reason, and it was time to start calling in favors.

Which was why we were currently parked out front of the Metropolis Museum of Natural History, waiting to meet the head curator.

He was a stodgy old bastard, but he knew the score. I’d coordinated a few gigs with him in the past—in this town, the people who ran the major landmarks knew how the game was played behind the scenes.

Our last collaboration had ended with half the lobby flash-frozen, though there was no sense crying over spilled ice.

I pulled the Cruiser up to the curb below the museum’s towering Greco-Roman columns.

Left to itself, the building looked more like a federal reserve bank than a house of learning, though I knew from experience it cleaned up nice.

Throw up some dramatic spotlights and a few forty-foot silk banners, and that drab gray limestone popped with personality.

I stepped out and popped the back door for Lilith. The towering demoness unfolded her long legs from the cabin and straightened up on the sidewalk, looking like a million bucks wrapped in sin.

She had poured herself into a skin-tight, backless black cocktail dress with a side slit cut so high it practically showed off her hip bone every time she took a step.

A fluffy white fur stole from something almost certainly on the endangered species list was draped loosely over her crimson shoulders, paired with a massive, wide-brimmed sunhat that shaded her glowing yellow eyes.

She tipped her chin up, taking in the museum’s stone facade with a critical squint while her spaded tail swished lazily behind her ankles. "Mmm. A bit boxy, Milesy! Very square! Not my first pick for a debut, really, too much beige! Though with the right lighting and some velvet drapes, I suppose we can make it look delightfully moody!"

"Glad it passes muster," I said. Bringing Lilith along as my art director was a no-brainer. I had a solid enough eye for staging a brawl, sure, but when you have a literal hellborn fashionista living in your spare bedroom, you put her to work.

I offered my elbow, and Lilith happily looped her warm crimson arm through mine, pressing her side against my suit jacket as we climbed the wide stone steps.

Unsurprisingly, she stopped traffic the whole way up. Even in a city as weird as Metropolis, a six-foot-three succubus in couture tended to give the afternoon tourists whiplash.

We pushed through the heavy brass doors into the main rotunda.

The center of the hall was dominated by a massive, rotating steel globe over the information kiosk, flanked by classical marble statues—including a Greek discus thrower sporting the tiniest marble dick I had ever seen in my life.

It was nice to see the stonework was all back in one piece since my last visit. Metropolis kept the best disaster-restoration contractors on the planet in business; those guys could rebuild a flattened city block between Tuesday and Friday.

The kid working the front reception desk glanced up as our heels clicked across the marble, and his jaw nearly hit his keyboard the second he registered Lilith.

I bit back a grin and rapped my knuckles twice against the wooden counter to snap him out of it.

"We’re here to see Waldorf," I said.

"Uh. Y-yeah. Sure thing. Just, um..."

The poor bastard fumbled blindly for the desk phone, knocking a cup of pens over while his eyes stayed glued to Lilith’s chest.

Naturally, Lilith soaked it right up. She flashed him a blinding, fanged smile and shifted her weight from one stiletto to the other, giving a subtle little shimmy that made the front of her dress strain for dear life.

The receptionist swallowed so hard I heard his throat click. He looked about three seconds away from signing his soul over on a napkin.

I wasn’t even the jealous type, and I still had half a mind to magnetically wrap the phone cord around his neck just on principle.

Instead, I settled for sliding my hand firmly around Lilith’s waist and hauling her flush against my hip.

"The, uh... the curator’s up in the East Wing," the kid stammered, finally hanging up the receiver.

"Appreciate it," I said, steering Lilith toward the grand staircase. "I know the way."

The second we were out of earshot and climbing the marble steps, Lilith burst into a fit of bubbly, breathless giggles, leaning down to bump her shoulder against mine. "Oh, Milesy, did you see his face?! Adorable! I could’ve dragged that boy straight down to the third ring with one little wiggle of my hips! Just one!"

"Hard to blame him. You look incredible today," I told her.

"Ooooh, keep talking like that and we’re gonna have to find a janitor’s closet before we even meet the old guy!" she purred, her tail giving my calf an affectionate swat.

I gave her hip a light pat and guided her down the quiet, high-ceilinged corridor of the East Wing, past rows of glass-cased pottery and bronze weaponry.

We found Waldorf Stevenson standing near the archway to the Renaissance gallery, looking like one of the exhibits himself.

He was a tall, rail-thin man with a halo of frizzy white hair and thick, bottle-bottom spectacles perched on a sharp nose.

Draped in an immaculate three-piece tweed suit regardless of the season, he carried himself with the rigid, solemn gravity of an undertaker.

I genuinely liked the guy. You always knew exactly where you stood with Waldorf. To him, the museum wasn’t a paycheck; it was an organ inside his own chest.

He was the kind of old-school obsessive whose office had every paperclip aligned by size, while his apartment across town probably held nothing more than a mattress, a hot plate, and a work terminal.

He knew every creaky floorboard, every insurance policy, and every security blind spot in the building.

He’d overseen dozens of staged cape brawls over the decades, and god help the board of directors if they ever tried to force him into retirement—partly because the whole institution would collapse by noon without him, and partly because taking the keys away from Waldorf would kill him faster than a bullet.

We understood each other, Waldorf and I. Just two working stiffs trying to keep the trains running on time.

"Mr. Stevenson," I greeted him as we walked up.

Waldorf blinked slowly behind his thick lenses, stirring like an owl waking up at dusk. "Hm? Ah. Yes, Miles. Good to see you again. Quite." He tilted his head back, peering up at Lilith and adjusting his glasses on the bridge of his nose. "And this must be your associate, hm?"

"Hiya, sweetie!" Lilith chirped, giving him a perky little finger-wave that made her fur stole bounce.

Waldorf offered a polite, paper-thin nod of acknowledgment and immediately turned his attention straight back to me, completely immune to demonic pheromones and four inches of cleavage.

Beside me, Lilith’s jaw dropped a fraction, her brows drawing together into an adorable, deeply offended pout at being ignored. I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing.

"Now then, hm," Waldorf said, clasping his hands behind his tweed back. "You mentioned over the phone you wished to discuss booking a gallery for an upcoming altercation, yes?"