Chapter 321 Poem.

Chapter 321: 321 Poem.

I put out my hand, keeping my movements entirely unthreatening. "Miles. Pleasure to meet you."

His eyes flicked over my tuxedo as he warily took my hand, returning the firm shake. "Is it?" he said.

Well, I couldn’t exactly blame him for being deeply suspicious. Super-scientists were absolute primo nemesis material.

Half the time, villains fought each other in the streets just for the exclusive chance to antagonize a guy with his net worth.

The palpable sexual tension between a billionaire and his nemesis was exactly why the media networks were always so keen on finding a dedicated villain for their mascot heroes.

"Of course," I said, dropping my hand. "I was actually hoping to meet you tonight to discuss a... mutual acquaintance."

His brows knit together, and the gorgeous woman at his side tensed instantly. I could physically sense the cybernetic weapons woven into her gown buzz with sudden activation.

Though it’d be simple enough to magnetically pull the plug on her suit, that would be the exact opposite of what I wanted right now.

"And who might that be?" he asked.

"Weird guy. Huge fan of white greasepaint and terrible jokes. Dresses like a medieval clown."

Bradburn’s eyebrows slowly rose in profound understanding. "Ah," he said softly.

I nodded. "Yeah. I heard you’ve had some extensive personal experience... dealing with him over the years. And I was hoping you’d lend me a bit of that expertise."

Bradburn gave me a long, searching look. Then, he casually nodded toward the massive, catered buffet table across the room. "Have you sampled the hors d’oeuvres yet?"

"You mean the little meat things with the toothpicks in them?"

"Yes."

"No."

"Then let’s. They’re quite good."

"Doctor," the cyborg woman murmured, stepping slightly in front of him. "Are you sure..."

"I think it’s a perfectly good start, Theresa," he assured her. He turned back to me. "Please, right this way."

Well, his bodyguard wasn’t actively trying to vivisect me with the monomolecular blade hidden in her forearm panel, so I’d call that progress.

I followed him toward the massive spread of steam trays, delicate tidbits, and assorted high-end snackery that probably cost more to cater than my league made in an entire fiscal quarter.

"So, you’ve earned Jester’s wrath, eh?" Bradburn said conversationally, using a pair of silver tongs to pick some cucumber things off a platter.

"Worse," I said, picking up a tiny plate. "He wants to hire me."

He paused, giving me a skeptical look. "That’s worse?"

"He’s very... aggressive in his recruiting."

"Ah," Bradburn said with a knowing, sympathetic nod. "I imagine he is."

"Yeah. Which is exactly why I figured, hey, Dr. Bradburn has been dealing with Jester for years now, and he hasn’t been strung up in the torture cells of the funhouse yet. So maybe..."

"You’re hoping I know his secret weakness?"

"It had occurred to me."

Bradburn nodded thoughtfully as he finished loading up his plate. Oh, right. We were supposed to be eating.

I quickly grabbed a couple of tiny, crustless sandwiches and walked with him across the floor, away from the heaviest crowds.

"As to that," Bradburn said, keeping his voice low over the jazz music. "I don’t know if it’s a weakness, exactly, what Jester possesses. But I do know exactly what the true source of his power is."

"Pettiness?"

A ghost of a genuine smile moved across Bradburn’s face. "It certainly empowers his daily actions, but no. Jester is a man, or at least something very much like it. I don’t know if he’s actually Homo sapiens, or perhaps some branching subspecies from millennia ago when more than just humanity held sway over the earth. But he is fundamentally a man of flesh and blood, you can count on that."

"Even with the whole demonic clown aesthetic?"

"Even with that. It took me near a decade of relentless research to finally sound this out, but Jester isn’t just a powerful human. He... well, how do I put this. Millennia ago, Jester found something buried deep in the mountains of Eastern Europe. Something locked in the earth. A thing. A... god, for lack of a better word."

Oh, hell. Absolutely nothing good ever started with eccentric people finding eldritch beings sleeping beneath the earth.

"What kind of god?" I asked, grimacing. "Are we talking ’pervy guy in a toga’ or ’tentacle bad times’?"

"The latter," he said gravely.

Fuck.

"Great," I sighed, aggressively massaging my forehead. "Just fantastic."

Bradburn nodded along sagely. "It gets worse."

Of course it did.

"How?"

Bradburn swirled his champagne contemplatively, staring into the bubbles. "The... god that Jester found slept. It sleeps still, in truth. It is a thing from far beyond the stars and our known universe. Perhaps it crashed into primeval earth countless eons ago.

"Perhaps it has always been a dormant part of the planet itself, I can’t say for sure. If there was ever more historical information on it, it has been lost. Or intentionally destroyed. But somehow, Jester learned exactly how to harness the creature. He uses it.

"He is like a tick, drawing his reality-warping power directly from it. Manipulating its aura around himself like an invisible skin. That’s what I suspect, at any rate.

"Whether he merely wears it or they’ve melded together biologically, I can’t say for sure, but he is all but invincible with it on him. Any physical blow you strike will be completely lost in the void of the god. Sucked into a dimension far beyond our own. You simply cannot touch the man so long as the creature he has bonded with remains intact."

"But you have," I pointed out. "What do I actually need? High-frequency sound? Plasma fire? Norwegians?"

"Not even Scandinavians can help you here, Miles. But to truly understand Jester’s creature, you must go back to his home."

"The funhouse?"

"Yes," Bradburn sighed heavily. "That floating monstrosity of garish architecture and absolute affront to good taste was built in the exact geographic location where he awakened that black god."

That seemed a little harsh. I actually kind of liked Jester’s lair. It had a great ’techno evil aristocrat’ vibe to it, but mentioning that to the billionaire currently helping me seemed like a genuinely bad idea.

"So the funhouse is the source of his power?"

"Partly so," Bradburn confirmed as we stopped beside a massive, cascading chocolate fountain. "In my research, I discovered that Jester was once a ruling lord in Hungary."

"Transylvania?" I hazarded.

"Terribly cliché, I know," Bradburn observed dryly. "Though perhaps he was the original historical inspiration, in which case all the others are mere copycats. Or perhaps they were simply drawn to his evil and made their domains in his shadow."

"Fascinating," I cut in. Because even though I was genuinely interested in the deep history of villainy, I was feeling the imminent deadline of the party approaching. I kept glancing at the big, dramatic, entrance-friendly windows. "So Jester’s castle was originally located there?"

Bradburn nodded, blinking a bit as his mind was pulled back onto my preferred, urgent track. I thought I saw a quickly stifled smile cross his bodyguard’s face.

"Indeed," Bradburn continued. "The castle was his domain and home for as long as actual written records go back. But as the modern age of science dawned, and it became far easier for standing armies to level a stone castle than it once was, he heavily fitted his home with powerful machinery and dark sorcery.

"Then, he literally wrenched it out of the earth itself and into the sky. And with it, he lifted up whatever black thing lurked beneath its foundations. Any further hints of its true nature were borne away with the bedrock. And a more secure, isolated bastion of his evil I cannot possibly conceive."

I completely believed it. Plenty of bad guys had floating lairs. It made them incredibly hard to track, and it provided highly convenient beachfront property on a total whim.

"So what do you actually know about it?" I asked.

"Well," Bradburn mused, stroking his neatly trimmed beard thoughtfully. "Though direct study of the ancient castle has obviously been denied to me, I have been able to glean certain pieces of information about it over the years. For example, that the god he originally found was not just buried there, but intentionally sealed within the earth.

"Locked under the stone through some strange alien technology, or perhaps ancient magic. Who can say for sure? But I did eventually find the specific means to temporarily weaken its connection to him."

Aha, actual progress!

"Is that why he hates you so much?" I asked.

Bradburn scoffed, taking a sip of his champagne. "Hardly. The absolute only reason I was ever able to discover this much is because he’s been relentlessly threatening me for years. Jester has made my personal life an absolute misery. He’ll intrude on my businesses and annoy me at any given opportunity. Honestly, he’s a massive pain in the ass."

"I see," I said, genuinely confused. "Then... why does he hate you?"

Bradburn paused, giving me a very level, serious look. "You really want to know?"

"Honestly, yes. I am very curious," I admitted.

"Hm," Bradburn said, then offered a helpless shrug. "Well, it’s certainly no corporate secret. There’s a small, independent poetry magazine I sit on the board of. Lovely little publication. It operates as a charity, in fact. Anyway, we run amateur contests every now and then, and a few years ago, I was acting as the head judge for it. And one day, Jester sent in a poem."

No way.

"Wait," I said, staring at him. "You rejected his submission?"

Bradburn shrugged unapologetically. "Had I known at the time it would have deeply infuriated a seated member of the Council of Nine, I likely would have just published the damn thing. Actually," he amended, frowning in deep artistic distaste. "Probably not even then. It was a truly terrible poem. The absolute worst I’d ever read. He genuinely tried to rhyme ’trees’ with ’rains.’ And we simply must keep up our editorial standards."

I could only stare at the highly indignant billionaire standing in front of the chocolate fountain. That’s what earned Jester’s eternal, reality-warping wrath?

A rejected poem?