Chapter 39 Deposit.

Chapter 39: 39 Deposit.

Nothing obviously out of place, and no foreign pieces around.

Which meant that whoever was in there either wasn’t wearing any metal or, more likely, had intentionally taken it off before going in.

Not a robbery, then.

An assassin?

Seemed likely.

I sighed.

This would hardly be my first rodeo with hired killers.

Some heroes didn’t take the ass kicking I gave them well, and other villains occasionally decided they’d do much better with me out of the way.

It was partly why I rented.

No sense investing in a property when you need to change addresses often.

Girlfriends too.

Bad enough just getting into bed with a girl, only for the window to blow open and a cackling jackass on a flier starts chucking grenades into the bedroom.

Or worse yet, the girl you’d just fucked chugging a knife as you before you realised you had powers.

Shitty way to spend a Valentine’s Day either way.

I considered leaving, but that wouldn’t do any good.

They’d just track me down again, and I had some things I’d like to take with me in that apartment.

Besides, I wanted to know who was fucking around with me.

I didn’t take assassins lightly, and likewise, the people who sent them to mess up my life.

I sensed the doorknob, but the metal hadn’t been tampered with.

With a push of my magnetic powers I spread my armour across my body, the helmet closing around my head securely, world tinting in the visor’s glass.

I pushed the key in and turned it, opening the door.

My apartment seemed the same as ever. Some abandoned beer cans. A couple forgotten pizza boxes and dishes waiting to be done.

Maybe hiding in the bedroom?

My hair tingled, and hurling a magnetic pulse against the studs in the wall I flung myself bodily into the living room.

No sooner did I do so than an oily black mass dropped from the ceiling, splattering across the floor where I’d been standing seconds ago.

I swung myself back to my feet and whipped around to see the oozing mass rise, forming the odious figure of William Sterling.

He was a slimer.

I knew it.

Oily gelatin drooled off where he’d stuck himself to the ceiling, dripping down onto him, his suit and loose coat reforming out of his body, his thin face smiling unpleasantly at me.

"Not bad," he said. "How did you know I was there?"

"You’re a walking, talking horror cliché," I said, stretching out my magnetic powers towards the knife rack in the kitchen behind him, the blades vibrating as they rose out of the wooden block. "It was either that, or you’d be hiding under my bed."

His smile became sharper, his eyes gleaming like tailing fires. "Clever. But not—"

I slammed the knives into his back, every one thudding home into his body.

He jerked with each impact, but he merely glanced back like someone had pelted him with snowballs.

"...but not good enough," he finished, looking back to me.

Oh, that wasn’t good.

There was a range of slimers out there.

Most were low viscosity, and were just covered in slime or exuded it. But William was all ooze wrapped around an ego.

The most dangerous and deadly kind. Little wonder he was high ranked in the Order.

William sucked in a breath, and from his stomach emerged the tips of the kitchen knives.

Oh shit!

He tensed, and like a hail of arrows they burst from him right at me.

I swept my hand, magnetically redirecting the blades, sending them thudding into the walls, only for William to rush me like a wave.

I pushed off the metal nails under the floorboards, sending me into the air, my back slamming on the ceiling.

Shit!

Close combats in a small space with a slimer was the worst possible matchup.

William demonstrated this by coalescing on the floor and swiping an arm at me, enlarging it even as it came close.

I evaded it, barely, my armour scraping across the ceiling as I hit the far wall, only for William to follow me, surging in a gooey mass.

I dropped out of the air, hitting the floor.

My magnetism reached for the couch, grabbed it and flung it at him.

The sofa took him right in the side, throwing him across the room to splatter against the far wall.

I pushed on the couch, trying to trap him under it, but he just oozed out from around it, rushing across the floor like a living oil spill.

I tried to move back, looking for my next weapon, but there wasn’t time!

Reforming in front of me, a pillar of black slime slammed into my chest.

If not for my armour, I probably would have broken a rib.

As it was, he hit me like a firehose, sending me into the far wall hard.

I banged the back of my head, stars dancing before my eyes.

William reformed in front of me, the ooze of his arm continuing to press me into the wall, more pushing in, covering my arms, pinning them.

His face took shape, his triumphant grin so smug I wanted to rip it right off his face.

"You should have taken my master’s offer," William purred as he moved slowly towards me, more of his oily darkness spreading over me and my armour.

"What... what do you mean by that?" I gasped, stretching out my magnetic powers, trying to find something I could use.

The metal in the room vibrated, but wouldn’t be much good against a thing like William.

Unless...

I felt the subtle threading of copper running through the walls.

It was a long shot, but it might work.

I just had to keep him talking for a little longer.

And men like William loved to talk.

True to form, he tittered, moving in closer. "Did you really think our Lady would be allowed to become a pathetic street thug like you? No no! She is meant for greater things than the punching bag of pathetic heroes. But you," he said, my armour creaking as his oily ooze tried to crush me, find its way between the gaps in the plating. "You are meant to die!"

"You first," I wheezed, and pulled.

Wiring ripped out of the wall, tearing a line through the plaster like a zigzag of cuneiform.

William’s head whipped around, and I jammed the electrical cable right into his open mouth.

"GyaaaaAAAAaaaaAAAAA!" William screamed, body squirming with the sudden surge of electricity being fed into his disgusting form.

The lights around the room blinked as his body boiled and crackled, losing its cohesion.

Every electronic suddenly went out, the breakers finally switching.

For a moment William’s mass remained standing, subtly jiggling and rippling with electric aftershocks.

Then, with a bubbling sound, he melted into a puddle on the floor.

I gasped as his ooze finally released me, dripping down to join the rest of him.

I slumped against the wall, looking down at the black mess on the floor, William’s face stretched out across it like a warped photograph.

I took a weary look about the apartment, the walls cratered, wiring ripped out, and everywhere stained with William’s ooze.

Well, so much for the damage deposit.