The Darker Mask: Heroes from the Shadows - Softcover

Phillips, Gary; Chambers, Christopher

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0765318512 ISBN 13: 9780765318510

Publisher: Tor Books, 2008

Synopsis

Expanding on the concept behind Byron Preiss's Weird Heroes from the 1970s, George R. R. Martin's Wild Card series, and Michael Chabon's McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales, The Darker Mask is a collection of original prose stories recalling the derring-do of the beings we call Superheroes and the worlds they fight to save. But unique to The Darker Mask stories is that these plots and characters color a literary universe outside of what has been predominantly white, idiosyncratic, and male in previous homages to pulp. This is the stuff of urban legends, new mythos, and extraordinary folks who might live in a soon-to-be-gentrified ghetto, the dreary rust-belt of the city, or in another dimension. The Darker Mask offers an eclectic mix of popular fiction writers exploring worlds gritty, visceral, and fantastic.

Including stories by: Walter Mosley, L. A. Banks, Naomi Hirahara, Lorenzo Carcaterra, Tananarive Due and Stephen Barnes, Mike Gonzales, Gar Anthony Haywood, Ann Nocenti, Jerry Rodriguez, Reed Farrell Coleman, Doselle Young, Mat Johnson, Peter Spiegelman, Alexandra Sokoloff, Christopher Chambers, Gary Phillips, Victor LaValle, and Wayne Wilson.

About this title

About the Author:

CHRISTOPHER CHAMBERS is the author of Sympathy for the Devil and A Prayer for Deliverance. He is currently working on a historical novel titled Yella Patsy's Boys, about the African-American experience during the American Revolution.

GARY PHILLIPS is the author of the Ivan Monk series and the Martha Chainey series, as well as Bangers and the Perpetrators. His short fiction appeared most recently in Los Angeles Noir and Hollywood and Crime. He lives in Los Angeles, California.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

The Darker Mask
DREAM KNIGHTSby L. A. BANKS 
 
 
Cassandra Hubbard pulled the collar up higher on her puffy down coat and hunched deeper into its warmth to brave the elements. Unforgiving sleet slashed at her face as she hurried to make her train to work, muttering curses as she was jostled and bumped during the usual rush hour mayhem. Another cup of coffee was calling her name. She could barely keep her eyes open at seven a.m. As she descended the slick subway steps, she saw one. A Watcher.It had slithered between two people and was gone. Now she was awake.Glancing around and holding on to a post to be sure she wasn't accidentally pushed over the edge of the platform by one of those things that haunted her, she waited. It was always the same. The night before the dreams came, they'd find her.Oblivious commuters moved up in anticipation of the train. She squeezed her eyes shut and clung tighter to the post, knowing that this was when it could happen. The point of vulnerability.Perspiration soaked the T-shirt and sweater she wore beneath her coat. Her gloves would slide if she were grabbed. A horrific image of being snatched by the back of her coat, wool gloves snagging against the nickedconcrete, then flung at just the moment the train rumbled into the station pierced her mind. The sensation riddled her body and she fought not to scream in public. Nearly panting, she closed her eyes quickly and then glanced around again, thoroughly paranoid.The train screeched to a stop. The throng on the platform bustled forward. Cassandra let go of the post and dashed between the doors just as they shut.No one looked up as she tightly clutched a pole. In Cassandra's eyes, the colors around her were melting and fading gray. Watchers emerged. They peered at her with their dark flickering eyes as their shadow-like, willowy bodies writhed and slithered among the oblivious passengers.There had never been this many before. Usually just one or two. And they had never been so aggressive as to scare her early in the day. Or in public--despite the fact that no one but she could see them. They would always arrive while she was alone in her barren little apartment or in the Laundromat. Anywhere quiet and confined.Cassandra began to hyperventilate as the Watchers crawled across the ceiling, along the walls, and wriggled closer to her on the floor. The entire train soon went black.Cassandra screamed and began thrashing when icy fingers touched her face in the dark. The lights came back on. Blank-faced passengers simply stared at her like she'd lost her mind. She bolted off the train at her stop and ran up the steps, glad to be back in the frigid weather, and then ran three long blocks to her building. By the time she reached the lobby, tears were cascading down her face and she couldn't stop shivering."Cold as a witch's tit out there, ain't it, Cas?"She nodded trying to compose herself as Fred, the lobby security guard, leered at her. Sometimes she wished that she came in with the normal eight-thirty crowd, instead of the earlier shift where she'd most often be in the lobby with him alone. Today was one of those days. All she wanted to do was get upstairs to her desk, but she knew she'd have to endure Fred's advances until the elevator came."So, how was the weekend? Do anything good?""I did laundry," she muttered, wondering how in the hell had she gotten trapped answering phones at a boring-ass box and paper supply distributor."I keep telling you, sweetheart, you can do ole Fred any time." He hoisted up his pants over his rotund belly, making it jiggle as he jumped off the stool and laughed at his own lame joke. "I got something for you."He continued to laugh; she didn't look at him, but cracked a smile.She'd give him that; he'd baited her good and she'd fallen for the line. Their routine was a ritual."Your wife might have a problem with that, though. That's the thing.""Aw, what she don't know won't hurt her--or me ... or you.""Right.""I'm telling you, I beat laundry any day and can tumble better than any washer or dryer." He rubbed his jowls with a meaty palm. "Would work your little five foot seven stuff into a knot, girl--wit' your pretty brown self. Uh-huh.""I'll remember that when I'm buying fabric softener.""That's cold, Cassie. Real cold. Why you treat me like that?""Because I haven't had my morning coffee yet, Fred. Have a nice day.""You, too, beautiful." He blew her a kiss. "I like them new braids you got, too. Bet they hang all down your back almost to your juicy behind.""Thanks, Fred," she replied flatly. "I'll tell my stylist you approve.""See, a black woman with an attitude. Why can't a man just give a woman a compliment--y'all so mean! I love you, girl.""Yeah, okay, Fred. I love you, too ... but, oh, did I mention it before--that I'm so mean because you're so married?"He laughed and went back to sitting on the stool behind the tiny sign-in desk that he dwarfed. "One day it's me and you, baby.""Yeah, okay."Cassandra kept her eyes glued to the numbers and waved at him without looking back as the doors opened. Her life was already screwed up enough. What did she need with a beer-bellied, horseshoe-bald, married guy that was almost twice her age? The dental plaque in his mouth alone was enough to send her back into the streets screaming. But at least Fred talked to her. That was her building buddy.As long as someone saw her and talked to her, they couldn't come. When she wasn't invisible, they had to stay back in the shadows. She kept her body stone rigid as the elevator lumbered up to the seventeenth floor. They were getting so bad now, it seemed, and they might finally come for her at work, her only sanctuary. Sadly, this had been the only place she'd never seen them.Bolting out of the elevator, Cassandra rushed to her desk, glad that some routines hadn't changed. Joe Schrader, the systems guy, was always in early like her and hunched over a keyboard, and so was Linda Duncan, one of the very harried shipping managers who didn't really speak to anyone civilly before ten o'clock. It didn't matter that they only muttered cursory acknowledgments, her coworkers were warm bodies in the office who would speak to her, if they came.A thrumming headache pierced her temples but Cassandra relaxed knowing that meant the Watchers were gone. She reached into her desk for an Aleve and swallowed it dry before going to the coffee station.All she had to do was answer the phones, sort the mail, route people to voicemail. She could do that. All she had to do was make it till lunchtime, and then she could find somewhere to hide and go to sleep. She'd survive till then, had for thirty years.Unlike her parents.The Watchers came for her mother in a derelict building where she smoked the rocks that would have killed her eventually anyway. They had come for her father in prison. Guards found him dead in his cell. That would never be Cassandra, not if she could help it. She didn't care what the doctors had said about her sleeping disorders while she was a ward of the Department of Social Services. She didn't give a rat's ass about teachers having a problem with her falling asleep in class. She'd gotten her GED anyway, and had started night classes for a degree in criminology. Right now it was about making sure they didn't get her while she was awake. None of the regulars--normal people--could see what she did.Cassandra poured steaming black coffee into the huge, ceramic mug that she always kept hidden in her desk, stirring in so much artificial creamer and sugar that it all clumped together on the top making her work hard with a red plastic stirrer to dissolve it.Sugar and caffeine were paramount to staying alert until it was time to escape. Some of her coworkers bitched about her always using up the stash because she clocked in before them and they offered unwanted advice about the way she fixed her coffee being a health hazard. But that was okay, she liked it like that. The regulars had no idea the things that could really challenge her life, and freakin' artificial creamer and white sugar or caffeine didn't have jack shit on those possibilities. 
 
By eleven thirty, she was practically weaving at her desk. She needed to lie down so badly. Each blink of her eyes felt like sandpaper was scratching her corneas, and if her head bounced and jerked up one more time, she swore she'd get whiplash. The space heater under her desk keeping her legs warm was like a narcotic."Gonna need a neck brace and a chiropractor soon, hon," Joe said to her, coming out front and buttoning his coat. "I've gotta get some air. Stormsare screwing with the lines, servers are on the fricking blink, and this weather is making me wanna just go the hell home and climb back in bed to pull the covers over my head.""I hear ya," Cassandra said, rubbing her palms down her face. "But I thought everybody would be ordering in today because it's so damned cold outside." She let out a healthy yawn and stretched. "Anybody back there ordering? Lemme know, because I'm out at twelve and you know how they always try to make me hang and wait until their lunch comes.""Screw 'em," Joe said with a shrug. "Ain't your problem."They both looked at each other. "Unless it's Stan Buckner's lunch," they said in unison."Call Stan the man and ask him, then," Joe said, giving her a sympathetic glance. "Or ...""Not," Cassandra said with a smirk, gleaning one from Joe."Hey, what can he do if you left 'cause you didn't know?" Joe ...

About this edition

• Publisher: Tor Books
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0765318512
• ISBN 13: 9780765318510
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 368