The Tragic Backstory of Danika DeRioux

The hero will win. The villain will lose. Someone you love will die. That’s the story. That’s always the story. Don’t forget.

Danny remembers every detail of that day. She can’t forget and, believe me, she’s tried. She remembers the electric spark of his touch. She remembers his smell—sandalwood and citrus. She remembers the way he said her name, as if he could taste it. Dark chocolate. Dry red wine. A last kiss. Delightful. Full of delight. It’s been a long twenty years, but Danny hasn’t forgotten.

*

They met just before sunset, at a hole-in-the-wall cafe a few blocks from Hugo’s townhouse—Danny’s choice. When she arrived, she found Shifan Noble already waiting for her, smiling at the assembled paparazzi, as his aides fielded questions. A chunky, middle-aged photographer in square glasses noticed her and screamed for the ‘Silverswift’ to smile. Obediently, Danny twisted up the corners of her mouth, watched Noble’s head tilt towards her, watched his face soften into something like compassion. Something like pity.

Danny ducked into the café. A few seconds later, the tech-entrepreneur-activist-genius with the million-dollar smolder walked through the door. “Danika DeRioux?” Noble extended a hand, which Danny accepted without thought. Hugo probably would have killed her for that. He had warned her.

“I know Prof says there are rules, but they’re Hero rules. Not following them is chapter one in the Villainous Handbook for Villainy. Don’t let him touch you. No going off script. No unnecessary risks. Promise me?”

“I’m a Superhero TM, Hugo. Taking unnecessary risks is in my contract. Subsection 4.c.iii.”

“This isn’t funny, Beth!”

“Note my lack of jocundity. And it’s Danika, Hugo. Danika DeRioux. Beth didn’t play well in focus groups. Plus, the alliteration pays dividends, if I’m renewed for a second season.”

Danika and Noble sat by the window, on display for the teeming paparazzi congregated across the street. Some scrawny intern wearing an entirely useless bulletproof vest served them drinks, and Shifan raised his cup in a silent toast. They studied each other for several minutes in comfortable silence. Impressed despite herself, Danny admired the tailored charcoal suit, the expensive cologne, the seemingly untidy sweep of Noble’s wavy black hair. Understated, yet impactful. Then her gaze snagged on Noble’s ring, and her snort of laughter broke the spell.

Noble raised an eyebrow, following Danny’s stare to the gold band. “Too much?”

“You have good people,” Danny smirked. “The number of brand managers and stylists who still consider silver-topped canes, goatees, and monocles acceptable Villain fashion choices is astonishing. Too bad about the cryptic Latin motto. You were almost perfect.”

Noble chuckled, holding up his hand and rotating the ring so Danny could read the script. “Small victories, Danika. I fought them on the leather gloves and maniacal laugh. The ring was a small concession.”

“Do you know what it means?”

“Mundus vult decepi, ergo decipiatur? It means ‘look at how wealthy, confident, and eccentric I am, having a personal Latin motto.’” Shifan tossed back his head, draining the last of his coffee. “This is good.”

Danny sipped at her own drink. “They add cardamom or ginger, sometimes. Or lavender.”

“Star anise, I believe.”

“Different spices,” Danny agreed. Hugo and Arthur had brought her here, back in the bad old days, back in the beginning. It had seemed as good a place as any for an ending.

“I appreciate the choice of venue,” Noble said, as if reading her thoughts. I believe most of your graduating class opted for the standard abandoned warehouse or barren cliffside meeting. My team has been scoping out ruined castles for weeks now.”

“It’s a meeting of arch nemeses, Shifan. The drama’s built in. I didn’t think we needed extra scenery.”

Noble clutched at his heart in mock offense. “Nemeses? Surely, nothing so gauche as that. Arranged feuds are like arranged marriages – far more pleasant if both parties can come to an understanding.”

Danny laughed mirthlessly. “I know I’m new to the game, but I thought the point of this arrangement was to kill each other in as entertaining and profitable a way as possible. What other sort of understanding could we possibly reach?”

Noble tilted his head. “Honesty. Perhaps even a degree of mutual respect. Relationships are hard, Danika. If we want this one to last, and it works out well for both of us if it does, then we’ll need to put some effort in. I can’t have you throwing in the towel after the first high casualty bombing or family funeral.”

Noble’s tongue lingered on the word ‘family,’ and Danny grinned. There it was—her real superpower. There was no family. No cadre of spunky, vulnerable friends. No lovers. No vulnerabilities. There was only Hugo—well, plus Arthur and Martin now—and their identities were locked up tight in an impenetrable fortress of contract law, non-disclosure agreements, and privacy clauses. She’d made a deal with the puppet-master, and, like a good little marionette, she’d put on her strings.

“I’m touched by your concern, Shifan, but I’m not going anywhere. I’ve signed the papers, bought the funny clothes, chosen the alliterative pseudonym. I’m in.”

“Yes,” Noble agreed. “You’re in. And that’s the big mystery around town. I won’t pretend, even I was shocked at your abrupt change of employment. You did well as an independent. Why take a contract with your Professor now?”

Danny shrugged. “Pick your explanation. They’re all more or less true enough. Independents are getting pushed out of the market. Insurance rates were burying me. Prof offered a killer benefits package. I wanted to meet Oprah.”

“Why, I do believe you’re lying, Danika DeRioux.” Shifan’s voice had softened. His amber-ringed black eyes were gentler now, kind, and just a little sad.

Danny bared her teeth. “Isn’t that part of the game?”

“We’re not talking about the game yet, Danika. We’re talking about relationships. For three years you stay out of the arena. No corporate sponsorships, no contractual obligations, no branding. You turn down every Villain who offers to meet. Nero. The Grey Dragon. Kalaxes. Just good, old-fashioned hero work. Now, you’re worth three quarters of a million and slated to rise by 34% in the next two years. Now you’re here, drinking cardamom coffee with me, with your shiny new logo and a top-tier P.R. firm handing out bonuses based off your name. What happened? Why are you here?”

 “Why are you here, Shifan?” Danny snapped, irritated and inexplicably frightened. “You’re front-page news. Everybody in the industry wants to fight you, fuck you, or photograph you. Why did you agree to pair with a novice with limited training, no public image, a thoroughly mundane backstory, no—"

In one languorous motion, Noble reached out and placed his fingertip on the back of her hand. Danny jolted, then shivered at the touch. Danger, Hugo’s voice screamed inside her head. Red fucking warning, Beth.  

The pain approached cautiously, almost coquettishly, nuzzling at her fingers, dancing up her arm. Danny stared at her skin, half horrified, half enchanted. Behind the pain, cold numbness gripped her flesh, deadening every sensation. There was no bruising, no scarring, no sign of the agonizing death pooling in her wrists, surging up to her elbows.

"I could go further," Noble murmured, in a voice laced with hoarfrost. "Nerve to nerve. Muscle to muscle. Bone to bone. Paralyze your lungs. Seize your heart. We could end it here, Beth, if that’s what you want. If that’s why you’re here. Someone out there—perhaps the person who convinced you to take this contract—would get a big insurance payout. There would be a T.V. special, maybe even a movie. The world loves a tragedy, and they’ll pay well to watch it. I can end the story now, if you ask me. If you beg.”

Hugo would have stopped her. Hugo would have dragged her out of the coffee shop, ranted at her, pleaded with her. Hugo might have saved her. A thousand times over, Hugo might have saved her.

“No,” Danny whispered, closing her eyes as the ache twisted over her shoulders and looped around her neck. “You couldn’t.” Her eyes snapped open—twin pools of liquid mercury—bright and lifeless as moons. The veins in her wrist and palm silvered, as if her blood had hardened into steel. A shimmering glow danced across her knuckles, coating her arm in argent armor. Moon-dipped hand. Starlit fingertips. Shifan jerked back his hand, clutching the newly bleached fingertip against his chest.

“Magnificent,” Noble breathed, gazing at the glowing creature in front of him. “You are magnificent.”

Danika signed, and the silver slipped away, dissolving into her skin like melting snowflakes. “Satisfied?”

Noble smiled. “Very. You asked me why I chose you, why I wanted to meet you. This is it. I wanted to meet the Silverswift.”

“You wanted to see me, as I am,” Danika whispered, turning her head to gaze at the paparazzi and news crews. “I suppose that’s why I’m here too. I guess it’s as good a reason as any. I needed to know that one part of this ridiculous game was real. I needed to see my enemy’s face. Just the once. Just for a moment.” 

Shifan stood, slipped off the ring, and placed it gently on the table by Danny’s empty coffee cup. For a moment, his fingers hovered over Danny’s wrist, as if he could still feel the power emanating from beneath her skin.

 “If you think you’ve seen your enemy’s face here, Danika DeRioux, then I pity you, and I pity those you love.” 

*

“Hugo, Arthur, I’m alive!” Danny howled a few hours later, bursting through the door and speeding directly for the dining room bar. She wanted something strong, something to banish the memory of Shifan Noble’s touch from her mind. “I have ten thousand things to tell you, but I’ll need to be pretty hammered first. Prof was right, by the way. Noble does have some sort of freaky muscular telekinesis or whatever that he’s keeping private. He touched my hand and, literally, my whole arm went numb. Other than that, he seems relatively stable in an evil sort of way. How did Martin’s appointment go? Wha—”

Someone had cleaned. Usually, Hugo’s books littered every surface, and souvenirs from Arthur’s anthropological research trips cluttered the stairwell and hallways. Usually, the house smelled of Thai food and strong coffee. Not anymore. Someone had organized the books, hung up the ceremonial masks, arranged the jade figurines, dusted the hand-carved menageries. There was no mess or signs of a struggle. No extra scenery. Nothing.

Just the two lifeless bodies and the horrible absence that had been Danny’s whole life.

It might have been seconds, or minutes, or hours. Danny didn’t know. Time had become some stretched, dismembered thing, dissolved from a melody into a cacophony of disjointed notes. And she was listening, listening as hard as she could, listening harder than she’d ever listened in her life and dreading what she knew she would never hear again.

“Silverswift?” Prof’s voice cut through the haze, lightning through fog. “Danika, I thought you were…I didn’t…I’m so sorry you had to find out this way. Noble just put through the paperwork. I came as soon as I could.”

“Where’s Martin?” Danny muttered, her fingertips shining as bright and lifeless as moonlight.

“Who?”

“H—they just adopted a little boy. His name’s Martin. He had a doctor’s appointment today. Arthur thinks it’s just colic.” Danny pointed to the sofa, and the soft grey elephant toy seated in one corner. “That’s his elephant.”

“The baby? Of course. Noble put in the paperwork for him too, I’m afraid. I’ve been dealing with it. It’s why I’m late. Noble took the body to St. Patrick’s. He sent a note with his…condolences.”

That was when Danny heard it. For the first time in seconds or minutes or hours, Danny heard the silence.

Silent as a wraith, Danny flung out her hands. Windows shattered. Walls shuddered and buckled. A shock wave reverberated through the house, breaking and crushing and destroying. Furniture crashed around her. Cracks snaked across the ceiling, coating the room in a thin layer of plaster. Danny turned, her face frozen into a flawless, silver mask. Even her eyes had hardened and mirrored, like shutters closed on an abandoned home. Pressing slightly with her foot, she levitated into the air. A whirlwind of silver and grey sparks twisted around her feet and hands, encircling her like chains. A silver sheen wrapped around her shoulders, then unfurled into a pair of shimmering, numinous wings.

That was it. That was the night. Danny DeRioux had been around for a few months, and Beth for twenty-six years. But that was the start of the story. That was the night the Silverswift was born.

*

Have you forgotten how the story goes, Prof? Danny did. It doesn’t matter. It’s almost time for the story to end anyway. That poison you took replicates Shifan’s powers almost perfectly. Your major organs are already shutting down. It might reach your lungs next. Or your liver. Or your heart, if you’ve got one.

It’s been a long twenty years. Thanks to you, Silverswift is one of the highest-grossing female Heroes in the industry. Not bad for a no-name independent. She's fought just about everyone and everything. Villains with powers, Villains with brains, Villains with money. Nero. The Grey Dragon. Kalaxes. Most of them are dead now. Even Shifan Noble is dead. Danny did that, just a few months ago, on some no name island in the South Pacific. Not that it mattered. Not anymore. Shifan got his vengeance too, in the end, even if he didn’t live to see it. He sent Danny a letter, delivered after his funeral, telling her all about the twenty years she’d missed. All about me.

Whatever else he was, Shifan Noble was a genius. A genius with millions of dollars to pour into tracking down the stories, hunting for myths, following a trial of local legends about an American woman who could appear out of thin and kill with a word. He found you, Prof. As clever as you are, Shifan Noble found you. And then, he found me. Mostly alive, hidden on the other side of the world, entrusted to one of those convenient little friends you keep at the bottom of dark holes.

It's been a long twenty years for me too, and I’ve had a lot of time to think. I think I understand your plan, now. Words and stories—that’s always been your power, Prof. It’s how you killed Beth. It’s how you killed my parents. It’s how you knew I would make such an excellent story, a really killer plot twist. That’s it, isn’t it? You wanted to bring me back on stage—broken, berserk, ready to destroy? I can see the headlines. Martin Meyers Murders Silverswift. Citizens Mourn. What do you know—sometimes the alliteration works out all by itself.

I’ve got to hand it to you. I was a masterful piece of branding—the tragic backstory of Danika DeRioux. That’s what you made me. That’s what I became. I’m sandalwood and citrus and the elephant buried beneath a lifetime of deception. I’m the nightmare day the Silverswift can’t forget.

She sends her love, by the way. She wanted me to tell you it was Noble’s stupid ring that first roused her suspicions about you. Mundus vult decepi, ergo decipiatur? It wasn’t Shifan’s motto, was it? It was yours. The world wishes to be deceived, so let it be deceived. Very funny. Very clever. Such a shame—you were almost perfect.

Would you like to know how the story ends? The hero wins. The villain loses. Someone I hate will die. That’s the story. That’s always the story. Don’t forget.