Superhero by Night Omnibus

by Jeffery H. Haskell

  I stopped for a second, waiting for the euphoria to hit me. It didn’t. I frowned. I wish Joseph had been more forthcoming on how these powers worked. He was the one that was always going on and on about knowledge is power, after all.

  Once I stashed body behind a container, I moved toward the stern. I had no idea where the prisoners were, but I figured I could find someone and make them talk.

  Two men arguing ahead pulled me up short. I was on the left side of the ship, the railing was to my right, the mountain of containers to my left. The ship rocked ever so slightly as the lock filled with water. A process that took hours to complete. For now, the ship was going nowhere. I had time. Scrambling up the containers I found a place fifty feet up where I could hook my legs and pull my black coat tight around me.

  Just as I did, I saw them. They had thick bushy beards and spoke in rapid-fire fashion. I had no gift for languages, but whatever they were arguing about was important to them. They stopped just below me to light a cigarette.

  Crap.

  He looked up as he pulled a drag from his cancer-stick, but he didn’t see me. They moved on after a moment and I let them. I needed more of a lay of the land before I started my assault—I wasn’t going to let them get away, but I also wasn’t about to rush headlong into the enemy.

  I gave them a minute to get where they were going before dropping like a shadow down to the deck below me. Keeping my coat pulled tight and my hood down I headed to the aft of the ship where the crew quarters and bridge were.

  The well-lit ship seemed at odds in my mind with the seedy underbelly of what they were doing. However, I tried not to dwell on it, instead, focusing on stealth and speed.

  I was at the base of the tower when a hatch clanged open in front of me. I dodged behind some emergency gear stacked on the deck and flattened myself against the wall as another man came out. He too had a beard and immediately lit up a cigarette as he walked over to the railing.

  He gazed out at the city lights and leaned against the railing, puffing on his smoke. I edged forward, slipping my Tanto out from the small of my back. Just as Joseph had taught me, I inched forward on the balls of my feet, knife in my right hand and other hand lined up with his neck. He was a much larger man than me, so I had only one chance to get this right.

  He must have sensed something—too late though. I jammed the Tanto into the small of his back up into his lungs. With my other hand, I grabbed his mouth to keep him from crying out. It was a needless worry, though—just as I did this a foghorn sounded. He sank to the deck, blood running down his shirt gasping for a breath that would never come. I watched as he searched my scarf-covered face for some sign of recognition or reason. I gave him neither.

  I wrapped one of the many safety lines around him, hefted him up, and tossed him over. His body hit the side of the ship with an audible thump before swinging to a stop. Hopefully, no one would notice for a while.

  There was still no burst of euphoria. Maybe I had misread why it was happening? It didn’t matter, though, as long as my powers still worked, which they did.

  I turned and ducked in the hatch he had come out of a few minutes earlier. The inside of the ship was loud. The hum of the engines, the clanking of pipes, along with a hundred other indistinguishable sounds, made listening for danger all but useless. On the flip side, no one would hear me until it was too late.

  I moved steadily down the corridor, checking each open hatch along the way. This wasn’t quarters, but offices of some kind. Maps, charts, and other sailing paraphernalia filled the rooms here. In the center were two elevator doors, along with a set of stairs that extended from the bottom deck all the way to the bridge in a series of landings and switch-backs.

  I had no idea how ship protocol worked. Did they use the stairs? Regardless, the boss of the boat was likely to be in the bridge, and I might as well start there. At the very least, I could disable the ship.

  The stairs took me the five decks up to the bridge. To my surprise, the area was empty; other than the one guard at the entrance, I hadn’t stumbled upon anyone. I pushed my back against the bulkhead and sneaked a look into the bridge. One man with a cup of coffee sat in the elevated captain’s chair. The rest of the bridge was empty… where was the crew?

  I slipped in, never stepping a millimeter out of the shadows and as silent as a puff of air as I came up behind him. The radio was on its hook, his hands nowhere near it. He had a half-empty bottle of Wild Turkey on the tall table next to him.

  I reached over and took the bottle. Without looking, he reached for it, his hand grasping at nothing for a second. When he looked up to see where it went, I bashed him in the eyes with it. He screamed, flailing backward out of the seat.

  I let him wallow on the ground for a minute, holding his hands over his eyes as blood seeped between his fingers. Ignoring him, I shut the hatch, locking it in place for privacy.

  He yelled in a language I didn’t recognize while groping for something to bandage his face and stop the bleeding.

  “Where are they?” I asked.

  His head shot up as I spoke. I didn’t have to try very hard to change my voice. Whenever I was infused with the power, I sounded more like death incarnate than Madisun.

  He responded in a language I didn’t understand. I left him slobbering and whimpering on the deck while I grabbed a bottle of Jack from the unlocked cabinet in the corner.

  I unscrewed it as I walked back, I was never much into hard liquor, but I didn’t need to be to know what to do next. I poured it on his head.

  He howled as the alcohol seeped into his wound and eyes.

  “Where are they?” I asked again. My death voice scared even me as I heard it.

  More incomprehensible howling from him and I poured the entire bottle on him.

  When it was all done I smashed the bottle on the corner of the helm. He desperately crawled away from me. I kicked him over on his back and knelt down on his chest.

  “Where are they?”

  When he didn’t answer, I cut him.

  “Five, deck five,” he screamed suddenly in perfect English.

  I jammed the broken bottle into his jugular, cutting off the rest of his screams. Blood spurted from his neck as he tried in vain to stop the bleeding.

  When I stood up, it hit me—the euphoria passed through me, almost knocking me off my feet. I had to reach out to steady myself.

  What the hell?

  My skin tightened as I was infused with energy. I shook my head once the main part of it had passed. I needed a bathroom to wash my hands. I found the small head off the bridge and scrubbed clean, then I splashed some cold water on my face.

  I froze as I looked into the mirror. The woman staring back at me wasn’t really me. Not at least for a couple of years. As I watched, the lines vanished. Suddenly I looked ten years younger. As I dried my hands the scars on my hands crumpled off like so much dead skin leaving perfectly smooth unburned palms. I scrambled to pull up my shirt to see the scar on my chest. It had vanished as well. Well, not completely gone, but it was only a thin line, almost as if it had never been there.

  Joseph said the powers aged him, not rejuvenated him? What was going on? I shook my head, my bluer than blue eyes leaving a trail of fire behind like an after image.

  It took Joseph years to understand his powers and now they were mine, but I had no time to figure it out. I was certain about one thing. There were more people who needed killing, and I was just the woman for the job.

  Chapter 34

  I considered lighting the bridge on fire. I just didn’t know enough about how fire worked on a ship to do that. Would I burn the whole ship down before I had a chance to search it? What if the guy had lied to me? I glanced over at the man twitching his last movements in a pool of his own blood. If he had lied to me, I could end up killing the very people I was trying to save.

  I didn’t want to take that chance. Instead, I marched over to the corner and pulled the fire ax down from the wall. I had to be careful;
I was much stronger than usual.

  I swung the blade, smashing it into the computer controlling the helm. Next, I took it to the monitors. When I was done there wasn’t a single piece of unbroken glass.

  That’s when the main hatch opened. I was breathing heavy from all the destruction and I guess my own noise had kept me from hearing his approach.

  He was young, maybe in his twenties—his beard wasn’t nearly as long as the others. He was no less quick to lift his shirt and go for the gun he had stored there. I raised the ax above my head and hurled it with all my strength. I watched it, almost in slow motion as it spun end over end and hit him right in the chest. The force lifted him up and back, sending him sprawling in the walkway. I knew he was dead as that euphoric feeling passed over me.

  I stepped past him, leaving him for anyone to find. At this point, if they knew I was here it wouldn’t do them any good. They were going nowhere. What would they do, call the cops?

  I cleaned my Tanto off on the dead man as I walked by, re-sheathing it for future use. The bridge guy had said deck 5. The bridge was 7. That meant below decks. In any other building there would be an open space in the center of the stairwell, but here it was taken up by two tiny lifts

  I shrugged. What the hell?

  I hit the lift button and waited. The light above the door blinked and it slid open. The lift was barely big enough for a single person. I squeezed in, ducking down and hitting the smudged 5 button. I had to manually close the door. The lift jerked as it started down.

  When I was a kid, I had sneaked into the living room to watch a movie I wasn’t allowed to watch. I still remember the pivotal moment as Ellen Ripley went down the elevator after that little girl. I’d only ever seen the movie once, but it had a significant impact on me.

  I just always thought of myself as the little girl… not as Ripley.

  The little cage shook to a halt as I hit the 5th deck. I cracked my neck, made sure the red scarf was over my nose, and I was ready.

  Time to kick ass and take names and I’m all out of paper.

  I pulled a pistol and threw the door open. Bright light from a hundred LED’s hit me in the face as I stepped out, causing me to squint. Deck five was not what I thought it was. I was horrified, and that moment cost me. A massive fist slammed into my jaw, stunning me and spinning me away from the elevator. My left arm was numb from the blow. I shook my head, stumbling back trying to give myself distance to assess the threat.

  I dragged my eyes away from the medieval horror show that was the far wall to focus on the man mountain in front of me. He had to stoop in the close quarters, which made him at least six-six. His shoulders were half as broad as I was tall. I could tell he had a physique like a bodybuilder because he was buck-ass nude. Clearly indulging in his guests’ hospitality.

  I whipped out my other pistol and fired at near point blank range. To absolutely no one’s surprise, the bullets either bounced off him or flattened and fell uselessly to the ground.

  Dammit. Superpowers.

  I didn’t recognize him from the attack on my family, but still, he used his gifts for this crap? He deserved to die. The problem was, how? My head cleared as he lunged at me.

  I dodged right and beneath his big fist which slammed into the bulkhead, leaving a dent. I kicked out at his knee with everything I had… it was like kicking a concrete wall.

  “I’m invulnerable,” he said. His accent pegged him as Russian, or something similar. He was the first man I had seen on this boat with blond hair and a clean shave, which set him apart from the rest. “You cannot hurt me. If you surrender now, I’ll make this as painless as possible,” he said. The way he spoke sent a chill down my spine. It was like he spoke about killing a maimed rabbit. No compassion, no emotion, almost robotic.

  I chose not to respond; not because I couldn’t think of something witty, but I felt like if the Wraith spoke it diminished some of my mystique. Joseph said to be a force, not a person. Right now, that was about all I had going for me.

  He took another swing at me, which I dodged, jumping backward. The room we were in was like a big communal shower. On the far wall, chained to extended pipes, was the ship’s cargo. About twenty women and girls in various states of dress. Some completely naked and clearly abused, others clung to the chains shivering. From the look of it, they were routinely sprayed with water. I have no idea why.

  A dozen or so men from the crew gathered around the room. About a dozen bunk beds lined the other wall, each with a woman chained to it. The whole place made me want to throw up and kill them all, or maybe just kill them all.

  For such a big man, he was fast. I took my eye off him for a second and he smashed his fist into my stomach. I coughed violently as he folded me in half from the blow. Something definitely broke, probably several somethings.

  I slid down to the ground, wheezing trying to catch my breath.

  “You’re tough. I’m rated at the high end of F3, I can bend steel in my bare hands,” he said, kneeling down next to me. “One time I even took an anti-tank round to the chest. It left a big hole in me, but I heal fast.” He reached over and yanked the AT-4 off my back. The straps snapped and he tossed it behind him, away from me.

  “Finish the wench, Dimitri,” a heavily accented voice said.

  He looked up, glaring at the owner of the voice. “I do things my way, da? Dimitri like to fight. This one’s a fighter.”

  He stood up again, walking back from me until he was a good ten feet away.

  He’s giving up every advantage. But that is what happens when you let your ego run your actions.

  The million times Joseph had pounded into me to press every advantage, use every resource, came back to me. Dimitri was too used to fighting people without superpowers.

  I grinned as a plan formed. I put my feet under me, kneeling with one hand on the ground for balance.

  “You ready?” he asked.

  I nodded.

  Dimitri charged forward, a genuinely jovial smile upon his lips. At the last second, I dropped, ignoring the burning in my ribs as the broken bones ground against each other, and slid between his legs, lashing out with one hand to hit his junk. No amount of invulnerability would make him completely immune. He yelped, stumbling forward. That wouldn’t work again, but I didn’t need it to.

  The room was full of bright lights, no shadows to teleport too, but I could change that. I whipped out my other gun and opened fire on the lights. I only needed a few to go down. Sparks flew, along with metal fragments and glass as my bullets ricocheted off the inside of the metal can. Sailors swore and girls screamed as the lead exploded around them.

  Where the light had shown, now there was a gap. I dropped the mag, loaded another and fired again. By the time Dimitri was back on me, half the lights in the room were disabled.

  “Stop her,” one of the sailors roared.

  Dimitri swung at me and I threw both my arms up to block. Searing hot pain flashed through me and I think I heard one of the bones in my arms break. My pistol went flying and I backed up, trying to get some distance. I could execute my plan now, but I needed a moment to concentrate.

  Dimitri had no intention of giving me that moment.

  Blow after blow rained down on me. Wise to my tricks, he was moving steadily, shuffling his feet for balance, not coming close enough for me to strike back, or far enough away I could run, pressing his advantage at every turn. He had four inches of reach on me and he was taking advantage of it.

  I slapped another fist away, only to be caught in the leg by his foot. I grunted from the pain, still determined to remain silent.

  “I thought maybe you were robot or something. It is good to know you are person,” he said. His accent would have been comical in any other situation. He jerked my head up with a backhand that sent me sailing through the air to smash against the bulkhead wall where the girls were chained.

  “Madi, is that you?” the woman next to me whispered. I glanced over and relief flooded me. Krisan. At
least she had her clothes on, a little worse for wear, but still clothed. I winked in response.

  Dimitri was there, moving far faster than anyone that size ought too. He had my foot and flung me through the air again. I’m glad the Russian liked doing this. If he didn’t, I don’t think I could have executed my plan.

  I hit the far wall opposite the girls, back where I was when I first entered. The same place I had shot out the lights. This half the room was in shadows and a half dozen sailors stood in the dark.

  “Finally,” I said too excited to hold it in. Dimitri was already on me but it was too late for him to stop me. I triggered that spot deep within me, somewhere between my hips and shoulder blades. It was weird to think of it as an actual place, like a button I pushed, but that was how it felt.

  I vanished into the dark, reappearing behind one of the confused sailors. I didn’t have a knife out, so I wrapped my arms around his neck and twisted. It’s a lot harder to break a man’s neck than the movies would have people believe. I don’t know where I rate on the scale of strength, but his neck snapped like a twig.

  The euphoria washed through me, flowing to my wounds, mending them, snapping bones back into place. I wouldn’t say it was pleasant, but I knew I was healed.

  I hit my spot again, disappearing in a pop of rushing air. Stepping out of the shadows behind another man, slamming him in the side of the head with my booted foot. He fell to the ground and I stomped on his neck, breaking his windpipe.

  Dimitri spun, confused as I teleported from shadow to shadow. After the third man fell, the euphoria hit me like a wave, washing over me and flaring out through my eyes. Each time I ‘ported and re-appeared, bright blue light flashed from my eyes, highlighting the next victim’s features.

  I chained together each death, stepping through the shadows to the next sailor before the last one hit the ground. The men screamed in panic as they watched their brethren fall, one by one.

  By the eighth guy, the other four had figured out what was happening. Almost as if they were told by a voice, they grabbed weapons and ran for the chained up women.