The Wraith: Danger Close (Superhero by Night Book 4)

by Jeffery H. Haskell

  Arsenal landed on the street in front of the club. There was a long line of people waiting to get inside and they all started screaming as their local superhero showed up.

  “I thought you people couldn’t interfere in regular crimes?” I asked Kate while I thought about what Krisan said.

  “We can’t, but... if there are superpowers involved we’re allowed to investigate. If a crime is in progress we can call the police and ask for permission to intervene,” she said.

  “Permission,” I said with disgust. “Everything that’s wrong with this situation.”

  “Well, here in Arizona the Protectors pretty much have carte blanche to act. Outside of Arizona, that changes,” she said. “Where are you from?”

  “New Orleans,” I said without missing a beat. Why did I tell her that?

  Down on the street below, Arsenal was admitted into the club. I could see from here that the two big men at the door wore huge smiles. It must be a big deal for them to have her in the place.

  Depending on how smart Carmine is, he’ll either run immediately or stay and—

  The side door in the alley to the right bust open and a man in his thirties wearing mobster clothes so cliche it made my eyeballs hurt, ran down the street.

  “And that would be him,” I said. But Kate was gone, vanished.

  Teleporter. Well, two can play at that game.

  I drew my pistol and stepped forward. A wave of cold washed over me and when I thought I could take no more, I stepped out of the shadows in front of Carmine and clotheslined him. The knife edge of my hand hit him in the throat, knocking him back to land in a thump on the pavement.

  He screamed as he hit, his hands flying up trying to pull a gun from underneath his 70’s style sport coat.

  I shot him in the shoulder.

  He screamed some more, dropping his gun as he was no longer able to hold it. I kicked it aside and pointed the big .45 at his face. “Say goodbye Carmine,” I said with a sneer.

  Kate lifted my gun straight up, wedging her thumb between the hammer and the slide. “That’s not what we talked about,” she said, a few inches from my face.

  Anger flashed through me, raw and unfiltered. How dare she stop me—

  No, she was right. I’d agreed to not kill him, hadn’t I? Why in the world would I agree to not kill him?

  “Sonofa—”

  I took a step back, triggering my teleport as fast as I could I was a block away. I turned and looked up at the roof where I had waited then appeared there. Stepping out of the shadows, I grabbed my rifle and headed for the door.

  “Krisan, she’s an empath, right?” I asked.

  “Yes...”

  “Can she control people?”

  There was a pause for a moment as my friend looked into it. I heard a pop behind me. I turned and hit the door with my back, kicking it open as I stepped through.

  “Stay away from me,” I growled at her.

  “It’s not like that, Madisun. We just don’t want you killing anyone,” she said holding her hands up in front of her.

  “What I do is up to me and no one else. If you ever come near me again, I’ll kill you,” I said as I spun through the door then triggered my teleport, leaping through the shadows to the bottom floor. Once there I was out on the street and in my rented Mustang, tossing the rifle in the back and hitting the ignition.

  “I’m sorry, Madi. Yeah, she has limited ability to influence people. I didn’t think she would use it on you, though,” Krisan said.

  That’s what I get for trusting superheroes.

  I took the corner, squealing the tires as I headed around the block. The Mustang wasn’t great with sharp turns, but I had the reflexes and skill to nurse it around the corners until I was back on the street where Carmine was on the ground.

  The cops were there; two cars, four officers, and an ambulance.

  I slammed on the breaks, screeching the car to a halt while rolling down the passenger window. The officers sensed something was wrong and started moving to intervene. They were too slow. I had my pistol out and I fired three rounds in a split second. Each one hitting Carmine in the head, reducing it to a squishy mess cracked open on the pavement. No less than he deserved.

  I hit the gas, burning the tires as the cops fired into the rear of the vehicle. A bullet bounced through the trunk and hit me in the ribs, eliciting a grunt of pain.

  “Finally! It’s been days since you killed someone,” Spice said from the passenger seat. There was no rush, no trigger of endorphins which meant I was in a deficit. Which also meant I had to listen to Spice whine about me not killing enough people.

  Dammit, this was not how I wanted this operation to go.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  “Sorry Amelia,” Kate said to her friend. “I pushed her a little hard, but damn if she didn’t have a strong resistance.”

  The woman known as The Full Metal Superhero stood next to the body that was once a human being. What the Wraith had done to him was bile inducing and Amelia was thankful the police had put a tarp over his remains.

  “Epic tried to warn me that she was dangerous. I thought by bringing you in we could curb her psychopathic tendencies,” Amelia said with a sigh.

  Kate shook her head. “She’s not a psycho. I can smell crazy, and she’s not crazy.”

  Amelia pointed at the body. “How can you look at this and say it isn’t crazy?”

  Kate shrugged. “There is a war in that girl’s mind, between evil, and justice. I could feel it, but not quite put my finger on it. Something inside of her is driving this... behavior. Maybe it’s the loss of her family, or maybe it’s something else, but she’s not crazy. Dark for sure, not crazy.”

  Amelia nodded. “She said she was possessed by a ghost who fed off of killing...”

  “And you believe her?” Kate asked—not incredulously, as they had both seen things far more bizarre than a mere ghost.

  “I saw it, for a moment, it looked like a teenage girl. She seemed excited about the death of so many Th’un,” Amelia said the last part in a whisper. Wiping out an entire species still didn’t sit well with her.

  “And she says there is one on Earth? That it’s behind the global crime organization, ISO-1?”

  Amelia nodded. “I have to find it and stop it, Kate, I have to. Whatever it’s planning, it’s going to be because of me.”

  Kate sighed. “Sorry Amelia, because now you’re going to have to earn her trust, and I don’t think that is going to be easy. Or clean,” she said.

  “I know.”

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  I left the Ford parked in the worst part of town, with the keys in the ignition; I seriously doubted it would be there long or have any evidence left in it. I hoisted the duffel over my shoulder as I walked toward my back up vehicle. Somehow, Krisan had an endless supply of brand new cars for me to use. This one was a black Camaro with red trim. I tossed the bag into the tiny trunk and got behind the wheel.

  “What next?” Krisan asked from the backseat.

  I shut the door and turned to face her. “We wait. They should send one of their investigators in a few days. Once they’re here we can shake them down for the contact information we need then jump to the head of the line.”

  “And then?”

  “Then we use the intelligence you gathered that says Axiom has links to the Acosar Cartel and use that to find him. Once we know where he is...”

  “That brings us back to the same problem,” the brown-haired ex-reporter said.

  “I know, I know,” I said as I turned around and started the car with a roar. “We need Lockheart.” I hit the gas, peeling the tires as I maneuvered the car onto the surface streets. This wasn’t how I wanted the day to go.

  CHAPTER 2

  The single bedroom with attached living room Krisan found for me was exactly where and what I needed. The tiny living quarters was in the middle of an eight million square foot historic neighborhood called the Willo Historic District, it was more than perfect. A
nyone who didn’t belong would stick out like a sore thumb making them easy to spot if they were following me.

  The houses here were the white picket variety, and while the streets were straight and in a grid pattern, there were a million little paths in between them. On the eastern border was a host of warehouse stores with gigantic parking lots... which meant plenty of emergency vehicles if I needed one.

  Hopefully, everyone had insurance. But there are worse things than having your car stolen...

  Much worse.

  The living room was tiny—just a small TV and a love seat. On the north side of the house was the bedroom. No door, just an archway decorated with painted flowers. There were three doors leading out: one from the living room to the street, one to the pool, and one to the rest of the house where the host lived.

  The only downside to this arrangement.

  But I really needed to be downtown. Phoenix isn’t Belize or New Orleans—I wouldn’t be able to lose myself in the wilderness or in another city. Ten minutes in any direction and there’s nothing but desert, hot, empty, and deadly.

  I tossed my jacket down and the hip holster containing my 1911 on the green leather love seat. I carried five extra mags in my pockets and those went on top of the pile. I checked my phone and plugged it into the wall to make sure it stayed charged. Krisan had provided me with a brand new one after our failed venture with the superheroes. She always kept our phones the same model so I wouldn’t have to spend hours figuring the damn thing out. Lucky for me, she could go into the phones and override all the GPS and tracking features.

  Two more trips and I had all my bags in the house. I was going to be here for at least a week—long enough to need an escape route and some extra assurances.

  I started by opening all the cabinets in the tiny laundry room. I picked the highest one and placed a Kukri Ka-Bar in it. The dryer was next. I took the filter out and pushed a Ruger LC38 into the vacated space and tossed the filter into the trash, it wasn’t like I was going to do laundry.

  From there I went into the bedroom; a DP-12 shotgun with a fourteen round magazine went in the corner behind the six foot tall potted rubber plant. I tossed a spare mag in the pot itself.

  That left just the living room and the tiny dining area. I pulled out the couch cushions and sliced through the bottom using a karambit, a small knife, curved like a claw, that was popular in India. Once the couch was open I stuffed my holographic sight, shortened barrel, forty round mag, short stock M4 in it, along with four extra mags. The M4 was loaded with the green tipped armored piercing rounds. They wouldn’t do the most damage to people, but were excellent for vehicles and armored targets.

  By then, the heat was getting to me. I stripped off the button-down shirt I wore, pulled out the 9mm Glock stuffed into the small of my back and wrapped the shirt around that and put it on the counter.

  I went into the kitchen, just wearing my sweat-soaked tank top over my low rise jeans and biker boots.

  “Oh, hi!” A woman in her mid thirties with bleach blond hair and hazel eyes waved at me from the sink.

  The downside.

  “Gena, right?” I asked, pasting a smile on my face as I crossed the few feet to her with my hand out.

  “We only spoke online, but you must be Madisun?” she asked.

  I smiled, putting on the charm. “Got it in one.” I shook her hand. She seemed nervous; if I had to guess it was because I was black. But most people got over that within a few minutes of speaking to me.

  “I love the place,” I said to her as I grabbed a cup and filled up at the sink. I was thirsty so I downed the cup and refilled.

  “Were you working out? You look like you’re in fabulous shape,” she said as her eyes ran down my body, giving me a once over worthy of a high school football player.

  I shrugged. “I used to be a model. Comes with the territory.”

  Sometimes I forgot how cut I had become since I met Joseph. Muscles in women were a bit more dificult to get defined, since it was testosterone that gave men their ability to get ripped and women didn’t have as much. Women had to work a bit harder to have well-defined muscles, and I worked my ass off. My arms were as cut as they could be, and my abs were like rocks.

  It also helped to have a supernatural entity magically maintaining my age at twenty-five.. To say I wasn’t the typical specimen of womanhood was an understatement. More like the ideal—and that had an effect on some people.

  “Well, you need to share your work out tips. I do cross fit four hours a day and I would kill for those abs!” she said with a smile and a bit of a blush. I decided I liked Gena, which was a problem. I hoped her house wouldn’t get blown up.

  We spoke for a few more minutes before I excused myself back to my room and shut the door. While I was in there I spotted a small square vent in the corner that would be perfect for an extra handgun. I had a couple of 9mms left and they would fit easily in there.

  The phone beeped for my attention. I placed the earpiece in and hit the answer button.

  “How’s the place? Good huh?” Krisan said from the other side.

  “Yeah, not bad, I like the—”

  “—That’s great. We have a problem.”

  I sighed. Of course we did. “What?”

  “We didn’t grab Carmine’s cell phone. I need it to find whoever it is they are sending up to investigate the situation. In all the confusion I forgot to remind you,” she said apologetically.

  I pressed my fingers against my temples, easing the headache I felt coming on. “No, it’s not your fault. It is what it is. I knew you needed it, but with everything that happened it slipped my mind. Okay, well this is an easy fix. Where is it?” I asked.

  There was silence.

  “Krisan? What police station do they keep the evidence in...”

  “I wish it were that easy.”

  “Oh crap. They took it to their super-secret clubhouse didn’t they?”

  “Sort of. I lost the GPS transponder at the location of The Spire, the Protectors base.”

  This just got better and better. Now I had to break into one of the most secure places in the state, maybe in the country, while it was crawling with superheroes and monitored by at least one AI that Krisan knows about.

  Holey crap.

  “Give it to me straight, Krisan, can we break into the place? Without killing anyone?” I asked. There was a long pause which told me the answer without her needing to speak. “Crap. Why couldn’t they have taken it to the police station,” I growled.

  “Because you were involved with the shooting,” she added unhelpfully. “The Protectors are law-enforcement, they can investigate super-crimes while working with the police.”

  “So we need to talk to Lockheart. Great. How long before you need that phone?”

  “A day, two at most. We don’t want their investigator coming here and learning what happened and leaving before we can tag him.”

  I nodded silently, sucking in my bottom lip and trying really hard not to be mad at myself for letting them get the better of me.

  “Okay, here is what we’re going to do. It’s bold, but it might just work...”

  CHAPTER 3

  Buildings usually came in different flavors of square: short or tall, wide or narrow. Rarely were they curved and beautiful. The outside of the Spire was bone white, and it was matched by the other identical building right next to it. They were aligned so one of them was always in the shadow of the other, except for the two hours the sun crossed above them.

  I hated daytime excursions. Virtually all my stealth came from operating at night. During the day my abilities were severely limited. Heck, Spice didn’t even like to come and talk to me when I stood in direct sunlight.

  Yet, here I was, standing in the sun outside this gorgeous piece of architecture and wondering if this was the time I would get caught.

  “You sure you can fool their AI?” I asked.

  “Ever since Belize I’ve been practicing. I see the computer wor
ld like I’m part of it, able to manipulate and control it. Her AI is probably the most advanced piece of software on the planet and he glows like a sun when I see him in the codescape. But, he’s a computer, and I control computers,” she said with a smile.

  Krisan was next to me, dressed in a short skirt and white blouse, with her mousy brown hair pulled in a ponytail. She had big sunglasses on and her cell phone in hand. Pinned on her chest was a press pass. She had pulled a few strings, but it worked.

  I’m dressed much more conservatively than I usually am; no skin-tight leather or jeans, but a pair of loose-fitting cargo pants, a long, untucked, dark button-down shirt with a zip-up work coat over it.

  It took forever in a salon chair but I had my dreads undone and my hair straightened. Add on big sunglasses, a ball cap, and a few years courtesy of Spice, and I practically looked like a different person.

  There was no breaking into this place, but if we were already in to do an interview, not with the superheroes, but the staff, then it could be possible.

  “How did you know they would be on board for this?” she asked.

  I shrugged. “They’re a bunch of selfless do-gooders who probably get requests for interviews all the time. After what happened with Domino, I watched everything I could find while they fixed my hair. You know what I found?”

  “I watched the same interviews, Madi, and there wasn’t much to find. They barely do any interviews.”

  “Exactly. They don’t like the spotlight. Lockheart has only ever done a handful of interviews, and none since she returned from her time in space. However, not one interviewer has ever asked about the staff or the building. Nothing. I figured as selfless as they were, they would jump at the chance to have the limelight put on the little people.” I said the last part with air quotes.

  Krisan smiled. “How do you know people so well? I thought I was the one with the reporter instincts.”

  “I’ve picked up a few things here and there.”

  The front doors opened and a tall blond man with a red shirt, a clean shaven face, and blue eyes walked out. He’s had a weird set of goggles over his eyes, thinner than what a soldier would wear in the desert, but bulkier than swimmers goggles. The pistol on his belt looked an awful lot like what the Saints’ security people carried.