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

by Jeffery H. Haskell

  I killed two more, swiping the blade from side to side. I had no idea what the sword was made of, but it cut through them with the greatest of ease. I almost felt like I should have a soundtrack playing.

  Another one went down and I saw Arsenal slam into the barrier and deflect off into the floor. She was immediately enveloped by the creatures.

  I wanted to shadow step to her but they had a lot of lights inside so there was no place to enter or exit. Instead I ran, killed another, and leaped the last twenty feet to kill the one on top of her. The blade pierced it’s back and ran through its chest, almost hitting Arsenal. I jerked the blade back and sliced the thing in half and off of her. She flung the remains off and climbed to her feet, her brushed silver armor covered in alien blood.

  “That shield is too strong,” she said. “He has the super capacitor for it at full charge and running off of France’s nuclear power grid.”

  I could get in there if there was less light.

  “Arsenal, can you do some kind of rapid fire and destroy as many of these lights as possible?” I asked her, waving my hand in the air for emphasis.

  It was impossible to see her grin, but I heard it in her voice. “I can do one better. Epic, charge the EMP.”

  Then the beasts were on us again, snarling, slavering, clawing. The outfit saved me from more than one brutal cut as I dove in swinging the blade and killed them in two’s and three’s.

  “Oh God, Madi, I haven’t eaten this good since the Spanish Inquisition! Keep going!” Spice yelled from the balcony above. She danced around, off balance like she was drunk. I ignored her. There were more important things to worry about at the moment. But maybe, just maybe, this would keep her off my back for a while about killing.

  “Close your eyes,” Arsenal yelled.

  I stabbed one through the chest and then fell backward, letting it act as a shield. I heard a high-pitched whine followed by crack like a whip.

  All the lights went out—not even emergency lights came on. I heaved the dead one off me, killed another as it tried to get to me and whipped my legs around, rolled and was up and running for the shield.

  “It still has power!” I yelled.

  “It’s self sustaining at this point,” she said. “The only way is to destroy the machine.

  I ran right at the shield, leaped with the sword held high, and shadow stepped. The cold rush hit me and I was through the other side. Silently hurtling through the air. I brought the blade down square at his head. He moved at the last second, reaching over to hit a button and the sword cut through one of his gigantic arms, lopping it off completely, slicing through armor, skin, and bones with the same ease. His suit had some kind of self sealing function, it closed over the wound.

  He looked at his arm laying on the stone floor then at me, then back to his arm before he screamed.

  “I’m not done with you yet,” I said. “You’re going to die for what you’ve done and my only regret—” I stepped back as he swung at me with his remaining arm ,“—Is that I can only kill you once,” I finished.

  He leaped back, barely dodging out of the way as I slashed with the blade. The way he moved was completely off balance. His arms were like our legs; without one, he couldn’t operate as well.

  A glowing green pistol materialized in his hand and he fired blindly at me as he stumbled on his less capable legs, trying to get to the control panel.

  I shadow stepped out of the line of fire. It was close enough that a wave of superheated air washed over me as I reappeared next to him. I brought the sword down on his gun, slicing it in half.

  He let it go at the last second and slammed his fist into my torso followed by a massive head butt that landed on my face, sending me flailing backward. The force of the blow knocked the sword from my hands and broke every bone in my face.

  “Ha! I win!” he said as he hit the button. “Now, nothing can stop it! Nothing. Your world is doomed.”

  He laughed maniacally to make his point, holding the sword up and waved it around in the air as if it were a flag.

  My wounds healed rapidly thanks to all the extra energy inside me, and we were certainly going to need it.

  “Arsenal, you still have that satellite?” I asked.

  “Yes...”

  “Danger close,” I said. I leaped to my feet and ran at the big alien.

  “Madisun, it will kill you. Get out of there before I launch,” she said.

  “What if he finds—” I ducked the blade and punched him as hard as I could in the arm, shattering my hand in the process. “—a way to detonate it early. No, I have to keep him here. Go!” I shouted at her as he tried to hit me again. I could keep him busy, but without the sword, I could never kill him.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  Amelia blasted another hybrid with a missile from her shoulder rack. The grenade launcher had run out of AG pods a minute before and every time she looked up there was a comedy of sort playing out on the roof as wolf-like aliens tried to contort their way to reach and destroy the pods.

  Amelia, if we do not launch in the next thirty seconds the arrow will arrive too late. We have to fire now.

  “Dammit,” she said, hitting the Emdrive and launching up into the air. “Fire the arrow. Authorization code: Dragon Slayer.”

  She blasted past the hybrids as they reached for her in vain. The whine of her jets deafened them and she broke the sound barrier seconds later.

  “Can she teleport out?” she asked her AI.

  The limits of her powers are unknown, but, I would surmise she may be able to, as long as there is sufficient darkness.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  “Your faithless friend has abandoned you,” Axiom said as he swung the sword back and forth at me.

  “Has she?” I asked him with a grin.

  That stopped him cold. I stood between him and his precious machine. He glanced back at the creatures outside the shield.

  “What are you doing? You can’t stop it. The reaction is building, and once it reaches critical mass a black hole will open and destroy this planet and this solar system the way she destroyed mine!”

  He charged. I used every bit of speed I had to dodge the blow. I rolled past him toward the shield, gained my feet, and turned and flung every knife I had at him with all the strength I could muster.

  They bounced harmlessly off but they annoyed him. He came at me again, slower this time, more cautiously. I glanced around for a weapon and saw my discarded Kukri on the floor—but with his armor it would be next to useless.

  “Before your world is ripped apart, I’m going to slice you into bite sized chunks and enjoy one last meal,” he said with a growl.

  I stayed low, flexing my knees and keeping myself ready. I didn’t know exactly how this was going to go down, but I imagined that at some point he was going to figure out what Amelia was doing and try to start the reaction early. Amelia had said he could. She was pretty smart, which meant I was going to listen to her.

  I reached under my collar and pulled up my mask, securing it to my face. If I was going to die, it was going to be getting justice for my family, and for myself.

  I ran toward him; he took the bait and brought the sword down like an axe. Shadows engulfed me as I stepped through them to come up right behind his bulk. I hooked an arm around his armored neck and pinwheeled until I was hanging on his back.

  “Spice, I need it all,” I said as I locked my hands together around his throat and started pulling.

  At first the metal was immutable, but after several seconds the alien alloy began to give. He leaped up, trying to dislodge me, but with only one arm he couldn’t get an angle that would allow his huge hands to get a purchase.

  “Get off,” he roared. He ran at the shield, slamming his shoulder and me into the barrier. Bones snapped and blood vessels burst all down my left side as he tried to crush the life out of me.

  “I can do this all day,” I whispered to him. He growled, pushing harder against the shield. Then I heard it. An immen
se whistle that quickly turned into a roar. “But I don’t have to. That’s the sound of your end, Axiom. Everything you’ve worked for, all your plans, ruined because you killed my sister,” I spat between clenched teeth.

  “Your family was nothing,” he yelled. He pushed off the shield and started to run for the machine in an attempt to activate it early. I kicked the back of his leg, bringing him down to one knee, then heaved back on his neck, using my surplus of energy to fuel my strength to its absolute limit.

  “No. My family was everything,” I said between clenched teeth.

  He struggled like a turtle but I had leverage. He was on his back, on top of me, and I used my strength to keep him tilted away from his good arm, with one leg wrapped around his. If I had to do it for long he would escape.

  But I didn’t have to.

  “Alex was my father,” I said wrenching his head around. “My mother was Nadia.” I squeezed even tighter. The tendons in my shoulders popped and bones cracked as I slowly, inch-by-inch, peeled the helmet off. The metal of his helmet squeeled from the stress of my pulling.

  “Let me go, you worthless bag of meat,” he roared. He tried to elbow me but he had no room to move. I was too angry, too focused on what I was doing, for his commands to have any effect.

  Through the hole in the roof, I saw a yellow flare, like a strobe light. The roar was impossibly loud now, the windows in the old building shook to pieces and the hybrids all howled in pain. Then his helmet came off with one last jerk.

  I rolled him over until I was on his chest. Using one foot to pin his sword arm down at the elbow and the other lodged in the stump of his shoulder. I reached over and grabbed the Kukri from the stone floor and raised it above my head. He bucked and jumped trying to dislodge me, with my super strength and without two arms, he didn’t have the leverage to knock me off before I could end it.

  “This is for Sara. The sweetest little kid you’ll never know,” I said as I slammed the blade down into his face with all my superpowered strength until the blade bit the stone beneath him.

  Then the world exploded.

  CHAPTER 26

  Detective Roy Hauser wasn’t ashamed of the skills he used to break into Madisun’s apartment, and he wasn’t bothered by using them. He just wished he didn’t have too. The door opened with a click and he entered slowly, his cop instincts on high alert. He placed one hand on his Glock service pistol as he moved into the shadows of the house. He paused for a moment; nothing.

  “Hello?” he dared ask.

  No sound greeted him in return. He sighed, relaxing as he moved in to check the rest of the place. She’d spoken to him two weeks before. She hadn’t told him what she was doing or where she was going, but he didn’t think it was a coincidence that twelve hours after he saw her last, a frigging nuclear bomb had gone off in France and obliterated five square miles of countryside. With Madisun Dumas, there were no coincidences.

  He swept through the whole place in a few minutes. It was simply too small to hide in—though she had somehow managed to hide a veritable arsenal in the place. Every door and cabinet he opened had a gun in it, like she was expecting the last stand at the Alamo. He shook his head, holding the .357 he’d found in the dryer.

  The dryer! He certainly admired her discipline. She was not a woman to be caught unawares.

  “Hello?” a woman said from the front room. He stuck his head out carefully and spotted two women. A brown haired woman with sharp features and lousy taste in clothes, and a dark haired woman in a wheel chair.

  It took all of three seconds for him to realize who the woman in the wheelchair was.

  He hustled forward, holding out his hand. “Ms. Lockheart, I’m Detective Hauser, PHXPD, violent crimes,” he said.

  “I know who you are, Detective, it’s why I’m here. This is Krisan Swahili, she’s a reporter, or was a reporter—”

  “Still am, I just don’t work for the man anymore,” she said.

  “Right. A reporter and friend of Madisun Dumas,” Amelia said to him. “I’m afraid...

  “I hate this. I’m afraid I have some bad news for you,” she said.

  Roy nodded limply. The moment he saw them his mind started to put it together. Madisun was a glorious, beautiful, woman who was dedicated to one goal: Justice for her family. And he knew, even if he wouldn’t admit it to himself, that goal really only had one end.

  He’d just hoped that maybe she could set it aside long enough to find a new life. His loss was more of the bittersweet kind. What could have been, more than what was.

  His legs went weak and he stumbled over to the couch and collapsed, putting one hand on his face. “Are you sure?” he asked.

  Amelia nodded. “She was in the center of the blast in France. The entire area was atomized by an explosion—”

  “I heard it was a terrorist nuke,” he said.

  “The media lies… all the time really,” Krisan said with a sad smile. “It was an alien trying to destroy the Earth. Unlucky for him, he started with Madisun’s family.”

  “Ms. Swahili, the government asked us not to be so free with the details,” Amelia said to the reporter.

  “I don’t answer to anyone, not now. Madisun promised me I could tell her story one day, and I am going to tell the truth of it. They may never agree with what she did, but they will know. I’ll make sure of it.” As if she had nothing else to say, Krisan turned and marched out before anyone could talk her out of it.

  “Interesting woman,” Roy said.

  “If by ‘interesting’ you mean infuriating, then yes. I’m truly sorry for your loss, Detective.”

  “Roy. You can call me Roy,” he said.

  “Roy. She was a unique woman. If you would like to come, we’re holding a funeral for her. No body, of course, but...” She shrugged. “That’s not all that unusual for a superhero.”

  “She’d hate that you called her that,” he said with a smile.

  “Yes she would, wouldn’t she?”

  Before he could answer, his phone rang with an unknown number. “I’ll get back to you Ms. Lockeheart,” he said before picking up his phone. “It’s work related, it might take a while.”

  The woman in the wheelchair gave him a sympathetic smile before leaving.

  EPILOGUE

  Ricardo relaxed on the deck of his yacht, letting the sun beat down on him, lulling his senses to sleep. He held his phone in one hand in case it rang or he needed to make a text.

  “You really shouldn’t let your guard down,” a familiar voice said to him from inside his yacht.

  “I heard you were dead... or was it prison?” he asked without opening his eyes.

  “A little bit from column A, a little bit from column B,” she said. The woman known as Madisun Dumas—the Wraith—feared in the underworld by far more than would admit it, strolled out from under the shadows of his awning.

  He craned his neck to see her, half expecting to see a gun pointed at him. The last time she had visited him, she had several. She also had also blown up part of his boat... and the dock... and killed many of ISO-1’s men.

  He let out a low whistle. She wore a two-piece white bikini that showed off her generous curves and toned muscles. After meeting her, he had researched the woman’s past and found out about her one time job as a fashion model. Whatever it was that a model needed to have, she still had it in spades.

  “And to what do I owe this pleasure, señorita?”

  She smiled sweetly, sitting down beside him, taking his hat and placing it on her own head. He was willing to admit it looked much better on her than him.

  “Two thing, Ricky,” she said with a smile.

  Call it charisma or call it fate, but he liked this woman more than he should. There was something about her... the French called it ‘that something undefinable’ but he preferred to think of it as her spirit. She had a spirit that lit up the room. When she wasn’t killing everyone in it.

  “And what are these two things?” he asked as he propped himsel
f up.

  “Axiom is dead. You are free,” she said casually. One of his deck crew came over, looking at her questioningly. “Beer, please, and be quick. I’m thirsty,” she said with a smile.

  Ricardo nodded, shooing the man with his hand. “Don’t be rude, Carlito. Get this woman whatever she wants!”

  His mind raced at the possibilities. Free? After two years? Was it possible? Could he get his life back? His family? Then he remembered she said two things.

  “What is the other?” he asked.

  Carlito returned with a chilled beer and handed it to her. She smiled and thanked him, taking a long pull before smacking her lips and turning to Ricardo. “Before you go home, I need a ride to New Orleans. It turns out that being dead and in prison makes it hard to enter a country. Also, I need some cash.”

  Ricardo dropped to one knee and took her hand and held it against his lips for a long, long time. “Gracia's, señorita. All I have is yours, and more. You’ve given me my life back!”

  He looked up at her and saw her smile, but it never touched her eyes. Nor did he think it ever would.

  She reached over and took his phone, dialing a number from memory. He didn’t hear who answered, but the smile on her face told him it was someone important.

  “Hello Roy, this is Sam,” she said.

  The story may be over for now, but there is plenty of evil in the world for Madi to go after. The Wraith will return…