The Wraith (Superhero by Night Book 1)

by Jeffery H. Haskell

  Damn.

  The shelter was closed. They wouldn’t let me back in after 7 pm. They were very specific about that rule. Well, it wouldn’t be the first time I had spent the night without a place to sleep. What’s done is done.

  Suddenly remembering my manners, I held my hand out. “I’m sorry, sir. My name is…” Was it safe? I peered at him for a long moment, my reason warring with my fear as I tried to decide if telling this random stranger my name would put him—or me—in danger. “Madisun, my friends call me Madi,” I said, finally. Telling him my first name couldn’t hurt.

  “Madi, I’m Joseph, Joseph Li,” he replied.

  The article!

  Right. He was the man whose family had died in the home invasion. Not only had the house survived the economic collapse when the rest of the neighborhood clearly hadn’t, but he still lived here? I wasn’t sure I would ever want to enter my parents’ house again—assuming it hadn’t burned down to the ground.

  I sipped the peppermint tea for a moment, giving myself a chance to scan the room. The house itself was ranch style, all one floor. The living room had the two recliners, a couch, and several decorations, but no TV or any other form of entertainment. A faux fireplace held a gas-powered fire, and the mantel supported a plethora of family pictures.

  I stood up, drawn to the pictures of his family. How did he do it? Here he was, surrounded by daily reminders of what he had lost. How? Every time I closed my eyes I saw Sara, Mom, Dad. After Charles died, Dad pretty much stopped talking to me, really. Either he was in too much pain, or he didn’t know how, or he blamed me—I had never known which it was.

  And I never would.

  I wiped my face with the back of my sleeve. I didn’t want to start crying in this man’s house. He clearly had his grief well in hand and I wasn’t going to impose on him.

  “Was there a reason you came to visit, Madisun?” he asked.

  I nodded, not really trusting my voice just yet.

  “Did something happen to you?” he asked just above a whisper.

  I nodded again. “My… my family was killed… murdered really.”

  “I’m so sorry,” he said so quietly that I had to strain to hear him.

  “Me too. The people who did it—the murderers—they’re going to get away with it. At least they think they are. I did too until yesterday.” I sipped more of the tea, letting the warmth flow through me as I worked out my thoughts.

  “What happened yesterday?” he asked.

  I put the teacup on the mantel and turned to him. “I heard of a man who kicked ISO-1 out of Detroit. A legend, really. Some say he doesn’t exist, but I aim to find him and convince him to come to New Orleans and do the same there. My family deserves justice. My little sister, she was only fourteen—”

  He raised his hand to cut me off. Pain etched across his face. He had two teenage daughters, it had to hurt hearing about Sara. “I think you should go. You’re not going to find what you’re looking for here.” He put his cup down and walked into the hallway. I heard the front door unlock and that was my cue to leave.

  The way he took out those thugs, the very real pain he felt—this had to be him. This had to be The Wraith. But why did he quit? Maybe he just got too old?

  I followed him and he stood by the front door holding it open for me. The door had at least five different locks on it that had to be undone. I’d only heard one, though, which meant he didn’t latch them all.

  I stopped in front of him; our eyes were practically on the same level. At 5’8” I was tall for a woman. It was one of the things that made editorial modeling a natural fit for me. He wasn’t particularly tall for a man, so we almost looked eye-to-eye. I held his gaze for a long moment. He didn’t look away and I couldn’t.

  “Please,” I said in a whisper.

  “Leave,” he said. His demeanor had gone from welcoming host to grumpy old man. Maybe if I gave him some time to think about it, he’d change his mind.

  So I left.

  I didn’t look back as I walked down his path and out the wrought-iron gate. I knew who he was now; I just had to convince him to help me.

  I wouldn’t take no for an answer.

  Chapter 12

  He didn’t answer the door the next day, or the day after that. Or any of the next ten days. That was okay, though, since I had time. Every morning I would hop out of bed, swipe a blueberry muffin from the breakfast counter, and leave the shelter by seven. The sun would come up while I walked to his house. Day after day I would knock on his door, and when he didn’t answer I would just sit on his porch and read about ISO-1. Every hour I would knock again. Every hour he wouldn’t answer.

  He had to get tired of it eventually and talk to me—if only to tell me to go away.

  Drive and determination only went so far. Boredom set in on my walk, so I started jogging, then running, to his house every morning. At first, it took me nearly two hours to walk the two miles from downtown to his place. After a week I could do it in an hour and a half. When I started jogging, I cut that time down to an hour.

  A month of that and I was running. When I could finally run the whole way there it took me thirty minutes. By the time the sweltering July heat hit, I was doing it in fifteen minutes. The heat was about as bad as NYC in the summer, but nowhere near New Orleans.

  My research proved fruitful too. I don’t know if it was because of my visit, but Krisan Swahili suddenly started producing articles and exposés on ISO-1. From the way they moved into a city, to how they ruled using bribery and intimidation.

  At first, I was terrified her articles were going to bring ISO-1 down on me, but she was careful not to mention me, or New Orleans. But God, I didn’t realize how bad it was. This gang was all over the United States. They were strongest in the south, but they also had a presence in a few big northern cities, like New York and Chicago.

  How was this even possible? I thought the whole point of the superhero teams was to protect us from people like this? The upheaval of the last few years aside, I would think that the regional teams would line up to take out superpowered gangs. Sara had said something about a group called “Riot Boys.” I looked them up next.

  Sure enough, the Arizona Diamondbacks, now known as The Protectors, took them out just before the coup attempt a few years ago. Right before all the state teams were disbanded and re-organized into Federal teams. Then the aliens came, and things went from bad to worse.

  According to Krisan’s article, ISO-1 have all but taken over organized crime in the United States.

  Holy crap. No wonder no one can take them down. Even if the FBI had evidence, what agent would want to act on it? ISO-1 could just reach out and have their family killed… the way they did mine.

  It all followed a pattern. They would move in and blackmail or threaten low-level police, lawyers, or city council, for a while, then move onto mayors, governors, senators… Before long there wasn’t anyone they hadn’t bought or threatened. Since they had superpowered enforcers, the only people who could take them down would be superheroes, but they didn’t seem to know this crime syndicate even existed.

  How do you fight an organization that powerful?

  Of course, I have no one left for them to kill, and I sure as hell can’t be bought.

  I scooted to lean against the pillar of Joseph Li’s house and nibbled on my blueberry muffin, trying to make it last all day.

  “You know,” I said out loud. “I think I get why you quit.” I looked around at the neighborhood. All the people he saved, all the lives, and the place still looked like a war zone. “I probably would’ve too, if this is what it came to.”

  He didn’t respond; I didn’t even know if he could hear me, but my gut told me he could. How could I convince him to come out of retirement? Everything he fought for came to naught. Detroit’s recovery or lack-thereof was out of his hands—all he could do was stop one crime at a time. The city didn’t need organized crime to implode or corrupt its politicians, they did that all on their
own. So how?

  In a moment of absolute clarity, the answer popped into my mind. I looked down at my hands, flexing them into fists.

  It could be me.

  I could do it.

  “Train me,” I whispered.

  Latches on the other side of the door clicked open and the big wooden door opened a few inches.

  “What did you say?” he asked. It was the first thing he’d said to me since the day he saved me.

  With the sun outside and the darkness in his house, all I could see were those blue eyes glaring at me. They burned with an inner light in the shadows.

  “Train me,” I said more forcefully. I heaved myself up to face him. “Teach me to do what you do. Show me how to get justice for my family and my city.”

  He looked down as if contemplating what I was saying. Did I really want this? I was no revenge-driven movie character, no special forces badass or unstoppable terminator. I was just an ex-model on the run from the most powerful criminal organization in the US.

  “Don’t be foolish,” he said in a whisper. “You know not what you ask, Madisun Dumas.”

  It shouldn’t have surprised me that he knew who I was. I’d spent the last month on the man’s doorstep researching everything about ISO-1, It would have taken him all of ten minutes to Google me.

  “Maybe, but if you aren’t willing to come to New Orleans and kick their asses, that doesn’t leave me much choice. I can’t… live like this. With this pain,” I said. My hand flew to my heart pulling on my shirt, then pressing against my chest. “I can’t NOT see her. Every time I close my eyes, every time I dream, she’s there. My little sister who died in my arms. I don’t know if punishing those responsible will make it better.” I looked away for a second. Fighting the tears that were desperate to come out, had been since it all happened. The tears I held back. “But I won’t know until I try.”

  He let out a sigh. I couldn’t tell what kind, but almost as if a burden had lifted from his shoulders. When his head came up, his eyes were wet with building tears.

  “So it begins,” he said.

  I wanted to be happy, but I didn’t think happy would ever describe me again. Less furious would have to do.

  Chapter 13

  “Power certainly has its privilege,” Mohammad said to himself. He stepped out of the shower and wrapped a towel around his waist. The white towel was only a shade lighter than his skin. Despite his Iranian parentage, when his powers manifested, they made him a sort of albino. Or as he preferred to be called, a Ghost.

  “Can I go?” the young blonde asked. He didn’t know her name, she was just another in a long, endless line of prostitutes the Outfit owned. He smiled to himself. As the head enforcer for the Gulf Coast, he had quite a few ‘privileges.’ She and her ilk were one such privilege. He nodded to her, waving his hand. He would likely never see her again—he never had the same one twice. There was something refreshing about a woman who couldn’t say no.

  The Ghost shook his head to clear his mind. He had business to attend to today and thinking about girls was one way to get him in trouble. He needed to keep his head in the game.

  Twenty minutes later, dressed in an all-white suit with a red tie, The Ghost exited his private town car. As soon as he was out the driver took the vehicle around the block to wait for him. More privileges.

  A note of apprehension echoed through his mind. It wasn’t often he was called to visit the head of the Outfit. He’d only ever met the illusive man twice: once when he was recruited, and a second time after he’d pulled off a particularly difficult job. Well—difficult for them.

  Not for a man who can walk through walls.

  He chuckled as he did just that, passing through the front door and the guards beyond without having to stop. As far as he knew, he could pass through anything. The only time he’d ever had trouble was when he tried to off the guy in the MRI machine; that had played bloody havoc with his abilities.

  The elevator dinged, and he entered, pressing the button for the penthouse. He always wondered why they made their HQ a hotel, with its very public face. And not just any hotel; the Deck was possibly the highest rated hotel in New Orleans.

  It wasn’t their main HQ, of course, just the one they used for the gulf coast. It made sense in one way though: hotels were a cash business. They could use it to launder money and also entertain guests with their more high-class call girls.

  The elevator dinged again, interrupting his thoughts. Double doors opened onto a plush carpeted room with rich wooden furniture, lit by sunlight streaming through thin drapes of pink silk.

  Ghost stepped into the room, looking both ways to make sure there were no nasty surprises waiting for him. His powers made him all-but invulnerable; the “but” part made him far more cautious than normal. After all, if anyone were to try and take him out they would have undoubtedly done their research.

  When he knew it was clear, he crossed the room into the next. The real office. Two large men guarded the entrance. He knew them and they nodded at him as he walked in. They were brothers from a little town in Mexico, twins. Their powers manifested at the same time. He forgot what the American designation for superpowers was, but each could deadlift a cement truck and was nigh-invulnerable.

  Ghost didn’t care for Mexicans much, but these two were a cut above the rest. He smiled at them, slapping shoulders as he walked by. They were pretty cool, unlike that crazy El-Fuego bitch he worked with the year before. That woman liked burning things entirely too much. It wasn’t the killing so much she liked, but the actual burning of things.

  Ghost liked the killing, the moment the light went out in the eyes of his victim. He lived for that.

  “Ahh, Ghost, so nice to see you,” Vaas Mando said from his massage table. Ghost smiled at the warm reception. Vaas was a capable man—not the leader of ISO-1 in total, but the head of the Gulf Coast region.

  “Vaas, nice to see you,” Ghost said. His eyes stayed on the curves of the lovely red-head who rubbed the crime lord’s shoulders.

  “We have a problem, Ghost, one I need your unique talents to fix,” he said. “A little to the right.”

  Ghost’s heart leaped up at the chance to kill someone. He had lost count of the days since he was able to slit someone’s throat. “Name it.”

  “There’s a reporter up in Detroit—”

  Ghost heart instantly sank. No power on Earth could make him go back to Detroit. Not after what happened last time. “No offense Vaas, but I’m not going back to Detroit.”

  Vaas raised his hand, signaling the masseuse to stop. He sat up, shifting until he was sitting on the table with his legs dangling over the side. “You saying no?”

  Normally, Vaas spoke like an American; only when he was angry or upset did his Mexican accent came out. Ghost knew this from experience, and his neck hairs stood on end and beads of sweat formed instantly under his arms. While he was confident in his ability to escape, he wasn’t that confident. “It’s not that I’m saying no,” he said carefully. “But I don’t think I should be the one to go up there. You know what happened last time…”

  Vaas nodded his head. “It’s a sting no one will soon forget. But,” he raised his hand to stave off Ghost’s complaint before the enforcer could voice it, “The Wraith hasn’t so much as stopped a mugging in three years. I think we can safely assume he’s dead.”

  Ghost shook his head. “You don’t know that, and you weren’t there. You didn’t see the way he would just appear and take people out. One second, you're surrounded by trigger pullers. The next, they’re dead on the ground. No door would stop him, no lock could keep him out. No one was safe.”

  Ghost hated the way he sounded, almost whining. But in his seven years working for ISO-1, no one had given them the trouble The Wraith had. So much so that ISO-1 had left Detroit as a failed experiment. Now they did business through several local gangs in the Great Lakes area… at a steep cut. Since they had to go through eight different organizations in Detroit alone, that w
as eight gangs that all took their cut. And that was just for the drugs and human trafficking side. There were lots of other opportunities that ISO-1 couldn’t get into without being in control of the manpower on the ground.

  “Regardless, there’s a reporter for the Detroit Free Press who is gaining nationwide exposure with her stories about us. You know how the higher-ups feel about that.”

  Ghost nodded. They tended to kill everyone who spoke out or threatened the Outfit in any way. Normally offing the reporter would be right up his alley… except for where she lived. He breathed in deeply, letting it out slowly. Vaas was right. The Wraith hadn’t been seen or heard from in a long time. “Okay, but I want double my usual fee for this. If I’m going up into psycho’s territory, I want to be well compensated.”

  Vaas smiled. “Consider it done. Now get to it. I got… business,” Vaas said, leering at the red-head.

  Chapter 14

  Joseph wasn’t exactly talkative. He let me sleep on the couch with the warning that it would be the last full night of rest I had for a while. He wasn’t kidding.

  “Wake up and put this on,” he said. A backpack, the kind students used to carry books, hit me in the chest. I looked up at him for a moment and complied, willing to do whatever it took to get justice for my family. If there was one man in the whole world who could show me how, it was Joseph Li.

  I stood up, slipping on the backpack. “What are we doing?” I asked.

  He walked over to his bookshelf and pulled out a tome thicker than my shin. “Put this in the pack. Every day we’re going to add one, and when it’s full, we’ll upgrade you to a larger pack.” I nodded.

  “What’s first?”

  “Running,” he said.

  And oh God, did we run. Every day, for two hours. Each morning he would put another book in my bag. When the first one filled up, I moved to a larger pack. By the end of summer, I was wearing an aluminum framed hiking backpack full of encyclopedias. Oh, how I hated that backpack and his never-ending library of useless books.