The Wraith (Superhero by Night Book 1)

by Jeffery H. Haskell

  After our daily run—or mine, as he rode a mountain bike the whole time—we hit the books. Chemistry, physics, metallurgy; he taught me how to make bombs, how to disarm them, how to use acids, pick locks, everything and anything.

  When that was done, we would break for fifteen whole minutes to eat. After a few weeks of this, I had the courage to ask him the question that nagged on me since I met him.

  “Why did you quit?” I asked between mouthfuls of tuna and whole wheat bread.

  He looked up at me from his sandwich, those brilliant blue eyes flashing in the afternoon light.

  “This drive you feel, this burning desire for justice, is it stronger now than when you started looking for me?”

  It was. Every day Sara was buried and her killers still ran free was one day too many. My heart raced as fury built up in me just by thinking about her. “More,” I said.

  He nodded. “It goes away eventually, and all you're left with is the pain. Nothing you do will bring them back, Madisun. I’d try and talk you out of this, but we both know that wouldn’t do any good.”

  He didn’t need me to tell him he was right. “What’s next?” I asked.

  Next was weapons training. Learning how to shoot was just part of it. He took me to an abandoned junkyard not too far from his home. The place was a maze of gutted cars stacked five high, piles of Detroit steel from fence to fence. Once inside I couldn’t see a trace of the streets around us.

  “This place is exactly five hundred yards on a side—more distance than you should ever need in a real situation. The truth about shooting is an old Li family secret,” he told me. He had a bench set up with more kinds of guns than I even knew existed. From small two-barreled pistols to the large rifles the military used.

  I nodded, ready for the lesson.

  “The bullet goes…” He picked up a pistol I didn’t recognize, racked the slide back and fired a single round. The target he’d set up fifty feet away rang as the bullet hit dead center and knocked it back. The springs attached to the head-sized metal plate pushed it back up. “…where the barrel is pointed. To a certain degree, it doesn’t matter if you’re shooting a pistol or a rifle, at ten feet or a thousand, the principles are the same.”

  The myriad of firearms he had laid out before me begged the question, where did he keep them all? The one-story ranch house had no external garage, no shed in the back. At that point I’d been through the whole house; we used it for close-quarters-battle practice, I’d fought and ‘died’ in every inch of the place.

  “What do you mean to a certain point?” I asked.

  “After two-thousand feet, other factors kick in that take more than instinct to conquer. Don’t worry, though, for you and me, it’s the up-close kill.”

  Up-close kill. God, Madi, what have you got yourself into?

  For a moment I wondered if I had the resolve to kill someone—to take a life. Then I closed my eyes and saw Sara’s smiling face. I could take a hundred lives, a thousand, more if I had too. For some reason, that thought brought a smile to my lips, and I suppressed a shudder.

  “And you did all this? For ten years… without superpowers? What did you do when you came across someone with powers?” I asked.

  He stopped for a second, looking away in the distance as if he could see something I couldn’t.

  “It depends on their powers. Believe it or not, the ‘invulnerable’ ones are the easiest.”

  “How so?”

  “Listen Madisun, these are just the… basics. I have to get you to a place where the advanced stuff makes sense. Shooting, bomb-making, hand-to-hand, knife fighting, all these things are the bare minimum—what we need to start your actual training. Now, enough questions. We’re burning daylight. Pick up the Makarov,” he said pointing to a tiny pistol with a wooden grip.

  Afternoon guns gave way to close combat. We started with fists and feet for an hour, in which time he beat the snot out of me. When we first started, I wore pads. At no time did he pull his punches, or at least it felt that way to me. He’d throw me over his shoulder, kick me in the stomach, punch me in the face, all just slightly faster than I could match. Always just slightly faster, slightly stronger. I pushed myself harder than I’ve ever done in my life to match him, and no matter how much strength and speed I gained, this old man was faster than me.

  Each time we fought, and he would win, I would grow angrier and angrier. Finally snapping and charging him. Which did me no good and he’d hit me all the harder.

  “Never lose control. Anger is your enemy. Defeat it.”

  After the pummeling with fists ended, we moved to knives. Thankfully, he had rubber practice knives for us to use.

  “Here’s the thing,” he said when handing me a knife for the first time. “Knives are just as dangerous as firearms. A running man can slit a thousand throats in the night.” He took the rubber knife away from me and handed a black metal blade back to me.

  “I’m not using a rubber blade?”

  “Do you think you can hit me?” he asked. He spoke without arrogance or contempt—simple curiosity. Did I think I could hit him? No. Not even a little.

  “That quote sounds familiar, is it Sun Tzu?” I asked, changing the subject away from my lack of skill.

  He smiled, shaking his head. “Star Trek. Let’s begin.”

  I lunged at him with the knife, not really having any idea what I was doing. The next thing I knew, my own blade was against my throat and I was upside down.

  After close combat, we moved to parkour—something I had only ever seen in movies.

  “You must always have a way out, Madisun. Always. The best exits, and for that matter, entrances, are the ones no one expects.” We went to the docks for this one. By the time we arrived, it was five and I was so tired I could barely keep my eyes open.

  The pier we went to had seen better days. Half the dock was torn up, leaving only the pylons sticking a few feet out of the dirty water of Lake St. Clair. How this old man was still going strong, boggled my mind. It was like he was made of iron or had an internal battery that kept him charged.

  I watched as he ran out onto the dock, leaping from pylon to pylon at full speed. He stopped at the last one sticking out of the water, spun around and ran right back, leaping off to land in a crouch in front of me.

  “Your turn.”

  I looked at him, then at the pylons, then back to him. “I don’t know how.”

  He grinned. “Figure it out.”

  I shook my head as I started jogging out there. Every muscle ached. I ran right up to the end of the doc and stopped. It was four feet to the pylon. The water below was so dirty I couldn’t see through to the bottom. The pylon itself was sealed in some kind of black tar.

  “All right, Madi, this is what you wanted,” I said to myself as I backed up a few feet. I ran at the edge but hesitated at the last second. My jump was terribly short, and I slammed into the pylon with my chest, yelping in pain as I fell into the water. I splashed around for a minute before I was able to break the surface and drag myself back to the shore.

  “Again,” he said.

  Again, I hit the water. On my fifth attempt I was so cold and sore I could barely move, but I tried. Instead of jumping off the dock I sort of tumbled forward to splash in the water. I wanted to swim to the top, but my arms and legs wouldn’t obey.

  When I finally was able to drag myself out of the water, I didn’t wait for him to say again. I just crawled up to the dock, dripping water behind me on the wood, and forced myself up. Focusing on each step I made my way toward the edge.

  “That’s enough,” he said from right behind me. He put his hand on my shoulder. “Rome wasn’t built in a day, let’s head home.”

  I nodded, then remembered we had to walk home. A groan escaped my lips, but I didn’t complain, just started walking.

  “You know why good training is harder than you can endure?” he asked about halfway home that first night.

  “Why?” I could barely speak I was so
tired.

  “One day, you’re going to be in a situation where you’re cold and tired, where you have no hope of survival, and it won’t be so bad because you can look back on this and remember,” he said.

  “Remember what?”

  “That you’re tougher than you think.”

  Parkour was the last of the physical training for the day. When we got home he made me take a hot shower, followed by a freezing cold one to wake me up. He had a bowl of noodles and fish waiting for me, along with an economy-sized bottle of Bengay. When I came in to sit down, he hit a button on his remote and the wall over the mantle flipped around to reveal a big screen TV.

  “Movie night?”

  He threw a tight smile. “Hardly. You’ve been reading the books I’ve stacking in your pack, correct?”

  I nodded, busy eating my noodles and fish as fast as I could.

  “You get to Sun Tzu yet?”

  I shook my head. “I’m still reading The Journal of General George Washington.”

  “Read Sun next. Until then I will tell you his four principals that were my guiding light. I’m going to paraphrase here. One: Know yourself and know your enemy. Two: Training and preparation trumps numbers and technology. Three: Don’t be a person, be a force. As mysterious as a shadow, as unknowable as fate. Make your opponent do what you what him to do. Four: Victory is determined before the conflict. Win the war before it starts.”

  As he spoke, he had this faraway look on his face—like he was reciting someone else’s lines.

  “Why the TV then?”

  He picked up the remote and hit the button. He had a DVR set up with thousands of hours of news footage, home movies, cell phones, and everything in between. All about fights between superheroes and criminals.

  “When you fight this war, it isn’t only the gangs and other criminals who will come after you—the heroes will too. Your only advantage is stealth. You must be as silent as the grave. A shadow under the noonday sun. A whisper, spoken of only with fear and reverence. You can never be a person; people can be ignored or defeated, a person can bleed. As a Wraith, though, you are beyond the physical. A force of nature herself. Unstoppable. Fear and knowledge are your weapons, anonymity your shield.” He reached under the couch and handed me a notebook and pen. “You must know everything about your opponents: always have the upper hand that way, always know more than them, always have an escape, never let yourself be cornered. This is the curse, Madi. You must always be on high alert.”

  It was a lot to take in… but I was ready. I took the remote from him and hit play. Spreading out the notebook I started taking writing. By midnight I was too tired to stay awake.

  When five rolled around, we did it all again.

  Chapter 15

  Krisan finished the last of her coffee with one hand while she typed out her story in the other. Normally she would work in her office, but the AC was on the fritz in the building. The Starbucks across the street had better Internet and coffee than her office anyhow, not to mention it was cooler. She kept her left hand on the keyboard, typing away with practiced ease while her right went through her notes.

  In times like these, she longed for the old days. Well, the days when the paper still made enough money that they could pay the electrical bill. The Detroit Free Press was the last large press in Detroit and it was rapidly going under. Maybe another five years—maybe. Krisan wasn’t worried, she was moving a lot of her stories to her own blog. It would be easy enough to make the transition from traditional journalist to independent journalist. Especially if she blew the ISO-1 story wide open.

  She turned the page on her notes and continued typing. She’d heard rumors of a smuggling ring by a local gang, moving in drugs while moving out money and girls for their sex trade network. A few well-placed bribes (from her own wallet) and she found the place they operated out of. Now all she had to do was type up what she had witnessed the night before and boom—with any luck the police would act on the info and take down the Outlaw Racer Gang.

  Stupid name. They’ve watched too many movies.

  The gang all drove little 4-cylinder cars with extreme paint jobs and spoilers that couldn’t do anything but destroy their gas mileage. Not that they were hurting for cash; the forty-person gang moved a million dollars’ worth of product a week, both in the city and exporting out of the city. Children went missing at a rate of three a month, teenagers were at two, and adult women under thirty were about the same. They couldn’t all be murders.

  She uploaded her photos to her laptop, scanning through each one to pick the best. She liked the one of the Ford Focus with its hatch open and twenty kilos of cocaine easily visible. The other one, the one that saddened her inside, was of the girl bound and gagged and stuffed into the back of a pickup truck with Louisiana plates. Clearly, she was heading out of the country, probably to the middle east.

  Using the basic software, she positioned the photo’s where she thought they should go, gave the article one last scan, and sent it off to her editor. It would be online in a few hours and in the physical paper the next day. She reached for her cup, only to find the Venti espresso empty. She had absolutely no recollection of finishing it.

  Chapter 16

  Ghost stepped off the plane, putting his fedora on over his white hair. Late summer in Detroit sucked. The heat wasn’t so bad, but the sun was frigging bright. And then there was the smell. He rubbed his nose, trying to keep the smell out. Dead fish, motor oil, and burning rubber perpetually filled the air. He vastly preferred New Orleans to this cesspool.

  “Mr. Ghost?” A young Asian man with no accent called to him.

  “You’re killing me kid,” he said as he approached. Clearly, the boy was his driver, but to call out to him in the airport seemed reckless.

  “Sorry sir, I’m here to drive you wherever you want to go.”

  Ghost nodded, walking past the kid to the exit. His job was two-fold: one, kill the reporter who was making them look bad; two, do it in such a way that it would discourage others from following her path. Which meant horrific. Fun. One of his personal favorites was forced suicide. Everyone would know the target hadn’t really killed themselves. The fear that they might be next tended to put people in line. He smiled to himself. Thinking about the pleasure of the job. That was until he turned a corner and saw the city itself out the window.

  It would be fun—if he didn’t run into the Wraith again.

  “You okay, sir?”

  “Cut the sir, crap. And yeah, I’m fine. Let’s go.”

  The little hatchback they sent for him was annoying as hell with its whiny engine. At least it had AC and the driver wasn’t determined to listen to some crap garage band. Plus the kid knew how to drive and where he needed to go.

  “Here it is, the Detroit Free Press. You want me to wait here?”

  Ghost shook his head. He popped open the small car’s door and stepped out.

  “No. Take my things to the hotel. I’ll make my way back on my own.”

  The kid nodded.

  Ghost turned and walked away, not bothering to watch the little car disappear down the street. No, he had more important things to look for. He pulled out his phone, turning on the screen to see Krisan Swahili’s face staring back up at him. He’d looked at it a hundred times, along without countless other photos of the woman.

  Now he just needed to find her.

  Chapter 17

  “Score,” I said landing a punch on Joseph’s shoulder. My elation was cut short as he landed an uppercut on my jaw, sending me sprawling backward. I landed on my rump. Luckily, I had remembered to keep my mouth shut so I didn’t bite my own tongue off. He didn’t hesitate to charge in. I rolled sideways onto my knees then I flexed, jumping up and back into a defensive position.

  Joseph came at me with a flurry of blows, more than I could deflect. As soon as one hit my jaw the rest landed, and I went flying to flatten against the far wall before sliding down. “I surrender,” I said.

  He kicked t
he wall next to my head. “ISO-1 won’t ever let you surrender. You win, or you die. Remember that.”

  I shook as a chill ran up my spine. In the three months I had trained with Joseph, we’d fallen into this easy pattern. I could see my improvements almost on a daily basis. However, complacency was one step away from disaster. “I’m sorry… but I did score a hit,” I said looking up at him with a tight smile.

  “Indeed.” He held out his gloveless hand to help me up. We’d long since stopped using pads. I went to bed every night covered in bruises. My bruises had bruises. He pulled me up and I opened my mouth to thank him when he slammed his fist into my stomach. I dropped to my knees, gasping for breath.

  “Deception, misdirection, these are your tools,” he said as he knelt down next to me. “Just breathe, it will pass.”

  It did. He stood up and walked over to the closet, digging out a coat and hat for each of us. “Put this on,” he said. I did as he instructed. The coat was the military kind, with all the pockets. As I slung it over my shoulders a solid weight hit me in the side. I threw a questioning glance at him.

  “H&K 9mm. Fifteen in the mag…”

  “One in the pipe. Loaded?” I asked.

  “They always are, even when they’re not.”

  He was right, of course. To avoid any possibility of an accidental discharge, we treated all firearms as if they were loaded and ready to fire. The coat was all black, only faded a little. Enough that it wouldn’t stand out. The hat had the stylized red tire with the wing coming out of it—the local hockey team.

  “You like hockey?”

  He shook his head. “Too violent.”

  I just stared at him for a moment before he cracked a small smile.

  “That was a joke. You just told a joke?”

  “There’s a first time for everything. About the hat, there are a couple of ways to blend into a city. One: look like a homeless person—they might as well be invisible. Two: wear local sports gear. Just don’t wear too much. Only a non-native would wear a Red Wing’s jacket, hat, jersey, and so on. Just pick one. Hats are the easiest.”