New Olympus Saga (Book 1): Armageddon Girl

by C. J. Carella

  “They’ve got some good Healer EMTs working for the city, Danny. They can fix everything I’ve done to you so far. But no Healer is going to put your Humpty Dumpty ass together if I let go of you. Capisce?”

  Giamatti nodded frantically. Even hard cases can be afraid of heights.

  “So, where were we before you tried to shoot me? Oh, yeah. Where did you take the Jane Doe you kidnapped from the hospital?”

  Giamatti spilled the beans most satisfactorily. I leaned over the balcony, still holding him by one leg. There is a trick to doing things like that when you are superhumanly strong but don’t weigh much more than a normal human – if I wasn’t careful, I’d go over the balcony and we’d both fall to his death; I wouldn’t like the experience, but I’d recover after a while. To avoid falling, I had to brace myself carefully against the balcony. No big deal. I’d had a lot of practice and a couple good teachers.

  “One more thing, Danny. You really shouldn’t have murdered those nurses when you kidnapped the girl.” Three nurses and one orderly, to be exact. Giamatti and his goons hadn’t left any witnesses behind. “Kidnapping was bad enough, but I’d have given you a pass. Killing four people because they were an inconvenience? You know I can’t let that go.”

  Giamatti didn’t say anything to that. He understood what was coming.

  I couldn’t let the murders go, so I let him go instead.

  He howled all the way down.

  * * *

  Hell’s Kitchen isn’t what it used to be, but here and there you can still find small bits of Hell.

  The warehouse was squatting on a prime piece of real estate, and would likely turn into overpriced condos in the not too distant future. For now, it remained a featureless box of concrete and steel with a two-truck wide loading dock and heavy security doors. From the looks of it, it was a mostly legit warehouse that only occasionally acted as a haven for the kind of stuff the authorities frowned upon, like holding stolen goods or abduction victims.

  I walked right to the front door and waved at the security camera mounted above it. I didn’t even have to knock before the door opened and a big Italian guy who obviously didn’t believe in low-cal meals let me in.

  “What are you doin’ here, Danny?” he asked me as I walked in. “Thought you were gonna take the night off.”

  I smiled, and that’s when the goombah started to figure out something wasn’t right. I was wearing Dan Giamatti’s face as well as his clothes, and my build wasn’t all that different from his, but the smile didn’t look right. I hadn’t spent enough time studying Giamatti, mainly because I hadn’t even met the guy until a few minutes before I dropped him off a building, and apparently his normal grin didn’t look like what I had produced. Or maybe the guy just didn’t smile very often. He sure as hell hadn’t done any smiling during our time together.

  “DG?” the guard said dubiously.

  “DG sleeps with the fishes,” I said ominously. Well, with the rats at the dumpster he hit at the end of his final descent, but why let reality get in the way of a corny line?

  “What the fuck?” The mobster was beginning to catch on that something was very wrong. He soon found out just how wrong things were.

  I let Giamatti’s face go. His features sank into my head, and the Mafia henchman was now staring into a featureless span of skin. No nose, no eyes, no hair, no ears. That was the face, or lack thereof, I woke up to every morning. It usually made for a great first impression. I could make little kids cry and grown men soil themselves just by being me.

  “Motherfuck!” the goombah shouted, looking for all the world like someone who has found a king cobra swimming amongst his morning Cheerios. He went for his gun, which I had to respect, since most people freeze for several seconds when I show them my real face. Unfortunately for him, he didn’t notice my fist moving towards his head until the right cross connected and broke his jaw and neck, at which point he stopped noticing anything.

  The big guy’s body plopped to the ground with the limp finality of those who are never getting up again. I stepped over him, walked into the warehouse and took in the sights. Not much to see: the space was mostly filled with stacks of wooden crates and rows of metal shelves, some empty, some packed with boxes. The place was mostly shrouded in darkness. There was a light by the entrance creating a little island of illumination there, and another on a second level office. Two men up there had just witnessed their pal’s demise. They recognized me, which isn't that surprising; my no-face is fairly well-known.

  “Shit, that’s Face-Off!” said another big guy in a track suit that could have been the recently departed’s brother or cousin and probably was.

  “Fuckin’ Face-Off!” said his partner, a short skinny rat-faced guy. Nothing wrong with his reflexes; even as he spoke he drew out a huge revolver, a Smith & Wesson .500 Magnum, the kind of wrist breaker some people think will give them a chance against Neos.

  I hate the name Face-Off, but since I’m not bonded and licensed, I don’t really get a say in what people call me. I don’t even own the trademark to (or get any royalties out of) either the Faceless Vigilante or Face-Off, not that there’s a big market for stories about freaks with no face. I’m not in this for the money, which is a good thing because I wasn’t going to make any. The mass media prefers good-looking guys and girls in tight and skimpy hyper-latex outfits. Last time I was featured in Buck Comics Presents, I was the villain of the piece, and one of the New York Guardians beat the crap out of me. None of that happened, but they never pay attention to the angry e-mails I occasionally send to BCP’s editors. Oh well, I’m not in this business for the glory, either.

  I’m in it because I can’t help it. Because the rush you get when you stomp on someone who deserves being stomped becomes addictive after a while.

  The little guy with the big gun opened fire. His first shot missed me by a country mile, and the next one was even worse. Idiot. I pulled out my own gun, a sensible Ruger nine millimeter, took aim while the little punk missed me with a third shot, and double-tapped him before he could fire a fourth time. All the while, his friend had been futilely trying to get his own oversized gun out of its shoulder holster. In all the excitement he seemed to have forgotten how to undo the clasp. He saw his little buddy go down and froze, his gun still safely holstered. Sucked to be him: I double-tapped him as well.

  Most Neos disdain or positively loathe guns. I myself prefer to punch or kick my targets to death. But since I can’t throw fireballs or make people’s heads explode with my mind, I need a way to reach out and touch someone beyond arm’s length. Guns are fairly effective people-killing tools, especially when you throw in superhuman hand-eye coordination that allows you to hit a target at the maximum theoretical range of a handgun. In other words, the anti-gun caped crusaders can kiss my ass.

  Three goons down. I replaced the gun’s magazine with a fresh one while I headed for the office. According to Cassandra, there had been five people in the snatch team, including the late Danny Giamatti. One of them was supposed to be a Neo. Where the hell was he? Maybe he had taken the night off like Danny had. My luck was rarely that good, so I wasn’t counting on it.

  I was halfway up the stairs to the office when I heard a loud crackling noise behind me and realized I’d better be somewhere else very soon. I leaped off the stairs just ahead of a bolt of lightning that would have turned me into a crispy critter if it had hit me. I landed in a rolling tumble and saw my attacker standing by the entrance to the restroom downstairs. Apparently the superhuman member of the snatch team had been in the crapper when I made my grand entrance. I hoped he’d remembered to wash his hands.

  The Neo was tall, black and handsome, and looked like a total badass, complete with shaved head, mirror shades, black leather coat and pants, and a combat stance that said ‘ex-military’ to me. I couldn’t identify him off-hand, so he had to be new or really, really discreet. I was hoping he was new.

  “Face-Off,” he said, a big shit-eating grin on his face. “
This is going to be quite the coup.” He had a slight French West Indies accent. Haitian, probably, which likely made him a veteran of Papa Doc’s bad boy squad. That pack of psychos had been holy terrors before the Freedom Legion went in and cleaned up the whole island a few years ago. That meant he wasn’t new, just discreet. Not good.

  “Fucking hell,” I said while I picked myself off the floor. Giamatti’s clothes had gotten more than a bit singed by the near-miss. Too bad; they’d been pretty nice and I really needed a new suit. I’d held on to my gun, but decided to wait a sec before using it. Chances were it’d do me no good to shoot him from this distance anyway; even when they aren’t bullet proof (and most of us are at least bullet-resistant), Neos have reflexes like leopards on catnip, so you want to shoot them at point-blank range, preferably in the eye. No wonder so many people hate our guts.

  “Allow me to introduce myself,” the Neo continued. “You may call me the Lightning King. And tonight I will be your executioner.”

  “Pleasure,” I said, and shot him. I wasn’t expecting he’d oblige me and die, but some Neos like to trash talk before a fight. I blame comic books, movies and TV; all that bullshit makes many of them think they’re the stars of their own epic tale, never realizing they might just be bit players in someone else’s. If they are in the middle of a grandiose spiel, sometimes you can catch them off-guard and put a bullet in their eye.

  Not this time. Even as I lined up the shot the Lightning King raised up his hands in a defensive stance. By the time I pulled the trigger, a ball of crackling electricity had appeared in front of him, a big lightning ball, big enough to shield him from head to toe. My bullets went into the lightning ball and did not come out. Fuck.

  The Lightning King stopped wasting his breath and got down to business. He threw the giant ball of energy at me. It was moving faster than a baseball pitch but slower than a bullet. If it wasn’t for my own leopard-on-catnip reflexes, I would have ended up as a greasy smoking smear on the floor. I leaped out of the ball’s way, and it hit one of the metal shelves and exploded, sending up a spray of molten steel, flaming cardboard bits, and shattered jars of pickles.

  The smell of electrically fried pickles has to be experienced to be believed.

  I cursed Cassandra under my breath while I rolled away. My spiritual guide had mentioned one of the kidnappers had been a Neo, but I’d expected him to be a Type One, a lesser talent who could burn out surveillance cameras and maybe Taser somebody. The Lightning King had to be a Type Two, with enough mojo to take out a SWAT team. That made me the underdog in this little death match. I hate being the underdog. I hate fair fights too, to be honest. A fair fight means you lose half of the time, and in this business losing means they carry you out in a body bag, or in several small evidence bags.

  I came to a stop on my hands and knees and realized my suit jacket was no longer singed; it was on fire. I hadn’t dodged quite fast enough.

  Some people think Neos are impervious to pain. Don’t believe that for a second. Pain is too useful a warning system. We may be hard to kill, but we feel everything that happens to us, from a paper cut on up. I’ve been shot, stabbed, blown up, dipped in acid (don’t try that at home, kids) and once had an icepick shoved into my temple and then swirled around inside my brain for good measure, and man did I ever feel that. All of which means I was quite aware that my right arm and back were burning merrily while I dodged a couple more lightning bolts the fucker sent my way. That guy was beginning to piss me off.

  I’d dropped my gun sometime during the festivities. I tried to close in on the Lightning King, but he was pretty fast on his feet. He kept his distance and forced me to keep mine by throwing a steady barrage of lightning bolts and flying energy balls. In between dancing around the electrical attacks, I managed to rip off the burning jacket before I got more than a few first and second-degree burns. The burns would be gone in a few seconds – we hurt, but we heal quickly – but I wasn’t going to be around in a few seconds if I didn’t finish this fight quickly.

  A weapon would be nice just about now. I looked around and spotted the little guy’s big gun where it must have fallen after he went down. I leaped for the gun as a pretty impressive forked lightning bolt barely missed me and destroyed several boxes of restaurant supplies. I grabbed the gun and rolled on the ground, getting singed by a near-miss. As I leveled the gun at him, the Lightning King created another sphere of energy to protect himself. The shots were swallowed by the crackling energy ball. My guess was the shield was vaporizing the bullets before they could get through, even the big .500 caliber ones I sent his way. Two shots emptied the revolver anyway.

  I got an idea even as the revolver made a harmless click on my third trigger pull. I flipped the gun so I had it by the barrel and flung it at the Haitian with all my strength. It hit the sphere, but the energy that will vaporize a seven hundred-grain lead bullet will only partially melt a three-pound chunk of high quality steel. The oversized revolver was still mostly in one piece when it emerged on the other side of the energy sphere and smacked the Lightning King right in the mouth.

  Like I said, Neos feel pain just fine, and nothing will ruin your concentration like having a red-hot three pound piece of metal hitting your face at fastball speeds. A human would have been killed instantly by the impact, but the Lightning King was only stunned for a few seconds. Unfortunately for him, that was more than enough time for me to get into hand to hand range. I was in a piss-poor mood; second degree burns will do that to you. I didn’t hold back as I punched and kicked him. You can’t when it’s a fight for your life and the other guy is as hard to kill as you are. The Haitian tried to fire more electrical blasts my way, but he couldn't aim for shit after I broke both of his arms. By the time I was done, I’d cracked several knuckles in my hands and my feet were sore, but the King was dead, long live the King. He wasn’t a pretty sight anymore.

  That was the entire crew, unless they’d kept a tactical reserve somewhere. I looked around, but neither saw nor heard any signs of life. Several hundred pounds of assorted goods were smoldering, but no major fires had started. I headed back to the office, hoping I’d find the kidnap victim there.

  And there she was, lying on a couch, wearing nothing but one of those embarrassing hospital gowns that lace in the back, plus several dozen feet of duct tape. Somebody had used the better part of a roll of silver duct tape and wrapped her wrists, ankles, arms and legs with it. And also covered her mouth and eyes under even more tape, all wrapped around her head and over her hair. Nice going, fuckers. If she was a vanilla human and started sniffling and clogged up her nose, she would have been dead in short order. Luckily, she seemed to be breathing normally.

  That was crazy. Unless these guys were bondage freaks, wrapping someone up in tape like that made no sense, unless they were scared of her. Duct tape in those quantities might subdue one of the less physical Neos, however, especially Type Ones and low-range Twos. Cassandra hadn’t mentioned the girl was a Neo, only that she was important. Sometimes Cassandra likes to be cryptic for no good reason.

  I ignored the pain in my healing knuckles and pulled off the tape gag and blindfold as gently as I could. The girl stirred and moaned when I pulled the tape off her head, along with a few chunks of hair, but her eyes never opened. Probably drugged as well; these guys really hadn’t taken any chances with her.

  Under the tape she looked ordinary enough. Most Neos look perfectly human, though – I am one of the freakish exceptions – so that could mean anything. Red hair, pale skin, pretty; she looked awfully young in her current unconscious state. It took a while, but I got her unwrapped and covered her up with a blanket I found in a closet in the office. The chemical burns the tape had left on her skin had begun to heal even in the few seconds since I removed it. Definitely a Neo, then; we can pretty much fully recover from anything that doesn’t kill us outright in an indecently short amount of time. That begged the question of what she was doing at a hospital when she was abducted. Most Neos only
need medical attention after some serious injury, as in dismemberment serious.

  I carefully carried her down to where Giamatti’s car awaited. I don’t own a car, being a confirmed New Yorker Pedestrian, and Giamatti wouldn’t need a ride wherever evil assholes go when they die. It was a nice car, too, a brand-new Tucker Raptor, all tricked up. Too bad I wouldn’t be able to hold on to it for long. I made a little nest with the blanket for the girl. She was sleeping peacefully, and snoring softly. She had a cute snore.

  I’d put her somewhere safe and go get some answers from Cassandra.

  Chapter Two

  Christine Dark

  New York City, New York, March 12, 2013

  Christine opened her eyes. She was lying in bed in her dorm room. The last thing she remembered was falling into a dark place shortly after experiencing the mother of all acid trips. And puking. There had been a lot of puking involved. Had any of those things really happened?

  “Still no signs of consciousness, but all her vitals seem normal, except for an unusually low BP.” The voice was young, female and competent-sounding. Christine had watched enough hospital dramas to tell that whoever was talking was a medical professional of some sort. What she couldn’t tell was who the heck was saying the words.

  The voice seemed to come from somewhere above her head. She looked up, and realized she no longer was in her dorm room but in her old room at home. Well, Mom’s home now that Christine had left for college. It was her old room just as she remembered from high school, with the faded Sailor Moon poster over her bed and the bookcases stuffed with paperbacks and hardcovers and the desk with her ancient desktop PC. Except none of that stuff was at Mom’s house anymore; she’d boxed up all the books and that PC had gone to the great Circuit City in the sky, replaced with a neat little Dell notebook.

  This couldn’t be real. She must be dreaming, although she’d never been this aware she was in a dream before.