The Legend of the Red Specter (The Adventures of the Red Specter Book 1)

by M. A. Wisniewski

  "THOSE ARE SUGGESTIONS. WE HAVE MUTUAL GOALS."

  "So, can I take that to mean that you are not working for the KIB in an official capacity?"

  "DIDN'T SAY THAT, EITHER."

  "Oh, really?" Joy said. "Then, would you care to comment on—Ow!"

  The Specter had moved on to her left hand, was probing the bottom edge of her crooked pinky. "THAT HURT?"

  "Yes!"

  "HOW ABOUT HERE?"

  "Owowowow!"

  "DISLOCATED. NEED TO POP IT BACK IN PLACE."

  "Um, that sounds really painful."

  "IT IS."

  Joy scowled at him. "You know, Doc, your bedside manner is—"

  "COUNT TO THREE."

  "What? Oh, um..." Joy took deep breaths. "Okay... One... TwooOOYeeeouch!"

  Searing agony shot up her forearm as the Specter yanked on her pinky. She felt the small bones click into place.

  "What the Abyss! I wasn't ready!" Joy yelped, using the back of her good hand to wipe away tears.

  "WORKS BETTER THAT WAY," said the Specter, then glared at her response. "STOP WIGGLING AROUND. NEED TO IMMOBILIZE IT NOW."

  "You hold still," she retorted, cocking her arm back for a punch, except the door opened and Agent Funaki came in, carrying a stack of papers.

  "Hey, Agent Funaki," she said. "I'd like to register a complaint about the quality of my medical care," she said.

  He glanced over at the Specter. "Let me guess—beside manner? I can log it, but it won't do any good. It's gonna get buried under the rest of this list."

  Agent Funaki pulled out a heavy stack of paper. "Harbormaster just presented me with an itemized list of all the damages. He works fast. Though he 'reserves the right for further amendments.’"

  The Specter skimmed through the manifest. A low whistle emanated from the depths of his mask, and Joy winced. That didn't sound good.

  "I LIKE HOW HE ORGANIZED IT ACCORDING TO WAVES OF DESTRUCTION," said the Specter. "FIRE, BULLET DAMAGE, STEAMSHIP CRASH, CARGO RUINED WHEN TOSSED INTO HARBOR BY BERSERK CRANE GOLEM..."

  "Well, that wasn't very much, was it?" Joy said, reaching for a bright side. " The last one, I mean. Just the fertilizer and that one container at the beginning—I mean, was that one extra-valuable or something?"

  "ARNSEN'S PET SUPPLY COMPANY," said the Specter. "WHOLE CONTAINER WAS FULL OF PUPPIES AND KITTENS. ALL DROWNED NOW."

  Joy felt a shock, like she'd just been dunked in ice water. "What? No..." She said, and her voice sounded very far away, to even her own ears. "Puppies... and... and.…"

  "Huh? That doesn't..." Agent Funaki said, leaning in to take a second look at the manifest. "Wait, that says 'Arnsen's Textiles, Inc.' It's a bulk fabric shipment."

  "OOPS. MY MISTAKE. MUST HAVE MISREAD IT."

  Joy stared at him in disbelief. "You… you asshole! I can't believe... Jerk! Jackass!" She looked around for something to throw at him, but came up with nothing. She had to settle for glaring at Agent Funaki.

  "It's not funny!" she snapped.

  "Not at all, ma'am," he said, trying to keep a straight face, and failing.

  "NO. IT'S A LESSON," said the Specter. "ABOUT CARELESSNESS AND DESTRUCTION. YOU COULD HAVE GOTTEN PEOPLE KILLED."

  "I... okay," Joy didn't have the energy to fight anymore, and she had a sinking feeling that he was right. "You're right. I just... I just wanted..."

  "You know, you don't need to be so hard on her," said Agent Funaki. "And, quite frankly, that speech is a little ironic, coming from you. Didn't we have this discussion earlier? About setting off a cattle stampede, as I recall?"

  The Red Specter stiffened. "THAT WAS DIFFERENT," he mumbled.

  Joy felt some of her energy return. "That's right! That was you—you dropped cows on everyone! An entire herd of cattle. Do you feel... Oh, wait—”

  She retrieved her notebook and pencil from the bedside table, flipped it open to a fresh page, and managed to prop it up in her lap without putting a strain on her injured pinky.

  "Mr. Specter, would you care to comment on your actions from earlier today? I'm specifically referring to dropping a very large container full of cows from roughly five or six feet in the air into an area full of people?"

  The Specter looked from her to Agent Funaki and didn't see much support. "THAT WAS... THAT WAS A RAPIDLY ESCALATING SITUATION. WAS ABOUT TO TURN INTO A BLOODBATH."

  "So you decided to defuse the situation by adding a hundred tons of angry beef?" Joy asked. "Was that really the best solution available? Do you have any messages for the restaurant owners who had their property destroyed by the resulting chaos? Or the pedestrians who may have been injured or traumatized by encountering a cattle stampede in a busy tourist district?"

  "BEST SOLUTION..." the Red Specter said. "LOOK, IT HAPPENED REALLY FAST. HAD TO ACT FAST. GRAB FIRST SOLUTION AVAILABLE.…"

  "Oh, really?" Joy made a point of noting that down. "So would you say that you did the best you could with limited information and resources, even though it was still really dangerous and caused a lot of chaos and destruction? Can I quote you on that?"

  The Red Specter glared at her, even though she thought she had framed the question pretty sympathetically. She was being very sweet and not gloating at all.

  The Specter let out a long sigh. "SURE. FINE," he growled. "WE'LL GO WITH THAT."

  "Excellent," said Joy. "Oh, but you didn't answer the bit about the shopkeepers and pedestrians—"

  "NO COMMENT," he said. "AND, BEFORE YOU ASK, NO ONE WAS SERIOUSLY INJURED, EITHER. WE CHECKED. AND I DON'T CARE ABOUT MENTAL COW TRAUMA."

  "Red Specter indifferent to bovine suffering..." Joy muttered, scribbling away in her notebook. She noticed him glaring at her and grinned.

  "Kidding! That's a joke. We like those, right?" Joy said, but the Specter continued glaring.

  "You know, you're not nearly this cranky in the comics," she said.

  "WHAT COMICS?"

  "The ones that run in every newspaper in Kallistrate, for free," she said. "Are you claiming not to have any knowledge of them? None at all?"

  "THAT'S RIGHT."

  Joy cocked her head at him. "Then why did you quote from the comics? You did that thing—the catchphrase."

  "He did what?" said Agent Funaki, perking up and grinning at the Specter. "You did a line from the comics? Really?"

  The Red Specter stiffened up and looked off into the corner of the room.

  "NO, I DIDN'T."

  "You most certainly did," said Joy. "It was that long one he always does. How did it go? Um... let me think..."

  She pitched her voice as low as she could, though it wasn't anywhere near Specter-level. "Beware, Villains! Wherever There Is Tyranny, Whenever There Is Evil, I Am There, Ready To Strike From The Shadows. Surrender, Evildoers! For No One Can Escape The Wrath… Of The Red Specter—he said that."

  "R-really?" said Agent Funaki, covering his mouth with his hand, while his eyes danced. "How dramatic. What a showman."

  "Actually, it really was," said Joy. “I mean, everyone was talking about him, all scared, and then someone was like, 'There's no such thing as the Red Specter,' and then this spooky booming voice comes out of nowhere, with that whole spiel. You should've seen their faces. All these big, tough criminals, and they were ready to poop themselves, they were so startled."

  "NO IDEA WHAT SHE'S TALKING ABOUT," said the Specter. "SUFFERING FROM TRAUMATIC STRESS. TOO MANY BLOWS TO THE HEAD."

  "Oh, that must be it," lied Agent Funaki, before turning back to Joy. "So, were there any other... dramatic lines that you heard him—"

  "DON'T YOU HAVE SOMEWHERE TO BE?" The Red Specter loomed over Sam. "PAPERS TO FILL OUT? REPORTS TO LOG? THAT TYPE OF THING?"

  "Eh, nothing urgent, no. I thought I..." Something switched over in the Specter's demeanor, and Agent Funaki backed up a step. "Well, unless maybe Joy needs me to get something..."

  "Some water, or maybe some tea," said Joy, noticing that she was parched. "I mean, if that's not too much trouble, Agent
Funaki. I don't want to be a bother.…"

  "Oh, it's no bother," he said. "And call me Sam.”

  “Sure thing, Sam,” said Joy.

  “Actually, you’re in for a treat,” he said. “We managed to recover this really nice tea set from the Triad warehouse. Miracle that it survived the blast, but it did. I think they've got it set up already."

  "That sounds heavenly. And that's so sweet of you to offer. Isn't he sweet?" Joy asked the Specter.

  "IT'S LIKE HE'S MADE OF SUGAR," the Specter growled. "HOPE HE DOESN'T DISSOLVE IN THE TEA. BEFORE HE FINISHES ALL THAT WORK HE SHOULD BE DOING."

  "Oh, don't worry about me," said Agent Funaki, as earnest and sincere as a person could possibly be. "I wouldn't shirk my duties. Because I know the Red Specter will be watching--ready to strike from the shadows. And I sure wouldn't want that!"

  He escaped from the room, leaving the Specter to glare at the door as it swung shut, then back at Joy as she succumbed to fit of giggles.

  "SAID YOU WANTED AN INTERVIEW," said the Specter. "WE GOING TO DO THAT, OR NOT?"

  With some effort, Joy got herself back under control. She shifted on the cot, got her notepad and pencil ready, and gathered her thoughts.

  "Well, all right then," said Joy. "Would you care to elaborate on your relationship with the KIB?"

  "NO."

  Joy scowled at the impassive figure next to her cot. Was she going to have to treat this as a hostile interview? She'd rather not, but...

  "But you do work together. I've observed you tonight. You worked together to take down the Triads and the Guardsmen."

  "CONVERGENT GOALS."

  "Oh, come on—it's more than that," said Joy. "Agent Funaki knew that you sabotaged the Joanne Spaulding. And I saw you two meet up just after the warehouse exploded. He recognized you immediately and took your... 'suggestions' without questioning them. Surely you can't deny that you've been working collaboratively."

  The Red Specter stood in silence for a minute, looking her over before answering. "I GUESS I CAN'T DENY THAT. FOR THIS OPERATION."

  "For how many other operations have you worked together?" Joy asked. "You and Agent Funaki seem pretty friendly."

  "NO COMMENT."

  As the interview went on, Joy discovered that "No Comment" was the Red Specter's favorite phrase, using it to stymy all her questions about the Dodona investigation: what had tipped it off, which faction he'd been going after, why he'd chosen to intervene here, everything. The most she got him to say was that he sought to protect the lives and peace of the citizens of Kallistrate and defeat all who would oppose or undermine that. Attempts to clarify that vague answer led to another series of "No Comments."

  Joy decided to switch to broader questions. "When did you decide to become the Red Specter?"

  "I DIDN'T."

  Joy gritted her teeth, forced herself to try and parse the evasion. "You know, when I bargained for an interview, I expected you'd actually answer questions."

  "THERE ARE QUESTIONS I CAN ANSWER AND QUESTIONS I CAN'T."

  "Well, which questions can you answer?"

  "FIGURING THAT OUT IS YOUR JOB," said the Specter, and Joy couldn't help but notice the smugness in his tone.

  "Okay, fine—be that way," she said, rolling her eyes.

  Nothing about this job had been easy, why should she expect it to change now? But as she thought about it, she realized that Specter’s recalcitrance might be a boon. It was so easy to forget who she was working for. Garai and the Gazette readership didn’t actually want to know everything about the Red Specter, after all; they wanted him to remain a mysterious figure. So she had to get enough details to be intriguing, but not enough to make him mundane. Now, how should she go about that?

  "As far as I know,” she said, “the first reported sightings of the Red Specter are from the Great War. Have you been... dressing up like this from before, during, or after the Great War?"

  The Specter didn't answer right away, which gave Joy hope. "DURING THE WAR," he finally answered.

  "So you became The Red Specter during the war?"

  The Specter turned away from her, gazing off into the middle distance. "YES. YOU COULD SAY THAT."

  "Who came up with the name, 'The Red Specter?'"

  "NOBODY KNOWS."

  Well that sounded mysterious, but it probably just meant some anonymous soldiers caught a glimpse of him and came up with the name, which caught on and became legend.

  "Did the Red Specter rumors start before or after you started wearing this costume?"

  "DON'T KNOW EXACTLY WHEN THEY STARTED."

  Joy narrowed her eyes. Blessed Kovidh, could he be any more pedantic? "When you first put on this costume, had you personally, at that point in time, heard any rumors or tales about the Red Specter?"

  "NO."

  "Who were you fighting for during the war?" Joy asked. "What was your overall goal?"

  She got another long pause for that question, but she'd learned to view that as positive. It meant an answer of some sort.

  "TO OVERTHROW AND DESTROY THE HYPOCRISY OF THE ALBION EMPIRE," said the Red Specter, with a fervor that Joy hadn't heard from him before. She made a note of it.

  She asked more questions about wartime, but ran into another "No Comment" wall, and she began to wonder if she should just wrap things up. She was on the verge of calling it a day, when one final detail popped into her head.

  "Oh! How did you know that Shiori was a fake?"

  A sharp tension ran through the Red Specter as he turned to stare at her. He recovered quickly, but not fast enough to fool Joy. What was this? That was the biggest reaction she'd got from him for the entire night. She smelled a story.

  "ARMOR WAS ALL WRONG," said the Specter, but it wasn't convincing.

  "Well, I'm sure that's true, but was that the only thing that tipped you off? I don't think so."

  "SHIORI IS A WANTED WOMAN. HUGE BOUNTY ON HER. HASN'T BEEN CAUGHT. YOU KNOW WHY?"

  The Red Specter was asking her questions now? This was a change.

  "No, why?" Joy asked.

  "BECAUSE THE REAL SHIORI ROSEWING KNOWS HOW TO AVOID CAPTURE. KEEP A LOW PROFILE. USE ALIASES," said the Specter. "SHE DOESN'T RUN AROUND IN BROAD daylight DRAPED IN A stupid-ass Rosedeath flag, ANNOUNCING HER PRESENCE TO THE whole goddamned world, AND shooting HER mouth off LIKE A complete fucking idiot!"

  Joy gaped as the Specter's voice wavered drastically for the second time since they'd met. This was definitely a thing—his voice going up an octave when he got upset. It suggested that the normal, booming voice was an affectation, requiring conscious control.

  "Have you met Shiori Rosewing? Seen her face to face?" Joy asked. "From the way you're talking, it sounds like you know her."

  This earned her another long pause. "WE'VE MET."

  "So that's how you knew," said Joy. "What's she like? The real one, I mean."

  "TALLER. ABOUT MY HEIGHT. DARKER SKIN. PRETTIER."

  The real Shiori was as tall as the Red Specter? That was pretty tall. Joy tried to picture it in her head.

  "So she is pretty? Like the comics version?" Joy blurted out, to her own annoyance. "Haha, sorry. That's a silly question, but you made me think of a fashion model or something."

  "DON'T KNOW IF I'D GO THAT FAR," said the Red Specter. "IT'S NOT SO MUCH LOOKS WITH HER. SHE'S NOT IN YOUR LEAGUE. IT'S MORE LIKE... SHE'S GOT THIS ENERGY TO HER, AND—"

  "You think I'm pretty?" Joy said, and immediately bit her tongue. Wow, stress and lack of sleep had mentally regressed her to thirteen years old or something. "Whoops, never mind, scratch that, I'm... listen to me babble, haha, asking about the comics, like she'd have red skin and run around in lingerie or something."

  "WELL, HER SKIN IS LIGHT BROWN," said the Specter. "AND OF COURSE SHE'D WEAR ARMOR IN BATTLE. BUT OTHERWISE... IF I SAW HER IN THAT OUTFIT, I WOULDN’T BE SURPRISED."

  "What?" Joy said, thinking back to her comics marathon. "But... that costume is... I mean, it's a drawing. If you tried to wear it
for real you'd be, like... popping out of it, and—"

  "LIKE SHE'D CARE," said the Specter. "SHE'S ALWAYS GOING ON ABOUT IT, TOO. 'OH, YOU GUYS ARE soooo uptight. NO ONE ON ONO-IKI cares ABOUT THAT STUFF. IT’S just THE HUMAN BODY.' BUT I SAY SHE JUST uses THAT AS AN excuse, so she can.…"

  The Red Specter stopped and turned away, started pacing around the room. Something about Shiori Rosewing really got under his skin. She needed a follow-up question, quick.

  "Ono-Iki?" said Joy. "That’s one of the Kotu Islands, right? But isn't she from Zipang? I mean, with that name--"

  "HER GRANDMOTHER WAS ZIPANGESE," said the Specter. "NAMED AFTER HER."

  "Wow, I never knew that," Joy scratched away at her notepad, determined to get as much down as she could. "Those are some personal details. What is your relationship with the real Shiori Rosewing? How well do you know her?"

  The Red Specter went very still. Joy could practically feel the tension radiating off him.

  "HOW WELL DO I KNOW HER?" He spat the words out like they were full of needles. "BETTER THAN MOST PEOPLE, BUT NOT AS WELL AS I ONCE THOUGHT I DID."

  "Would you care to elaborate on—"

  "NO," said the Specter. "NO, I WOULD NOT."

  It was like a door slammed shut. Joy could already tell that her follow-up questions on this topic would not be answered, even though she really, really wanted to ask them. But she didn't want the Specter to end the interview, either, and he was looking agitated enough to do just that. What else could she ask?

  "Um... the fake—she said something about her name being stolen." Joy thought back to Not-Shiori's tirade. "Something about… 'poor little injured girl.' Do you know anything about that?"

  She got another long pause from the Specter, longer than any of the previous ones, and Joy started to worry that this time he really wasn't going to answer, but then he spoke.

  "YOU KNOW HOW THE CALIBURN RECRUITED NEW MEMBERS?"

  “Of course," said Joy. "The annual trials at Cistonia stadium. A big race through an obstacle course."

  "MORE THAN THAT. ALL-AROUND ATHLETIC COMPETITION. PLUS WRITTEN TESTS AND INTERVIEWS. OBSTACLE COURSE IS THE FINALE. GROUP WITH HIGHEST OVERALL SCORES GO OFF TO CALIBURN TRAINING. USUALLY."

  "Usually?" said Joy. "Meaning sometimes they pick kids who didn't finish highest?"