A glance at her told me I could.
“Great. She can get a hold of me. Listen, all I care about, and all I’m authorized to bring in, is the missing C4. I came here looking for ten pounds of the stuff only to find out there’s a whole lot more to this than meets the eye.”
“You’re short about seventeen thousand nine-hundred and ninety— strike that—nine-hundred and eighty-four pounds. I used some to blow the money up.”
“I figured that’s what did it. Nice job. The Coast Guard is moving in right now, seizing everything that’s left. Listen,” he said looking away for a second.
For a heartbeat they were all looking the other way. The overcast sky wasn’t bright to begin with and when a shadow moved across the sun I acted, shadow-stepping behind a dumpster a hundred feet away. I froze in place, waiting to see if they saw me. Focusing on my hearing I listened to them.
“Where the hell did she just go?” Sergeant Farrel asked.
“She does that,” Krisan replied.
“She didn’t move,” Felix said. “I would have heard her move. She just vanished.”
Confident they couldn’t see me, I moved out. Trotting around the closed restaurant they had parked in front of, I knew where I was in a few minutes and made my way the half mile to where I’d parked the Hellcat. It was exactly as I left it. I popped the trunk, sat down semi-inside the spacious cargo area and quickly changed my clothes, putting all the old things in the plastic bag I had for this purpose. Before I tucked the jacket away, I pulled out the cash. Thankfully it had survived my impromptu fuel-air-bomb. Everything I had on me, minus the cash, went into the bag and the bag into the dumpster. No one was ever going to find it.
Next I wanted a shower. And I needed to go shopping. I only knew one man who had the answers for me, and it was long past2 time we had a sit-down.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Henry Williams closed the door behind him, activating the magnetic lock and checking to see if the security system had gone off since he left the house that morning. The “All-Secure” light flashed.
That little bit of normalcy comforted him. ISO—The Outfit, or Syndicate, or whatever they were calling themselves these days—were losing their minds. As if Henry had any control over the Army! Federal Agents could pretty much do as they pleased.
He tossed his leather bag with the files from the Imago case on his chair before going to his fridge.
I need a beer. Maybe more.
The lights responded to his motion in the kitchen, flickering to life as he opened the fridge. He was puzzled that the six-pack of Abita Amber, a famous local brew, was down to three. He’d just bought it last night and he was sure he hadn’t opened any.
Then the lights flickered out and the house plunged into darkness.
His mind raced as a thousand possibilities ran through him then settled on the most likely one; an ISO assassin was here to kill him. ISO was supposed to provide a certain level of protection for him, but not against themselves. Oddly, he heard the sound of a bottle cap popping and he knew there was someone right behind him. Slowly, carefully, he raised his hands up to shoulder level and turned around, shuffling his feet like a kid at a school dance.
Henry had never really felt fear in his life. Other than the one mistake he was caught making, caught, and he suspected set up, by ISO-1 so they could make him do their bidding. Even last year when they shared their plans to execute the DA and his family, he hadn’t felt fear. More like a modicum of loyalty. Not that he liked Madi, but Alex was a mentor of his. He’d taken him in when the wench Madisun left him for her precious modeling career.
But now… standing in the pitch-black, staring down a pair of glowing blue eyes— it was all he could do not to pee himself.
“W—wh—what do you want?” he finally managed to ask. Anger flared up in him, not at his attacker, but at himself for his helplessness.
As the seconds ticked by and those glowing eyes looked at him, sweat began to trickle down his spine and his heart thudded in his ears. Facing his imminent death, or so he thought, Henry felt no remorse for the people he helped kill—only a sense of righteous indignation over the injustice of someone killing him before he’d made his fortune and lived the life of decadence he so badly craved. It just wasn’t fair.
The mysterious figure surged closer, pressing him up against the fridge while the cold steel of a blade trapped his throat.
“You’re going to answer some questions for me.”
Henry thought maybe it was a woman, but no human could have a voice like that, let alone a human woman. Her voice echoed around the room, coming from a hundred different directions. A chill ran down his spine.
When he didn’t answer and the blade pressed harder he peed himself.
Suddenly she stepped back and the blade was gone, leaving him cold and standing in a puddle.
“Don’t move, not an inch,” she said. “Where does ISO-1 keep their armory?”
He was frozen in fear. Frozen. He wanted to tell her to go to hell, like a hero in a movie. He wished he responded that way. However, Henry had never truly experienced anything difficult in his life. Now, faced with physical harm, even death, he wanted nothing more than to say whatever he needed to say to live.
But his mouth was frozen shut.
She didn’t wait long. When he didn’t answer the knife was back. Henry couldn’t take those eyes peering into his soul one second longer.
“I don’t know,” he finally managed to drag out of himself.
“That’s not the answer I wanted. I hope you don’t mind typing one handed?”
His eyes flew open as she grabbed his wrist in her unbelievably strong hands and slammed his hand down on the cutting board, pressing the blade against the top of his wrist. He tried to pull away but he was either weak from fear or simply not strong enough—she didn’t so much as budge.
“Wait,” he shouted. “Just wait.”
“You have five seconds to tell me something useful.”
His mind raced, self-preservation warring with his common sense. Maybe he could spin this in his favor. He started talking and couldn’t stop.
“ISO uses me to go after their competition. Right now, we’re making a case against Israel Imago. He’s a suspected importer of weapons from the middle east to sell on the black market. He would have something you could buy, I’m sure.”
The blade she held slashed his forearm in a shallow cut that bled profusely. He screamed even though it wasn’t exactly dangerous. Henry dropped to the floor, clutching his wounded arm, shame and humiliation washing over him along with the pain. When he managed to open his eyes, the lights were on, the fridge beeped at him to close the door, and three empty bottles of beer were sitting neatly side-by-side on the kitchen island.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
I drove away from Henry’s house with a smile. I truly hated that man, but the idea of killing him didn’t sit well with me. Maybe it would eventually. Maybe. As easily as all of this death came to me, it was still a bit distasteful to contemplate killing someone I had been intimate with. Even if it was a lifetime ago.
It does feel like forever, like someone else's life, not mine.
I was tired. My eyes drooped as I drove toward home. It was Friday night; I had gone full throttle since Wednesday, and even with my Wraith fueled powers I needed sleep and food. But there was something else I needed to do first.
I pressed the button on the dash to activate my phone, then called Krisan’s number. I hoped she hadn’t changed it since she left Detroit.
“Madi?” her voice came through the car speakers. To say I was surprised she knew it was me would be an understatement. I bit back the urge to ask her how and just went right to my question.
“Can you find out where my family is buried?” I asked.
There was a moment of silence on her end. The connection was so quiet I briefly wondered if she had hung up.
“I know where they are. It was the first thing I did after I arrived. Can
I text the address to this number?”
“Yes. And thank you.”
“Madi, listen, I need to talk to you. Just you and me,” she said.
I thought about it for a long second. I was still kind of mad at her for going on the radio and endangering us, and for dragging the Army team in. At the end of the day, though, she was my only real ally. I wanted to do this… crusade… on my own. I wanted to avenge my family and all the families who had suffered under the thumb of the unrighteous… but I was so tired.
“Meet me at the graveyard. It should be secure, assuming no one knows who I really am?” It was more of a rhetorical question, but also a reminder to her that my secret was important.
“I haven’t told anyone. I’ll see you in 20.”
I hung up the phone. A few seconds later the address came in.
>>>>Dumas Family Tomb. St. Louis #1, West Side, Row 7<<<<
The ten minutes it took me to drive there passed in a blur. I’d lived in this city half my life and for the first time in a long time, I drove the speed limit. Stopping longer than normal, driving out of my way to avoid traffic. Despite my desperate need to rest, I went as slow as humanly possible—until I was inevitably at my family’s final destination.
I parked the car and sat in silence for a few minutes. Friday nights in the city were always loud and boisterous, even in a cemetery, but for just a few minutes it was like the world respected my need for privacy.
Since the moment I woke up in the hospital I had put all my emotions—all my feelings about what had happened—in a box labeled “DO NOT OPEN, EVER.” I was afraid. Afraid that once I opened the box I would lose whatever it was that drove me to seek justice, vengeance, on their behalf.
I took a few deep breaths and opened the car door, stepping out into the warm night. I was here, it was real. I needed to say goodbye to them. I needed to know, in my heart, they were gone. Maybe I could put my grief off forever, but unless I saw their graves, their deaths would always be… fake… to me.
I wandered through the cemetery, more ambling than searching, heading for the west side. Tombs dating back to the seventeen hundreds were alongside crypts built in the last few years. It was a stark contradiction.
“You’re not the first person to lose someone,” Sara said from my side. I knew, intellectually, that she wasn’t Sara. But I didn’t care. She sounded like her, acted like her (for the most part), and even smelled like her.
“I know. At the same time, other people’s pain doesn’t make mine easier.”
She walked silently next to me, wearing an outfit I had seen Sara in a hundred times. Jeans, a tank top, slip-on shoes, and her fluffy blue coat. Her hair was different though; she wore it straight, like I used to wear mine.
“I know a lot about pain,” she said quietly. “A lot.”
I glanced over at her. “What are you, exactly?”
She smiled. “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy,” she said.
I smirked. That was about as cryptic as it got.
“It’s from Shake—”
“I know. I’ve read a book or two.”
We walked some more. Having her next to me, not inside me, helped somehow.
“Why?” I asked finally. “Why are you helping me? Why do you care?”
“It always comes down to that, doesn’t it? The truth is something you’re not ready to hear… yet. But you will be, one day, if you live long enough. I’m old Madi, older than you can imagine. In all my long life I have rarely met a soul so willing to do anything to achieve vengeance.”
I hadn’t ever known myself before… not really. Eight years as a model and I thought I was happy; in truth I was more or less surviving. Maybe that was why I never made it past the point I did—my heart wasn’t really in it. Why did it take the murder of my family for me to find the one thing I was truly great at?
“I can tell you this, though, Madi. If you stay alive, and keep your commitment, you will find all the answers you’re looking for. You’re an artist Madi, but instead of a drawing or singing your art is death. Don’t ever stop painting.”
I opened my mouth to reply but she was gone… and I found myself in front of the Dumas Family Tomb.
Alex, Nadia, Charles, Sara.
Everyone in my life was dead. Everyone who ever loved me, gone. I dropped to my knees, hands hitting the pavement and I just… collapsed. I wanted them back so bad I could taste it. I’d never be able to tell Dad I was sorry. Sorry about Charles… about us… I’d never tell my Mom how much I loved her. Never hold Sara again, see her grow up, marry a good man, have wonderful children.
It was all gone, taken, and there wasn’t anything I could ever do that would change that. I knew that a normal person would take that grief and work through it—realize there was nothing they could do to change it, nothing that could ever be done.
I wasn’t normal, though, was I? For whatever reason—luck, fate, destiny—I had found the Wraith and she had found me. I seized upon the spark inside of me, the spark of vengeance. I blew on it until it was a roaring fire burning within me.
And I laughed.
Yes, my family would never be alive again. Nothing I did would change that. But you know what? How could I know until I tried? Maybe… maybe if I killed every last one of those bastards, then maybe things would change. Or maybe I would just keep killing bad people until I was dead—or there were no more bad people left to kill.
Sounded like a plan to me.
“Madi?” Krisan asked from a shadow a few plots away.
“Over here,” I said. My Wraith voice came out of my mouth and I realized there was a soft blue nimbus of light around me. Energy flowed through me a kind I had never felt before. A connection, a sympathy. We were in sync, she and I. We were the Wraith.
We were Vengeance.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Krisan stepped out of the shadows, stopping when she saw the light surrounding me.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
I nodded. I closed my eyes for a second and let that power flow through me, then let it go. The light vanished and my voice returned to normal.
“Yes. I was coming to terms with something.” I reached up and put my hand next to Sara’s. One day my name would be here, and then I could finally rest.
“I want to work with you,” she said without preamble. Which was just like her.
“Sure,” I replied. “I’ll call you if I need anything—”
“No, I want to come with you.”
I chuckled. “Krisan, I don’t think that’s such a good idea. I mean, you’re clever and stuff, but you have a tendency to rely on luck way too much. I’m not sure you would be much help in a fight.”
Her eyes went wide, then she smiled, and finally it turned into a laugh of her own. “Oh no, Madi, you misunderstand. I want to help you with everything else. You know, the mundane stuff. Intelligence gathering, supplies, vehicles, where to live, that sort of thing,” she said.
That was an intriguing idea. I pulled myself up, dusting off my pants before leaning against the tomb.
“I can’t always protect you, Krisan. This would be risky for you. What do you get out of it?”
She looked away for a second then back at me. I could see the wheels turning, I just had no idea what she was going to say.
“I want to write about what you do. I want to tell your story.”
“No,” I said. I put my hand up to cut off her complaint. “This doesn’t work as well if people know there is a me. It only works if they think there is some mysterious force against them. Once they know I’m a person, they will know who I am—and then I will just be another thing in their way. A person who can be ignored or destroyed.” One of the things Joseph taught me was this principle. He’d regretted adopting a persona. If had been able to do it again he would have struck from the shadows. That was how true fear happened.
“I think you’re missing the point. Let me try to put it
a different way. I’m a writer, Madi, I’m a good writer. Not just news, either. I can write fiction; I can spin a tale about you that will strike fear into the hearts of everyone. Sure, I’ll tell the truth, but I’ll give it scope. Just the thought that you are going after them will leave people in a cold sweat. You won’t be a person or a symbol, you’ll be a legend. You’ll be the story people tell their children at night to keep them on the straight and narrow.”
She certainly was impassioned—and she had a point. Sure, the not knowing was fearsome, but how much more good could I do just by having people afraid I was in their city? If I could make enough bad people afraid enough… maybe I could save a few lives.
Hell, if I saved just one it would be worth it.
“Let’s say for a second I’m willing to consider this; how can you help me? I don’t need a secretary, and you’re not experienced in the criminal underworld. I need weapons, safe houses, vehicles—how can you get me any of that?” I asked.
Now it was her turn to smile. She pulled out it her phone and held it in her hand for a long moment with her eyes closed.
My phone buzzed. I pulled it out and checked the message.
>>>>Not everyone with superpowers wears a costume and has a codename.<<<<
I stared at the phone. Then back at her. She hadn’t moved. Then back to the phone.
>>>>I can access my phone and any other phone it has access to, with my mind. I travel through the electronic aether as easily as you travel through the shadows. I’m also one hell of a negotiator.<<<<
“You cheater,” I said with a smile. “Is that how you get all your scoops?”
She opened her eyes, her smile matching my own as she put her phone away. “It’s not cheating, I have to be close to the phone if I want to access it. I can send you messages and read your phone if I’m within a hundred feet, but unless someone is using their phone around me, or I’m touching it, I can’t just find it and read it. I have to do the legwork, just like every other reporter. I just have an added advantage. So, what do you say? Can I be your girl in the chair?”
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