Contents
Copyright SKV
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Superheroes Kill Vampires
By Jeremiah Kleckner
Copyright 2017
Cover Design by Jeremiah Kleckner
Cover art by Toyin Ajetunmobi
jaymorby.carbonmade.com
This is a fictional work and any resemblance to actual people living or dead, businesses, locales, or events is either coincidental or parodied with extreme absurdity. Reproduction of this publication in part or whole without written consent is strictly prohibited. Thank you for reading. Please consider leaving a review wherever you bought the book so that others may find it as well. Your support is everything.
Chapter 1
Whatever the security setup Hand’s Jewelry had, it did not include a “silent” alarm. It included a really loud alarm.
That idiot, Crank, tripped it in his eagerness to get to the good stuff. As a result, the crew would only get out with half the stash they’d planned on earlier.
“Move it, move it, move it!” Larry shouted as he, Crank, and Ortiz bagged as much as they could. “We’ve only got five minutes tops before the cops show up!”
He sprinted to the car, dumping his bag of jewelry in the trunk with the rest of what they’d grabbed. At least Ortiz, their wheelman, was on the ball and had the engine revving, ready to roll.
A police cruiser pulled around the corner, tires squealing. Lights flashed. Sirens wailed.
Ortiz stepped on the gas.
Larry cursed under his breath, then leaned out the passenger-side window and fired a couple shots as their car pulled away.
The chase was on.
At least he’d chosen a decent wheelman. Ortiz steered through red lights and around the evening traffic, swerving into an alley and ditch the cops who continued to fly down Thirty-Seventh Street.
The alley’s dumpster and several garbage cans stopped their escape fast. The car scraped by, metal screaming against metal, but chugged to a stop one block later.
“Fuel line got cut,” Ortiz explained with a growl.
“Alright, everybody get out,” Larry ordered, pulling off his ski mask. The cool night air kissed his sweating skin. “Grab what we’ve got and follow me.”
They emptied the trunk and hustled towards Thirty-Fifth.
The area would be swarming with cops in minutes, but Larry knew a good dive that had sewer access over on Thirty-First. If they could make it there, they were home free.
He stopped short at the thirteen-foot chain linked fence. It wasn’t here the last time he’d been in the neighborhood and it was going to be a real obstacle.
Larry glanced back at the others. Ortiz was conspicuously absent. He must have ditched them. Screw him anyway.
“What was that?” Crank asked, still wearing his ski mask.
Some clattering came from the rooftop, nothing to worry about. Larry reached into his bag and pulled out his bolt cutter. He’d make short work of the fence, then the two of them would be as good as gold.
“Could it be her?” Crank worried.
Larry knew who ‘her’ was. Force. Dover City’s hero.
“Naw,” Larry argued as he continued clipping. “Force doesn’t hang out on rooftops. If it was her we’d have been done at the car.”
More clattering and thumping sounded from the rooftops. A cat shrieked.
Crank swore. “It’s got to be her!”
Larry huffed. He turned around, ready to tell the man to shut up when a dark figure dropped behind Crank’s wide frame.
Crank shrieked and fired his .38 at the dark figure who Larry struggled to see clearly through the swirling fabric it wore.
The figure blurred. In one breath, Crank yelped as he bounced hard against the chain link fence. His gun clattered on the pavement. A breath later, Crank slammed into the alley wall and slumped to the ground. Fragments of shattered bricks decorated his silent, unmoving body.
Larry emptied his entire clip in the figure’s direction, but it didn’t do him any good.
Maybe it was Force. If so, she had a new costume and a new way of doing things.
The figure stepped into the pale alley light. Her fabric fell like shadows around her body, revealing white skin against stark black.
“Oh hell,” Larry breathed.
The stunning woman in black stepped closer, eyes glowing red in the dim streetlight. Her face was white and her lips quirked into a smile.
This wasn’t Force. This woman wasn’t even human.
Then the woman showed her long, sharp teeth.
Larry gasped. He scrambled back against the fence.
A suddenly clawed hand raised up and came down on him in a blur.
Chapter 2
The beeping wasn’t loud, but it was persistent. Jeff tried to ignore it, tried to resist the pull from sleep, but he couldn’t. The beeping wouldn’t stop.
He opened his eyes and lifted a hand to rub them. His bedroom wasn’t dark, the bedside lamp was still lit. He wasn’t even under the covers. Instead, his chemistry textbook lay unfolded on his chest and his hand-scrawled notes were strewn about the bed.
He’d fallen asleep studying again. High school chemistry, a cure for insomnia if there ever was one.
Not that he had expected to be up all night, not after finally earning a night off after a full weeks’ worth of extracurriculars with Force.
Why was she calling? What could be going on that she couldn’t handle on her own?
Jeff pushed the schoolbook off his chest and rolled over. He grabbed the wrist-com and tapped it active. “Yeah?”
“Did I wake you?” her tinny voice replied through the speakers.
“Maybe,” he groaned.
“Shouldn’t you be still studying?” she suggested, sounding surprised. “It’s only nine-thirty.”
This annoyed Jeff. He was sixteen. Crashing early was what happened when you spent the last five nights out until three learning how to take on the bad guys.
“Big test isn’t for another couple days,” he reminded her. Did she think she was his mother now? He didn’t need one. “It’s only chemistry. It’s not like its Shakespeare.”
“English is important too,” she reminded him. “So don’t shirk that either.”
Jeff rolled his eyes.
“So what’s up?” he asked, stifling a yawn. “I thought tonight was going to be my night off.”
“The best-laid plans…” she started. “Robert Burns, by the way. I need you to meet me. Thirty-Fifth and Brunswick. Something you need to see.”
“Got it,” he told her. It wasn’t far. Minutes, at least with the superhuman running he’d been gifted with. “Be there in ten.”
Jeff got up from his twin bed, scratched his back, and headed for his closet. He pulled the hidden compartment open and geared up. Black Kevlar. Armor. Gloves. Gauntlets. Weapons. Mask.
Yawning again, he bumped into his bureau, knocking a frame into his quick-catching hand.
Jeff stared at the family picture he’d had forever of him with his mother and father at some carnival or boardwalk. It wasn’t the family that mattered now, at least not enough for her to stay. Dad tried, but he generally passed out well before ten, even on the weekends. And he wasn’t that smiling kid anymore. Now he was Cadet Trainee Alpha, official sidekick to Dover City’s hero, Force.
What was a family when you had hundreds of t
housands to look out for? Even if he wanted a family of his own one day, that life was impossible. He had the Unknown Quotient. UQs were called “uniques” by fans and “eunuchs” by those less enchanted. The derogatory nickname wouldn’t sting so much if it wasn’t accurate. People with the Unknown Quotient couldn’t have children.
Jeff dropped the picture into his trash bin, then crept through his window onto the eleventh-floor fire escape.
The city needed him. Force needed him. So why waste time on a chemistry test, right?
Chapter 3
There were three cop cars, Detective Costner’s Crown Victoria, and an ambulance on the scene by the time Jeff got to Thirty-Fifth and Brunswick. The vehicles were parked around the entrance to an alleyway, with a few cops, EMTs, and some civilians milling about on the dark street watching things unfold.
Jeff wasn’t surprised at the turnout. There were even a couple reporters from the Channel 37 crew. They were getting faster on the scene these days and he couldn’t blame them. Who didn’t want to get a shot of Force and her trusty sidekick looking cool?
Considering Force’s call hadn’t sounded urgent, Jeff figured he was here for some other reason than fighting bad guys.
As usual, his partner, in her dark navy blue and red armored outfit, stood beyond the police barricade talking with Detective Tom Costner, the third watch lead of the eleventh precinct decked out in his trench coat and hipster goatee. If there was a crime scene after dark, he and Force would be chatting about it.
The middle-aged officer glanced his way, then turned back to Force, which was as much of an invitation as Jeff was going to get. The other cops didn’t pay him much mind either as he ducked under the police tape. He’d been the Force’s sidekick for almost a year now, so they were used to him showing up.
“Time for us to take a look,” Force told the detective when Jeff reached the pair.
“It’s your dinner to lose,” Detective Costner replied with a smirk and lead them both into the alley.
“Prepare yourself, Cadet,” Force advised, her short straight black hair swirling around her head as she turned.
Jeff examined her grim expression. How bad could it be?
As it turned out, gruesome.
Three men hung upside down from the thirteen-foot high fence at the back of the alley. Each of their throats had been cut. No, not just cut, ripped wide open.
Jeff heaved, but he managed to hold the hot pockets he’d microwaved for dinner down without too much of a struggle.
As he glanced down he picked up on something odd.
“There’s not much blood on the pavement,” he noted. “Maybe they weren’t killed here?” Chemistry was sleep-inducing, criminal science wasn’t. Given the slashed throats, there should have been pools of blood, but there were only a few spatters.
“Oh, they were killed here,” Costner offered dryly. He pointed at a part of the alley wall that had caved in, and a bloody patch on the fence. “And by someone or something pretty damn strong.”
Force walked over to one of the dead men, scrutinizing him.
“Recognize this guy?” she said, turning the man’s face so Jeff could see it in the light.
He did. Either from the training at Police HQ or the studying he did on her past crime-fighting archives, Jeff recognized the dead man as one of Boss Wiley’s goons. He then recognized the other two as well, although he didn’t remember any of their names.
“What were they up to?” Force asked as she stood up.
“Robbing a jewelry store,” the Detective Costner told them. “Basic stuff. Tripped an alarm. These three were all dead by the time the cruisers caught up to them. Couldn’t have happened to a prettier trio.”
Jeff would have chuckled at the gallows humor if the broken and slashed bodies hadn’t been so totally nasty. He almost did anyway, until he saw the EMTs pulling a gurney from the ambulance and prepping the bodies for transport.
Then something caught his eye. A gray blur passed over the buildings across the street.
“Hey,” he said, turning back to Force. “Did you see that?”
Force glanced over at him.
“Could be someone powered did this, right?” Jeff asked. He pointed to where he saw the gray blur. “Maybe they’re still around.”
Force squinted as she scanned the area where he was pointing, then shook her head. “I don’t think so,” she told him finally. “At least the still around part.”
“But-” he started.
“It’s nerves,” she told him. “Trust me, if there was someone like us still in the neighborhood we’d both be able to sense it.”
It was an observation she’d made several times before. Yeah, he was just her sidekick and he was still getting used to the whole hero thing, but he had been at it for a year now.
He didn’t feel nervous.
He felt uneasy.
Chapter 4
Boss Wiley grinned as he watched his “friend” put her clothes back on. He’d told her to take her time while he leaned back and basked in the pleasure of the last few minutes.
“Baxter,” he called out as he tightened his belt around his thick waist.
Wiley’s number one bodyguard came in, dressed in an impeccable black suit. He glanced at the prostitute and then back at his boss. His expression was impassive but watchful. “Sir?”
“Take Anastasia back to her post,” Wiley ordered, then lit himself a fat Cuban cigar as the two left through the mahogany double doors.
He watched the smoke swirl into the air, then shift, disturbed by a draft. His ear picked up a faint creaking of his office’s floor.
There were only two people in the city who could get into his mansion, his office even, without being detected, but Wiley wasn’t afraid. Far from it. A slight grin twitched to life at the corner of his mouth.
“Please, come out and join me,” he called out. “Show your masked faces.”
As expected the city’s two heroes, Force and her Cadet Trainee stepped out from behind the curtains. He could tell from the way the boy was looking at him they’d been there for some time.
“Did you like the show?” he asked them both. His grin twisted playfully. “Want another one?”
“We won’t be here long enough for an encore,” Force replied.
Wiley spread his arms in welcome. “Just some legal fun between consenting adults,” he said, eying Force now, fantasizing that it had been her instead of that street worker. Beneath that riot gear she wore, the woman had to have a hell of a body and be a devil in the sack. He took another puff from his cigar. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“I’d like to ask you about three of your men,” Force started. “Larry Dove, Crank Shipman, Bart Ortiz.”
Wiley didn’t offer anything back. Why should he? Don’t give anything up, not in his line of business.
“Seems they are no longer your employees,” she continued.
“Who says they ever were,” he replied. “I run an independent contracting business, honey, as you well know.”
“They are all dead,” she said gravely. “Savagely killed after they robbed Hand’s Jewelry.”
“Then justice was done,” he replied with a shrug. “Getting more aggressive at the hero game, are we? I see we’ve already dropped the pretense of showing me a warrant before scuffing my floors with your combat boots. What’s stopping you from ‘roughing me up’ in my own home?”
The woman ignored his taunt and stalked closer to his desk. Her eyes glared at him from behind her mask.
“We found them slaughtered,” she told him with a breathy growl. “Their throats ripped out. Made any new enemies lately, Mr. Wiley?”
His face was stone. He knew her well enough to know that she was telling the truth. Not that those three men were a great loss. There were hundreds where Larry, Crank, and Bart came from.
Behind his immovable expression, Boss Wiley ran through his short list of rivals. None of them had the guts to send him a message like that, but t
here were a few out there who had the ability if they wanted to do it.
“No,” he said. “Just the same old ones.” Enemies were a part of the business, he reminded himself. So he had some work to do figuring out who hit his boys. Big deal. In the meantime, Wiley was happy to play along with the hero. “But best of luck finding their killer or killers. I’d think those men’s families will appreciate your diligence.”
Force stop back up straight. Her jaw tightened.
Boss Wiley’s grin widened into a full smile. He knew this look. She was at an impasse.
Force or her Cadet could snap him in two with their superhuman strength or beat him until he broke, but they would never do it. They had a hero’s code or some nonsense.
Force and her sidekick left as abruptly as they came.
After they exited, Wiley puffed on the remainder of his cigar and leaned back in his leather chair. If there was somebody new in town, he’d need to take precautions in future, seek out who they were, and either make a deal or rub them out.
Another draft disturbed the tendrils of smoke floating around him.
“Forgot something?” he asked aloud. “You know I’m an open book.”
A figure in black suddenly stood before him. She was tall, slim, and female, but it was most definitely not Force, not with those ruby eyes that gazed at him from an unmasked face as pale as snow.
“Who—?” was all Boss Wiley managed to get out before she was on him.
Pain shot through him. Blood gushed out of his neck and he tried to scream, but all he could offer as his last words were desperate gurgles.
Chapter 5
After the talk with Boss Wiley, Force decided to meet up with Detective Costner to compare notes about who might have been responsible for the gruesome deaths of the four criminals.
Jeff came along for the ride and for the experience.
Costner drove the car and the conversation.
“Surely you’ve come across some monster that has that kind of M.O.?” Detective Costner asked as he drove the cruiser up Burns Avenue towards the station where they could do more extensive research. “You’ve come across your share of freaks over the years, right? Like Orpheus Steel or the Razor Twins.”
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