Superhero By Night (Book 3): The Wraith [Guerrilla Warfare]

by Haskell, Jeffery H.

  “Ha-frickin-ha. I didn’t get bit, just so you know,” I told her as I moved to where I thought the basement entrance should be.

  “Never say never,” she replied.

  “If you don’t have anything useful to add, can you leave me alone? This isn’t exactly a walk in the park.”

  “Clearly, you’ve never been to Singapore.”

  I turned to say something scathing but she was gone. I hustled as fast as I dared, keeping silent as I moved. I found the maintenance entrance a few minutes later, nestled between the repair facility and a large bathroom. The door opened with minimal effort and I descended the stairs into the darkness. If there was a furnace of some kind, or a power generator, or anything I could set to overload, that would help me destroy this place.

  The problem was the maze of pipes and passages. I could really use Krisan. I checked the phone; still no signal... but... if I could find the main communications panel for the building, maybe I could hotwire the phone’s antenna?

  All I needed to do was go into a maze of blind corners with ravenous werewolves hunting me. Oh, I almost forgot; only one entrance.

  Yeah, I was home free.

  CHAPTER 30

  One dark corner after another played havoc with my nerves. Any second a giant beast could reach out and end me; there was no safe place and it made my adrenaline pump like a water fountain on a hot day.

  “C’mon Madisun, get it together,” I whispered to myself.

  A sigh from behind spun me around and to one a knee, pistol aimed… right at Spice’s face. I dropped the gun down to my side and breathed out my anxiety and annoyance.

  “What do you want?” I asked.

  She smiled coyly at me. “I know where the communications panel is.”

  I perked right up. “Tell me?”

  She shook her head. “I want something first.”

  My head jerked back in surprise as I pursed my lips. “What could you want that you don’t already have?”

  “You kill too fast, Madi. You don’t let me feel it. I want you to kill something slowly, painfully, to let me really savor it.”

  Even at her creepiest she had never been this scary. My heart hurt hearing those words come out of my little sister's mouth.

  “I thought we settled this. We do things my way. I’m not into torturing someone before killing—”

  “Sure you are. You did it in New Orleans and it was glorious. You can do it again.”

  I turned away from her, hating that she was right. I had done it, and it had left a bad taste in my mouth. I’d justified it with Intel I’d gained from it, but really, it was wrong; I don’t care how evil the person was.

  “You need to drop this whole mantle of moral righteousness. You’re a murderer, Madi. Embrace it.”

  “No. You might think the path I’m on will turn me into the killer you want me to be, but it won’t. It can’t. If it does, I’m no better than the people I put down. You’re going to have to just be satisfied with the deaths I serve you. I’m certainly not going to start carving people—”

  The fist came out of a side tunnel I had missed. It was a pathetically weak blow, glancing off my jaw. However, the woman followed it up with a pain-stick to my abdomen.

  She drove me to the ground, the stick making a snapping noise like a Tazer as it dropped. My knees stung from the impact. It was her—the woman who’d callously overseen my torture.

  “Get out here,” she screamed over her shoulder. Two men, older than her, in fact, older than anyone I’d seen so far, came out with a rope.

  It was hard to breathe with the excruciating pain rolling through my stomach. Every muscle clenched in agony as her friends slipped the rope around my neck, threw the other end over a pipe and pulled.

  They jerked me up to my toes. Out of reflex I dropped my pistol and reached for the rope around my throat, trying to slip a finger under it. It wasn’t very thick—more like a silk climbing rope. I scratched at my neck and kicked out with my feet, trying to free myself.

  “Are you sure we should kill her? What if we used her to escape?” a man with an Asian accent asked from behind.

  A cruel smile spread on the woman’s face. “She’s the enemy. It was after she escaped that everything went to hell. We may have lost all our research but if we kill her then at least we have something to show for it.”

  Between the pain-stick she jammed into me and the rope around my throat choking me out, it was hard to think.

  I’d learned enough, though; none of these people were innocent. Shadow stepping was second nature to me. I vanished from one spot and stepped out twenty feet down the hall.

  I dropped to a knee, rubbing my throat as I desperately inhaled as much air as I could.

  The two men holding me up fell backward, crashing into the concrete in a jumble as they no longer had a weight to counterbalance them.

  “What? Where did she go?” the woman asked in a shriek.

  I faced them, powers flaring to life, lighting up the dark hall in a blue nimbus as I marched toward her. “I’m right here.”

  She turned and jabbed the pain-stick at me like a knife. I batted it aside, then slapped her across the face. She went down like a chump, crumpling to the ground.

  Walking past her, I kneeled down and retrieved my pistol and aimed it.

  “No! she made us—”

  “I don’t care.” I fired three rounds into him, then another three into his friend.

  “You murderer,” she gasped from behind me. I watched as she scrambled for the pain-stick. I stepped past her and kicked it away in one swift motion. The damage from their impromptu lynching had already healed and I knelt in front of her, resting the pistol on my thigh.

  “Who are you?” I asked in my supernatural Wraith voice.

  She glared up at me. Almost willing me to kill her. “I’m not telling you—”

  My hand flew through the air, slapping her across the face. She tumbled to the side landing on her back and sobbing from the pain.

  They had come out of a side hall and I wanted to check it out. I was fairly certain she wasn’t going anywhere; just in case, though, I popped her in the knee. The bullet broke her knee cap and she screamed as she held the wound, trying to stem the flow of blood.

  “Oh quit your whining. You won’t bleed out for at least an hour.”

  Ignoring her sobs, I walked through the doorway they’d come through. Inside was a panic-room of sorts. Working computers, monitors, food, the whole shebang. Including a satellite cell phone. Excellent. I’d get to that momentarily.

  A notebook with the words “Emergency Procedures” hung next to the door. I perused it quickly before looking around further.

  “What happened here?” I asked. “How did your beasts get loose?”

  “Why should I tell you anything?” she spat out between clenched teeth.

  “Doc, you’re asking the wrong questions. What you need to ask yourself is, ‘would you rather I killed you, or have one of your creations eat you alive,’” I said over my shoulder as I tried to find some shred of information as to what the hell they were doing here.

  She gasped, her breathing jumping into overdrive. “No, you wouldn’t do that. You wouldn’t! You’re one of those heroes, you have rules.”

  I laughed. “Ask your two friends there about my rules,” I said as I tossed the book aside. I turned to face her, walking right up and kneeling next to her and placing my gun against her temple.

  “You wouldn’t!” she insisted without looking at her two dead subordinates.

  “What? Leave you to die the way you left all your victims? Doc, that’s exactly what I’m going to do. They’re hunting me, so I’m sure they will be down here soon enough.”

  “Don’t kill me, please!” Her face crumbled and I had her. She would do anything to live. She was a coward at heart. “My work is too important, please!” Truth.

  I glanced over my shoulder to see Spice leaning against the wall. She shrugged when our eyes met.
<
br />   “What are you people doing here?” I asked.

  “Trying to save the human race. Don’t you get it? This is important work!” Tears flowed down her face as she spoke, stopping to wince every she moved too much.

  “Uh-huh. You’re saving people by kidnapping innocent women and experimenting on them. Please tell me more about your humanitarian efforts,” I said with sarcasm so thick it could be gravy in Canada.

  “You’re as blind as you are stupid. One life doesn’t matter when we’re talking about the extinction of the human race! Everyone you know, dead. All your family, dead—”

  I jammed the gun against her eye hard enough to make her scream. “They’re already dead; your precious organization killed them. You can’t walk all over people and kill, kidnap, and threaten whoever you want without consequences. And that’s what I am—the consequence.”

  She sniffed, her shoulders shaking in silent sobs. “It’s important,” she muttered again.

  I sighed. As much as I wanted to just plug her and finish this, I needed to know what they were doing here.

  “Don’t move,” I said. I stood up and took a second to make sure there were no beasts coming my way. I stretched my senses as far as I could and heard nothing. Good.

  I went back in the room and picked up the satellite phone, it worked just like a normal cell. I dialed Krisan’s number from memory and waited for her to pick up.

  “Hello?” she said carefully.

  “Go for Wraith,” I said with a smile.

  “Oh my God, Madi! Where have you been! I’ve been going nuts trying to find you.”

  It was nice to know she cared.

  “How long?” I asked.

  “Two days. You don’t know?” she asked.

  “No. Can you do your thing with… one sec.” I walked briskly back to the doc who had decided to cowgirl up and try for the pain-stick. I popped her in the other knee. Her screams echoed down the hall long after the gunshot faded.

  “What are you doing?” Krisan asked.

  “Making a point. Do your thing with this phone and see what you can find. I’m in some kind of genetics lab. I need to burn this place to the ground. ‘Kay?”

  She paused for a second. The line hadn’t died—I could still hear her breathing. “Kris?”

  “Yeah,” she said in a whisper. “I’m on it... Madi? Are you okay?”

  “Never better,” I said before placing the phone down next to the computer station in the room. She’s linked via Bluetooth before; wi-fi should be a cakewalk.

  “Now,” I said turning back to the crying doctor. “Where were we?”

  “Please,” she sobbed, “please!”

  “I bet that is what every single girl you murdered said, right before you fed them to those beasts. Now, be succinct—you don’t have many joints left for me to shoot. What are you doing here?”

  Either because of the pain or shock, she slumped, her spirit broken. “I’m a Doctor of genetics. We’re trying to make a better human, one who can survive the coming calamity,” she said. Her body started to shake as shock set in.

  “Calamity?”

  She looked up at me. “Yes, you fool. The human race is doomed. We’re all going to die now—my work with alien DNA was all the hope we had.”

  Alien DNA? I let out a laugh, unable to hide my incredulity. “What? You mean those things that attacked a few years ago? I’ve heard people say that was nothing more than an elaborate hoax. Are you saying they were real?”

  She nodded as best she could. “The Th’un... they came to strip mine our world, but that idiot girl...” her eyes closed.

  “Doc,” I said tapping her temple with the gun. “What does this have to do with killing these girls?”

  “Making... better... people...”

  And I thought ISO-1 was the worst? At least they were in it for the money. This whack-job experimented on innocent people trying to give them superpowers, turn them into monsters? All for some imagined catastrophe?

  I stood up, deciding that enough was enough. I kept my promise. My last round finished the job.

  “Kris? You there?” I asked as I picked up the Sat phone.

  “Yeah, my God Madi, this place... I found the video of what they did to you, to the other women... oh God.” The phone on her end fell and I heard her run to the bathroom and retch.

  I couldn’t blame her. They weren’t even sure who I was and they cut off my arm to find out if I had superpowers. They fed those poor, terrified girls to monsters just to see what would happen.

  I was all out of sympathy.

  “Thank you,” Spice said from the behind me. I turned around to see what she meant. She was standing over the doctor. “I should have had more faith in you.”

  “What are you babbling about, now?”

  She smiled down at the body of the doctor. “You didn’t even ask me for anything.”

  My blood ran cold as I realized what she meant.

  CHAPTER 31

  Distantly I heard Krisan calling my name. She was far away, and the horror show that was me was right here. I told her I wouldn’t do it. I told her that I wasn’t a monster, not her puppet...

  Then I went and tortured the doctor to death. Slowly, painfully, just the way Spice asked me too.

  “Madi! For the love of… tell me you’re okay! I’m freaking out over here,” Krisan yelled from the other side of the phone.

  I looked down at the sat phone I held. Distantly it registered. Krisan was my friend, my ally. Spice once suggested I kill her. Would I? I looked back to the doctor’s corpse then to the phone... can she make me do things or... or... am I really the monster I pretend I’m not?

  The moment of doubt passed and I reasserted myself, my commitment. The doctor worked for ISO-1. She was a terrible human being who deserved every second of pain, if not more. I did the world a favor. Spice is just... she’s messing with me is all.

  I think.

  “Kris? Sorry, I was... distracted. Tell me what you got.” I can hear her hyperventilating on the other end and it takes her a second to slow her breathing down to the point where she can talk.

  “I can see that I’m going to need to lay off coffee when I’m around you. God. Like I need a panic attack every five minutes!”

  I smiled. “That’s me, a caffeine replacement. Now, what have you found?”

  “I did a cursory dive and pulled some footage. Their computer system is a mess. How did you know I would be able to access it like a phone?” she asked.

  “Lucky guess. Can you go back in, pull out whatever is available?”

  “Sure, just hang tight for a second... I’m going—” mid-sentence her voice changed from Krisan to a computer-generated version of it in the room’s speaker system. “—this is so weird. I can see their computers, files, emails, it’s like I’m physically in the system,” she said over the PA.

  She went silent for a moment. Then the computers in the room flashed to life, lock screens vanished and she was in.

  “Oh my God, I just walked through their security, Madi. WALKED! It’s like it wasn’t even there. If I can do this with these highly encrypted files, imagine what— oh, hello? What are you doing...” the PA went dead. No static, no sound, just nothing.

  “Krisan?” I said into the phone. The line was still connected, I could hear her breathing. “Kris?”

  Now it was my turn to freak out. I paced the room, waiting for her to respond. When she didn’t I went to the computers and hit a few buttons. I was never very good with them. These were custom made with an operating system I didn’t recognize. Certainly not Windows.

  All I could do was wait.

  I didn’t have to wait long. Growling echoed down the hall from the way I’d come.

  Frag. They found me. Had to happen sooner or later.

  “Listen, Kris, I don’t know if you can hear me,” I said into the sat phone but I’m about to have company. I don’t think disconnecting will hurt you but I’m going to do it.”

  I hun
g up the phone. The computer systems screen went red then died and all the power shut off.

  The bad news was no more grenades. Just my pistol to deal with this. And my powers—couldn’t forget them.

  The rope.

  I slipped out the door and snatched up the smooth silk rope they tried to strangle me with. It was a good ten feet long. I ran my fingers over it, expanding the loop to accommodate the beast’s much wider neck.

  All the dead bodies would hide my scent, even with its superior sense of smell. It wasn’t hard to find a handhold in the maze of pipes above and pull up into them. I hooked each foot over a pipe and used my elbows to keep me up there so I was hanging parallel with the floor and six feet up. If not for the Wraith power, I’d strain to stay up there. As it was, I could bench press a bull; keeping myself suspended was nearly effortless.

  I heard the scraping of its claws, followed by the sharp snort of it breathing. Then, I saw it; dark brown fur with streaks of black on it’s back. It was half again as big as any of the others I’d seen. Muscles rippled up and down it like water. I started to doubt choking it out would be an option, even with the rope.

  The crunch of breaking bones told me it was now or never as it began feeding. It would be the most vulnerable for the few minutes it ate. I just didn’t want to think about what it was feeding on.

  I wanted to move, but a sliver of fear kept me frozen in place. What if I just waited? It would move on... or finish its meal and then come looking for me once I was the only thing to smell.

  Right.

  Time to work for a living.

  I dropped. Hitting its back square on I looped the rope around its neck in one smooth motion. I did the same thing to it that they did to me, except I held on. The beast went nuts, bucking and jumping as I pulled the rope tight.

  I knew I wouldn’t be able to hang on long, and tied a knot to keep it choking him. He flung himself backward, smashing me into a pair of steam pipes.

  Three hundred degree water vapor sprayed out engulfing me. I screamed and he let out a guttural roar of agony as the hot water flash fried us.