I couldn’t let them use human shields. I stepped through the nearest shadow, raising my hand and flinging a knife at one. It twirled end over end and slammed into the back of the one closest. I vanished, walking through the shadows without a sound. I came out across the room and threw my last knife.
Another sailor fell. What I really needed was my pistols, but both had been knocked from me and this wasn’t a hold-out situation. I scanned the floor, looking for the black lump of metal that would tell me where one of my guns were… when I remembered.
In all the excitement I had forgotten.
I shook my head and reached behind me, pulling the Skorpion to my shoulder and letting loose with a burst that raked the last two men across the back.
Standing still cost me though. Dimitri hit me like a bull, slamming me between him and the bulkhead. I let out a curse as ribs caved in like clay and my right hand jammed backward with a snap.
I clenched my teeth to keep from screaming in agony as he started pummeling me.
“You killed twelve men like they were nothing! You gave them no chance,” he said as he hit me. He seemed more upset by my lack of honor than about actually killing them. Of course, he was the one with me pinned by his shoulder against a bulkhead while he beat me senseless.
Oh God did it hurt. I was crying but still not making a sound as I felt bones snap then knit together, only to break again. I guessed his plan was to overwhelm my regeneration.
It would have worked, too.
“Hey mother Russia, eat this!” Fifty feet to the other side of the room stood Krisan. She’d picked up the AT-4 from where Dimitri had discarded it. She had it shouldered like a pro as she pushed the firing button with her thumb.
My reflexes kicked into overdrive, slowing everything down. I pulled my knees to my chest, braced my legs against him, and heaved. Distracted and off balance, I pushed him toward the rocket.
The little tube lit like a firework. Fire leaped from the tube following the missile that was designed to penetrate light armor across the room. The blast hit the bulkhead behind Krisan and rebounded, knocking her down and singing her clothes.
Fire exploded in the room. The shock wave hit me a hundred times harder than he did.
When the fire passed, all that was left was a loud ringing that permeated my ears. I shook my head, pushing myself up from my position lying face down on the metal deck.
A few feet away, Dimitri was on his knees, blood covering his shoulder, but his chest rose and fell with each heartbeat.
If I am going to keep doing this, I have got to find a way to counter powers like this. I can’t rely on luck.
I put my feet under me, staggering as I walked over to him. He’d claimed to take an anti-tank round before, but he might have exaggerated a little. The gaping hole in his peck’s said it hurt.
“Will… heal…” he said. It might. The skin around the wound was already turning brown as his powers accelerated the healing of his injury.
“It might have,” I said. I took out the thermite grenade I had brought, pulled the pin, and jammed it into the hole in his chest.
I stepped back and he screamed as the thermite burst into flames with a whoosh. Heat poured off of him as the phosphorus burned at four thousand degrees. He didn’t even have time to stand before he was unrecognizable as a human being. Then the floor gave way and the entire mass of burning flesh fell to the deck below.
The air was awful, my ears hurt, and I could barely see through all the smoke.
I’d call that a job well done.
Epilogue
“You know, there is still plenty of crime to fight in Detroit,” Krisan said as she leaned against me. Once the smoke started seeping out of the passages and vents the authorities had stormed aboard. I’d taken Krisan’s hand and led her away from the police and firemen. She was shell-shocked, a little bruised, but nothing that wouldn’t heal.
“I think the stories of what the Wraith did here tonight will calm things down for a good long while,” I said as I helped her over the last barrier to the parking area where I had left the Ducati.
“They just might,” she said with a grin. “Is he… is he dead?” she asked, suddenly serious.
I stopped, looking back at her for a moment. I realized she wasn’t talking about the super we had just burned. Whatever it was she had with the Wraith, it was personal, and I hated to be the bearer of bad news. I just nodded, not trusting myself to speak. After everything that had happened to me in the last year, I felt like acknowledging his death to another human being would be that one step too far and I would break.
I wouldn’t break. Not tonight. Not ever, if I could help it.
“Now what?” she asked.
“There’s a shelter downtown I stayed at when I first moved here. Can you donate Joseph’s cash to them?”
She nodded. “Of course. Send me the address when you can… and where the money is.”
“Your evidence is with the money too, I managed to find it in your vent.”
“Oh good,” she said. “I was worried they destroyed it. But that wasn’t what I meant, where will you go next?”
I looked out over the lock. Smoke still streamed out of the freighter. I’d saved a lot of lives tonight. It felt good. More than good. Whatever it was inside of me, rewarding me for killing, I needed to know more.
“I’m going home. Ghost was only a grunt, I need the rest of his organization along with anyone else involved.”
Krisan sighed. A sad, lonely sound. “Please be careful,” she said.
I turned and suddenly found myself on the receiving end of a hug. “Kufu would have loved you.” I assumed she meant her deceased husband.
I had never had trouble with emotions before—I was always giving and receiving hugs. This was no different. I clasped my arms around her and returned it.
“I might call you,” I said.
“Why?”
“Even a Wraith needs a friend.”
The End.
Afterword
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The Wraith: Welcome Home
Superhero by Night Book 1
The Wraith Welcome Home © 2019 by Jeffery H. Haskell
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
Cover designed by www.VividCovers.com
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events or locales, is entirely coincidental.
Jeffery H. Haskell
Visit my website at www.jefferyhhaskell.com
Printed in the United States of America
First Published: Jan 2019
Molten Press
ISBN: 9781795082969
I’ve written enough books now, that I’m not sure who to thank anymore. Everyone. If you’re reading this, then it’s for you!
Chapter 1
Anthony Ribissi smiled as he let the leather-wrapped steering wheel of his brand-new Dodge Hellcat slide through his fingers. The muscle car handled the narrow road leading up to Raker’s mansion with ease. He resisted the urge to gun the engine, preferring to show the car off with her sm
ooth lines and the low growl of her big engine. The Hellcat was a special edition car; seven hundred and ninety-seven horsepower, European style racing suspension, and big Goodyear tires made her look and sound mean.
Just like Anthony himself.
The Hellcat was his reward for his promotion. Four years as an enforcer, another five as an assistant to a bookie, then up to second lieutenant of the docks. And now… now he was in charge of the docks. Sure, working for the Outfit wasn’t the easiest job in the world—but he could’ve been like his father, slogging away as a warehouse worker for thirty years before dying of a stroke in the July heat.
And his father never drove a Hellcat; he drove a lousy green station wagon with broken tail lights.
Anthony parked the big car next to a pair of predictably black BMWs. His Hellcat was bright yellow with two black lines right down the middle. The rims were black, showing off the bright red brake calipers behind them. Everything about the car screamed excess.
He hit the button to kill the engine then climbed out, leaving the windows down. It was another long, hot November day in New Orleans. Despite the dying light to the west, the heat was enough to suffocate him. He walked past the drivers milling about outside smoking cigarettes and trading lies. There had to be twenty-five cars here: the biggest meeting of the New Orleans Outfit he’d heard of since last year. Every lieutenant was here or was represented here. It was his first meeting as a made man and he couldn’t be happier.
It was too bad it would be his last.
The man whose position he inherited had disappeared the week before, taking with him the payment intended to encourage the port authority to look the other way. When a made man disappeared, the Outfit asked questions. When he disappeared with a hundred grand in cash and jewels, they knew the answer; he’d decided to strike out on his own. If they ever found him, it would be a long slow death as an example to others. Not something Anthony would ever do. No, he was in it for the long haul. He had plans.
Raker’s mansion held a lofty position on top of a small hill. Three stories tall and spread out over twenty-thousand square feet, it used to be a plantation; now it was home to the man in charge of Anthony’s division. It was a much bigger sounding job than it was. Anthony had met the man once before and was completely underwhelmed. If not for his superpowers, Raker he would never have held any position in the Outfit.
Anthony nodded at the tough looking security men who bracketed either side of the large double doors. He didn’t know what kind of compact SMGs they carried, but they were black, short barreled, and mean looking. He carried a silver-plated forty-five in a real Italian leather shoulder holster he’d bought that morning. It was uncomfortable as hell, but he was determined to look the part.
Inside the mansion were twenty of New Orleans’ most powerful men. The lieutenants. Each division had a lieutenant in charge, the only people above them was Vaas, his brother Peter, and Raker. Anthony had only met the scary as hell leader of ISO-1 in the city once, and that was enough. Each lieutenant had roughly forty soldiers under them.
Forty!
Anthony swelled with pride at the thought of his new position. He’d made it. No one could take it from him.
The brown oak double doors swung open revealing the two curved staircases on either side of the foyer. Standing in his bathrobe with a pair of bimbos hanging on his every word, was Raker. How the short, fat, balding man with a greasy smile and stubby fingers ever managed to snag two gorgeous model types was beyond Anthony’s imagination. Nothing about Raker spoke to any kind of worth. It had to be the money.
Raker smiled, “Tony, welcome. As this is your first meeting, I want to advise you to keep quiet and listen. No need to embarrass yourself on your first day!” The two girls giggled as if Raker had just said the funniest thing all day. He opened his mouth to say something sharp when he found himself nodding and agreeing with Raker. Tony made his way to the large conference room and heard the man chuckling behind him, greeting the next person to arrive.
What the hell was that all about? Tony didn’t like Raker; now that he was ten feet from him, he really wanted to go back and yell at the fat man for condescending to him like a child. Anthony wasn’t stupid, despite his chosen career. He suddenly realized Raker’s power; some form of mind control or emotional manipulation.
Son of a gun. Got to remember to stay away from him.
Some supers worked by pheromones; he’d read an interview with a hottie from Arizona who talked about how empathic powers worked and how a person should respond if they thought they were being controlled. Stay away was her number one advice and Anthony was going to take it. He would never get within twenty feet of the fat pervert again for as long as he lived. That was a promise.
The meeting room was really a giant living room, re-arranged with a massive oak table, plush high back chairs, and twice as many wooden chairs behind them. The lieutenants sat in the plush chairs and the numerous soldiers they each brought with them sat behind. Anthony clenched his jaw. He was here by himself. The others had all brought four or five enforcers with them. He suddenly felt quite exposed. He tugged down on his jacket, cracked his neck, and walked directly to the seat with his name draped on the back. Or, it should have been his name; instead, it was his former boss. He scowled.
That’s the way it’s going to be then. All right. I’m gonna show these fools who they’re messing with. This will be a meeting they won’t soon forget!
♦♦♦
I crouched on the top branch of the old oak tree in the center of the cul de sac style driveway. The sun was almost completely down, and the anticipation tickled my throat and knotted up my stomach. I double checked the two Glock 17’s that I took off the mobster who had told me where to find this meeting. He didn’t need them anymore. I carried a black, three-foot-long straight bladed sword I’d picked up from a pawn shop the day before. The nylon wrapped handle had the company logo—a timber wolf—on it. Joseph hadn’t mentioned tactical swords in our training, but I figured if the Ghost had so much use for them, then maybe I could look into them. After all, blades are quiet. And scary. That’s the best part.
Get your mind in the game, Madi.
I also had my backup piece, two extra knives, and four mags for each pistol. Each gun had a bullet in the chamber and the silencer attached. No SMG this time. I wanted another Skorpion but that would take time. “Never use the same weapon twice,” Joseph had drilled into me. It made sense; if I carried the gun I used to kill mobsters in Detroit then they would know who it was if I were ever caught with it. The goal was for them to know fear, not me.
I smirked at that. The last month in New Orleans I had quietly struck fear in a number of hearts. By taking out key figures and disrupting shipments and other high-value targets I had orchestrated this meeting. Everything led to this. I took a deep breath and loosened my neck by cracking it from side to side. It was time to work for a living.
Work I really enjoyed.
The man who drove the shiny yellow muscle car walked in followed by another latecomer. After them, one of the security guards in the front turned and walked by the other who then closed the big double doors.
As if doors could keep me out. The building had three stories and at least a hundred windows. With the sun down, half the property was cast in shadow. First, I needed to take out the external threats—slowly, quietly, without alerting anyone inside to my presence… until it was too late. I drew my sword, turned on the tree limb and spied my first target; a lone security man walking the perimeter. I reached down inside me and triggered the shadow-step.
♦♦♦
Anthony shook his head in disbelief at the information Raker was telling them. How had he not known any of this? Fourteen soldiers and two lieutenants missing (including his former boss) and over a million dollars of merchandise stolen, and this was the first he was hearing of it? Not dead, not run off. Simply disappeared. One minute they were there, the next they weren’t.
It was enough t
o give a grown man nightmares. He shifted uncomfortably in his chair. All his plans of showing the men in this room what-was-what disappeared along with his courage. Now he was more concerned about staying alive. No one was supposed to threaten ISO-1 like this. It was one of the perks of working for a mafia-style organization. Protection. They owned the cops, the feds, judges—he’d even heard a rumor the governor was in their pocket.
And now this…
Unconsciously, he slipped his hand into his jacket and fingered his brand new forty-five. He resisted the urge to pull it out and chamber a round.
“What are we going to do about this threat?” Kuss said from opposite Anthony. Kuss was a big man from Serbia—he still had his Slavic accent and he was in charge of the ‘exports’ of the female variety. The man had contacts in Eastern Europe and the Middle East that paid good money for young white women, and there was no shortage of those in New Orleans.
“Before we go any farther, I need a drink. Anyone else?” Raker asked. There was a general agreement to take a breather and the men around him broke out in murmurs, speaking to one another. Raker sent his two blondes to the kitchen, presumably to bring refreshments. Now that Anthony got a better look at them, they were identical twins,
Anthony scooted back from the table a little, steepling his hands in his lap. What could he do? The docks were untouched, maybe he could fortify—
Glass crashed above him. Anthony jerked back as it rained down on the table, followed by a headless body a second later. It thudded lifelessly against the table, splashing blood on half a dozen people.
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