Superhero by Night Omnibus

by Jeffery H. Haskell

  Sara stood behind Vaas as he walked over to me. “I’m sorry I ever doubted your commitment,” she said. Her voice was full of anticipation. Well, she wasn’t wrong.

  “Get up,” he said, grabbing my dreads and pulling me to my knees. I winced for real; it hurt. “You’re going to tell me who helped you. How did you know about the mansion? Who told you about the money exchange? How did you know the Regulators were coming in yesterday? How did you kill them?” he asked, spittle flying in my face while his questions turned into a shout. He didn’t wait for me to answer, just started rabbit punching me in the gut with one hand while he held me up with the other.

  “Madisun?” Krisan called, her voice crackling in my ear from her fear.

  “I’ll talk,” I said. “Just don’t hit me again.” I let a few tears roll down my face, I deserved a damn Oscar for the performance. He let go of my head and I fell to my knees, clutching my aching ribs.

  “That’s more like it. Now who?” he asked again.

  I took a breath and waited for a heartbeat.

  “Madisun, you have to get out of there. They’re planning on blowing up the Saints HQ with all the C4 you found. It’s going down right now!”

  Oh crap.

  The Saints HQ was a massive dome in the center of the city. It was built to withstand a bomb—but not one placed on the inside.

  “The Saints?” I asked.

  “What?” Vaas said, leaning close to me. “What did you say?”

  “You’re planning on blowing up the Saints? Are you insane? Not even ISO could get away with something that brazen,” I said.

  His eyes narrowed. “How do you know that?”

  He was close enough and I was tired of the act. I put one hand down on the ground and braced myself. “Your brother told me a lot before I burned him alive.”

  His eyes went wide, and I struck. I hit him like a linebacker, slamming my shoulder in his chest and lifting him high in the air before I let him go. He flew right into the power box on the wall of the old building. It shattered and exploded as circuits were interrupted suddenly, plunging the restaurant into darkness. Sadly, the electricity didn’t kill him, he simply slumped against the wall, dazed.

  Normally I’d kill everyone here, but them blowing up the Saints HQ was slightly more pressing. I shadow stepped to the nearest man, letting my light shine as kicked him in the back of the knees and snapped his neck like a twig. Power flowed through me as he died. I picked up his body, took one step forward and swung him like a shot-put and let him go, flying toward the picture window with the restaurant’s logo on it.

  The glass exploded in a million pieces as the body flew through it. I ran at the next guy, dropping into a slide and catching his gut on my boot. He folded over my foot and I divested him of his phone and firearm. A ubiquitous Glock 17. At least it was a forty-five. I shot him twice, threw the body behind me with a jerk of my knees, then kip-upped.

  Sometimes even I forget how fast I can move. They were still processing what had happened to Vaas, the fastest of them drawing their guns as I watched. I sprinted for the window as the bullets started flying after me. I dove out, hitting the concrete with my shoulder, rolling and then back on my feet, running for the Hellcat. I leaped, sliding over the hood to get to the other side. I was in the driver’s seat an instant later, the engine roaring to life as I jammed down the button.

  “They’re still alive?” Krisan asked from where she was huddled on the passenger floor.

  “For now,” I said. I threw the car into reverse and gunned it. The tires squealed as I spun the wheel, kicking it into a J-turn, slammed it in drive, and floored it. The big rear tires screamed in protest as they spun for a second before finding grip. It was like riding a rocket; the car flew down the street. Even with my enhanced reflexes, it was hard to control.

  I checked the rear-view mirror, only to see several vehicles spring to life and follow me out onto the main street a few seconds later.

  “You boys want to race, let’s race,” I said.

  “That’s the spirit, Madi,” Sara said, cheering from the backseat.

  Chapter 26

  Madi?” Krisan asked. I ignored her for the moment, focusing on the road. The Hellcat was awesomely fast, but nimble it wasn’t. I slammed on the breaks, locking the wheels and causing the ABS to kick in to avoid sliding as a Smart car pulled out in front of me, heedless of their insignificant size.

  “Madi?”

  “What?”

  “You’re bleeding. Were you shot?”

  I looked down and sure enough, blood dripped from a wound in my shoulder. In all the excitement I hadn’t felt it. Within a second the wound closed and the blood stopped. “I’m fine.”

  I don’t heal instantly, but I do heal. Could I survive a shot to the head? Maybe. I sure didn’t want to find out.

  I floored it past the Smart car, clipping their mirror and sending them flying off the road in a flurry of honking horns. A moment later the rear window exploded and the sound of automatic gunfire reached me a half second after the bullets.

  Man, what I wouldn’t have given for a grenade right about then. I reached back with my borrowed Glock and put two rounds in the radiator of the expensive BMW SUV. My thinking was that if I fired back maybe they would back off a little. I couldn’t really take my attention off the road long enough to aim properly.

  Or could I?

  I took another corner in a shroud of smoking tires as I pressed the accelerator all the way to the floor. When you punch the gas while you’re turning, it causes a spin; don’t do it unless that is the goal. I did a one-eighty before coming to a stop. I leaned out the window and held the gun on the spot where I thought they would come into sight. Sure enough, a few seconds later the SUV smoked her tires as the back end lost some grip taking the corner faster than they should have. I lined up the sights with the driver, using my Wraith vision to nullify the shadows. With my amped reflexes time slowed to a crawl. The windshield drifted over my sights, I saw the passenger, then the center seat followed by the driver. That’s when I squeezed the trigger, twice.

  The first round caught the driver in the chest, the second in the throat. He instantly let go of the wheel. In response, the back end broke loose and swung around even farther until it hit the curb, which made the whole vehicle flip up into the air and roll into the corner coffee shop.

  Oops.

  I only felt the surge of a single death, which I guess made me feel better? At least no one in the coffee shop died. I tucked the gun between my thigh and the seat, threw the car into reverse and repeated my j-turn from earlier. Once I was facing the right way, I floored it, leaving a trail of melted rubber for a hundred feet down the road. I was in third gear in five seconds.

  “Drive fast much?” Krisan asked from the floorboard.

  “Nope. Never really drove much before, to be honest.” I glided around the much slower traffic, sliding from side to side in my seat, hitting the molded leather with my butt each time.

  “I change my mind; I don’t want to go with you,” she said, clutching the chair and pressing herself against the underside of the dash.

  “You’re welcome to jump out whenever you want,” I told her in reply. Her response was lost in a cacophony of horns blasting me from every side as I drove right through a red light, leaving screeching tires and cursing drivers behind. I’m sure they would understand if they knew the reason.

  The clock on the dash told me I had just under four hours to infiltrate the Saints HQ, find the bomb, and defuse it. The HQ was huge, so every second counted. I just hope they counted enough.

  “Do they have a way to remote detonate it?” I asked Krisan.

  “No. The Saints HQ is shielded from electronic signals. Nothing in or out. It will have to be by timer—it’s the only way.”

  If they wanted to kill all the Saints, this would be the way to do it. Detonate a massive bomb, collapse the building they’re in, kill some in the explosion, show the world that ISO was above the
law. Well, maybe they were. But they weren’t above me.

  “Call Bill. Tell him to get his team down there. I have a feeling ISO is going to make an all-out assault to stop us. We’re going to need help.”

  I ducked instinctively and a round slammed into the windshield, spider webbing the vehicle’s glass. I slammed on the brakes and turned hard left, sending the car into a slide in the same direction I was going. I focused my vision on the next SUV that chased after us. The tinted windows diminished, and I saw through to the darkened interior. I didn’t stop to think, I just acted. Triggering my shadow step I vanished from the Hellcat and re-appeared on the center console of the SUV. My legs were in the back and my torso was in the front. I slipped my hand under the drivers arm and pulled his piece, a .357 revolver, and shot him in the ribs before I looked back to the Hellcat and shadow stepped again.

  Krisan was screaming when I appeared. Without a driver to fight the slide the car went into a three-sixty spin. I hit the gas and torqued the wheel in the direction of the slide and I was out, shooting forward in my initial direction. The SUV behind me drove off the road and slammed into a telephone pole. Apparently, the passengers hadn’t worn their seat belts. The rush of power in my blood told me they hadn’t lived to learn their lesson.

  “Don’t ever do that again! Oh my God you’re going to get me killed.”

  “I told you this was dangerous,” I said with a smirk.

  “I thought you were talking about the villains, not you!”

  One of the things I loved about the car was how loud it was. Also how tight the interior was. Even without my seatbelt on the seat gripped me like an overzealous boyfriend. Which was great, because the next turn almost slid me into the passenger seat. Krisan screamed the entire time as the tires fought for grip. I spun the wheel, alternating the brake and gas, then dropping it down a gear before flooring it. The car found its groove and shot around the ninety-degree turn like it was on rails.

  “See,” I said to her. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?” She shook her head, one hand clamped over her mouth like she was literally holding in the vomit. I wrinkled my nose. “Don’t you dare puke in my car.”

  Yes, I was having a lot of fun. When had I lost my mind?

  Chapter 27

  That’s a gate,” Krisan said as she pulled her seatbelt on. When no one shot at us anymore she’d finally come off the floorboard for the remainder of the trip.

  “You’re very observant; you should be a reporter or something,” I said to her as I pulled my own seatbelt on with one hand and clicked it into place.

  “Then why are you speeding up?”

  “Because I don’t think they’re going to let me in if I ask nicely. Hang on!”

  The engine roared as I shifted up, floored it, hitting almost a hundred. I needed to close the distance to the gate without giving the armed guards time to react. At the same time, hitting the gate at a hundred would probably kill Krisan. Thirty feet from the impact I slammed on the brakes and jerked the wheel hard over.

  Alarms wailed on the gatehouse as the four-thousand-pound car slammed sideways into the traffic gate. I didn’t know how fast we were going but it was fast enough to deploy the airbags and roll the car three times.

  We came down on the tires and inside the compound. The Dome had an exterior wall that left a fifty-foot safe-zone between it and the dome itself. Between the wall, the gate, and the armed guards, no one could get to the dome without going through a checkpoint—or at least crashing through it.

  I had my belt off in a second. “Come on, they’ll be on us in a second.”

  Krisan didn’t answer. She looked at me with a dazed expression. Right. I rolled the car and she doesn’t have my abilities. However, with all the airbags and safety systems in modern cars it took more than a simple rollover to cause any real injuries. I reached over, took the seatbelt in my hand, and pulled. The metal broke with a ping. I pulled her out and started running for the dome, carrying her.

  All the lights were pointed at the perimeter, leaving me plenty of places to hide, but I was going to need her help for this. There was no way I could search the whole facility, and with her power to tap into phones she should be able to guide me.

  I heard shouting behind us but no gunfire— yet. All the shadows and darkness melted away as my powers kicked in. There was a loading bay off to our right, with one of those folded aluminum doors. Right in front of us was an emergency exit style door with no outside handle. That worked for me.

  I slid to a stop in front of the door, dropped a dazed Krisan on her butt, lifted up my foot and kicked with all my might. The wall shook as the door blasted off its hinges, banging against the inside of the hallway and knocking a poor security guard down and out.

  “Come on,” I said to Krisan and held out my hand. Clearly, she was waking up as she reached out and took it. I hefted her up and moved as fast as I could with her in tow. I wasn’t so much worried about the guards as I was the other inhabitants of the dome. I seriously doubted ISO had left much to chance. If I had to guess, the bomb was not only rigged on a timer but had some sort of trip circuit and two or three different fail-safes.

  “Tell me about the Saints,” I said as we moved down the hall to the stairwell.

  “Uh, the leader’s name is Mach; he’s strong, invulnerable, can fly, that sort of thing. Seraph is their second-in-command. She’s the one you need to worry about. She’s why they are incorruptible. Her aura prevents any kind of external influence on a person’s mind. She has wings and can wield melee weapons made of light. I think she’s pretty strong and tough too.”

  I tried the stairwell door; it required a security card but had glass in a little window like a school. I punched my fist through it, grabbed the push bar and opened the door from the other side.

  “Uh… you’re bleeding,” Krisan said as I pulled her through the door with my bloody hand.

  “Broken too, at least three knuckles.” Strangely, it didn’t really hurt. I was aware of the pain but it was almost as if it were a distant awareness, like a headache that hadn’t quite started yet. The bones popped as they mended themselves and the tears in my skin knitted together until my hand was just covered in blood.

  “That’s so cool,” Krisan said as I pulled her down the stairs.

  “Take out your phone. See what you can find nearby while I look for a place to stash you.”

  She nodded, pulling out her phone and trying not to trip while she took the stairs three at a time. By the fourth floor down she was breathing hard and we had to stop.

  “Who else?” I asked.

  “Uh, there’s Triage, who can regenerate himself and others, Burn, a fire elemental, and Bull, a beast-kin—you can guess what kind.”

  “Minotaur?” I asked. She nodded. “Cool.”

  “He’s one of the few that works for the good guys. Uh, what’s your plan for dealing with them?”

  I opened the door onto sublevel four, checked both ways, and dragged Krisan down the hallway to the first door. It was locked, for the moment. I didn’t want to leave any trace of my passage so I knelt down and pulled out the lock picks Joseph taught me how to use. In a few seconds I had the door open and us inside. I closed it quietly behind us, locked the door, and left the lights off in the room.

  Looking around I could see a bed, dresser, closet and a footlocker. Staff room then, I guessed. “You should be safe here for a little while. Get on your phone and see what you can see.”

  “No signals in or out. Only secure, verified cell phones can access the towers.”

  Dang, I hadn’t thought of that.

  I walked over to the military-style footlocker, pulled the lock off it like it was made of paper and opened the top. Sure enough, boots, belts, vests, and yes, a pair of orange security radios. Perfect!

  I tossed one to her and checked the channels. The pre-set they were on was probably security’s, but when I tried to access it the radio beeped.

  “Passcode,” Krisan said.

>   Figured. I turned it to another channel, it let us use it. “Channel two. Let me know when you have something.”

  She nodded. “What are you going to do?”

  I smiled. “Well, two-tons of C4 isn’t easy to hide. I’m guessing it’s in the parking garage, so that is where I’m going unless you tell me different.”

  “Okay, uh, good luck.” She wrapped her arms around me in a surprise hug. I froze for a second, but then hugged her back. For a heartbeat it was like I had a normal life and a friend. Then reality crashed back into me.

  “Stay out of sight. If they find you, just tell them I kidnapped you.”

  “You did,” she said with a smile. “I asked you to let me go and you said no.”

  “You really are a reporter the way you bend the truth,” I said as I closed the door behind me. I hoped that wasn’t the last time I ever saw her, but if I were being honest with myself…

  ♦♦♦

  Bill swore as he looked at the text from Krisan.

  >>>>Your C4 is at Saints HQ in the form of a bomb, courtesy of ISO-1. Please help<<<<

  He hurriedly typed his reply, his fat fingers misspelling every other word, but he didn’t stop to fix it, hoping that she would understand anyway.

  >>>> Don’t go there let is hassle it… handle it<<<<

  When she didn’t respond he swore again. “Rico, wake everyone up. We need to go in five.”

  His second jumped to his feet, kicking the bunks of the three other squad members who were all sacked out after the afternoon’s intense fighting.

  “What’s going on?” Zim asked, rubbing his tired face as he stood.

  “Krisan and our other friend found the C4,” he replied as he jogged over to where he stored his kit and started pulling on his combat gear.