The Legend of the Red Specter (The Adventures of the Red Specter Book 1)

by M. A. Wisniewski

  He held up a finger, and Joy knew that finger held her life. "One last time. Does. This. Woman. Work. For. You?"

  "For the last time, no," replied the Chief. "Wouldn’t hire her. Women stay at home, not half-naked on docks in the middle of the night."

  Benny inhaled, a long, loud sucking of air in through his nose. "Did you know that sharks have an amazing sense of smell? It comes in handy in time like these. Because when someone lies to me, I can smell it."

  Benny sat up and took another exaggerated sniff. "And you, my friend, are absolutely reeking of..."

  Joy felt her her heart race, utterly helpless in Shiori's grip. The letter in her notebook—the one to her family… it would never reach them. They wouldn’t know—

  "...the truth." Benny sat back and let his finger drift off harmlessly to the side. Joy felt the blade at her throat vanish, as Shiori released her vice grip.

  "Aw, shucks," said Shiori, twirling her throwing-knife around in her fingers.

  Joy collapsed, slumped down in her chair and took long, relieved gulps of air. She was alive. But still terrified. She was shaking uncontrollably, vibrating against her bonds. She knew she had to recover her wits, but she was so drained that it was impossible to do anything besides breathe, until Shiori's words registered in her brain.

  'Aw, shucks?' You're disappointed? You didn't get to kill me, and you're disappointed? You bitch! You rotten fucking bitch!

  Joy glared at her, but Shiori's attention was elsewhere.

  "Great," said the Chief. "If we're done with this distraction, can get back to business. We—"

  "Distraction?" said Benny, giving Chief Gallach a look that bordered on pity. "This is anything but. Think about it. If she doesn't work for you, and she doesn't work for me, then who does she work for?"

  Chief Gallach shrugged. "Said she was a reporter. For the Gazette."

  "Gazette?" said Benny. "What's a gazette?"

  "One of the local newspapers, Mr. Fang," said Daphne.

  "Eh? I thought we had our hooks in all the local papers. Now you tell me there's one I never even heard of? Why haven't you brought this up in any of your morning summaries?"

  Daphne didn't even blink. "My apologies, Mr. Fang. The reason I haven't mentioned the Gazette before is because it isn't worth mentioning. Actually, calling it a 'newspaper' is being overly generous. It's a cheap tabloid stuffed with base speculation, gossip, exaggeration, and outright fantasies, lacking even the most basic journalistic standards, devoid of any useful information, whose readership is a pack of idiots. Which is why I don't bring it up, Mr. Fang.”

  Daphne ended her takedown with the barest flick of her eyes in Joy's direction. It lasted for a brief instant, but it was enough for Joy to read her cool contempt, and Joy felt her face burning. The worst thing was that she couldn't really disagree with Daphne's assessment, but did she have to sound so dismissive? You know, making up the right sort of entertaining bullshit was a lot harder than you'd think. She'd like to see Daphne try it for a day and see how easy it was. And who the hell was she to judge about nonsense? Her boss thought he was a shark. A freaking shark!

  "Oh, I get it," said Benny. "Actually, that's brilliant. Perfect cover. But it's blown to the Abyss now."

  Cover? What cover? Joy tried to gather her wits as Benny turned his attention back to her.

  "Now, Ms. Fan, let's dispense with all the bullshit. Who do you really work for?"

  "Me?" said Joy. "No-one, technically. I'm—"

  The blow from Shiori's gauntlet caught her by surprise. Pain exploded across the side of her face, as her jaw clacked painfully against the rest of her skull and the whole world tipped and wobbled about.

  "Ms. Fan," said Benny, sounding gravely disappointed. "Remember what I said about lying to me. That just won't work."

  "But I'm not lying," she managed to get out. "I'm a freelance reporter, and right now I'm on assignment for—"

  Joy saw another punch coming, but a word from Daphne stopped it.

  "No more head shots, Shiori," she said, attention diverted back down to her notes.

  "What?" said Shiori, whirling on Benny's assistant.

  "We need her to stay coherent," Daphne replied, without looking up. "We're not going to get decent information if you knock her brains out through her ear, now are we?"

  "Hah! Hear that? Always thinking, this broad," said Benny, turning to address his troops. "You guys should take note. This is how you get ahead."

  "Really?" Said Shiori, fixing Daphne with a huge fake smile. "Maybe you'd care to take over for me, then, since you know how to do it better."

  "Don't be childish," said Daphne. "It's a simple enough restriction. I'm sure you can work around it."

  "Gosh, can I?" Shiori replied. "I dunno, it's pretty complicated..."

  "I can do it," said Yang. "Just give me a—"

  "Enough, Yang," said Benny. "This is professional, not personal. You're disqualified. And no sass from you, Shiori. Just do your job."

  “Okay, boss.”

  She whirled and punched Joy in the stomach, gripping the back of the chair to keep it from tipping over, while Joy folded over as much as her bound hands would allow, croaking and wheezing.

  "That was okay, right?" Shiori asked Daphne. "Not too violent or anything? Met all the right punching requirements, I hope?"

  "It wasn't a blow to the head, so yes, that was fine," said Daphne, without deigning to look up from her clipboard. Between gasps, Joy noticed the barely-suppressed tension between the two. Shiori did not like Daphne one little bit.

  "We'll try this again," said Benny. "Who do you really work for?"

  "But," said Joy. "It's the truth. I'm a freelance rep—oof!"

  Joy was ready for the punch this time. She couldn't dodge, but she could use some of the tricks she'd learned in her Combatives courses. She tensed her stomach muscles while relaxing everything else, trying to intentionally fold over around the blow, absorb and disperse the energy. It didn't feel good, but it wasn't nearly as bad as before. She had a second to feel proud of herself before she remembered to act like it hurt much more than it did. They repeated this sequence a second time, and then a third, before the Chief interrupted.

  "This is getting nowhere. What difference does it make? Maybe she is a reporter—"

  "No, my nose tells me she's lying," said Benny.

  "Your shark nose," said the Chief, not bothering to hide his disgust. "Expect me to believe that—"

  "Yes I do!" snapped Benny, letting genuine irritation show through. "Because you know what this broad did? Snuck onto a ship—my ship, and she knew that—knocked out the entire crew, freed six girls from a cage—a cage that was suspended in the hold, fifteen feet over the orlop deck, and then torched half the dock. You ever heard of a reporter doing that? All on her lonesome? Does that sound like what a reporter would do?"

  The Guardsmen all looked at each other, and then at her. Joy felt her mind racing. Hearing her exploits recounted like that, it did sound kind of insane. What the Abyss had she been thinking? But wait...

  "I didn't knock out those guards," said Joy. "That wasn't me."

  "Really," said Benny. "Then who was it?

  "I... I don't know who did it. I just found them like that—" she managed to get out, before having to brace for another gut-shot. Each one hurt more than the last. Her abs were starting to tire under the abuse. But what else could she say? They'd never believe it was the Red Specter, and how could she prove it? She hadn't actually seen him.

  "You just found ‘em? Well, let's see what the crew has to say about that." Benny nodded to his assistant, who flipped through her notes.

  "All of the crew of the Joanne Spaulding were recovered trussed up and stowed in one of the dinghies," said Daphne. "All of them appear to have been dosed with some unknown, yet powerful sedative. Whatever it is, it hasn't worn off yet. We can rouse them with smelling salts, but only briefly before they go back under. None of them have been able to give us a coherent descrip
tion of their attacker. Most don't even remember being attacked. We have the captain here, if you want to see if he's recovered any."

  "Bring him out," said Benny.

  Two of the Triad men dashed off into one of the aisles and returned hauling the barely-conscious form of the captain between them. His feet dragged on the ground and his head lolled about from side to side. His porters struggled to keep their boneless cargo upright, gripping him by his belt and by a handful of his shirt, right beneath his armpit.

  "Captain Ong," said Benny. "How good of you to join us."

  The captain mumbled something incoherent as his chin flopped to his chest. Benny glanced over at Daphne, who nodded, tucked her clipboard under her arm, and knelt down to retrieve her purse. And that's when Joy realized that Daphne's dress was actually slit way up the sides. Like, up to her hips. Then she stood up, and the slits disappeared.

  Completely. How on earth was she doing that? Joy stared at the cut of Daphne's dress, looking for extra pleats or folds, and could not figure out why it was no longer peeking open. Did she just have perfect posture or something? Joy realized she was staring, and she wasn't the only one, either, though most of the men were trying not to be obvious about it, waiting for Daphne to move again, so they could get another glimpse. Daphne didn't move, showing no recognition of any of the attention she was getting. Daphne was starting to piss her off.

  Joy fought down a surge of irritation. She'd never be able to pull that look off in a million years. Didn't have the legs for it, obviously. No, she got people mistaking her for a kid. It was the damned swimsuit, that's what it was. Sure, millitary-issue, function first, whatever, but couldn't the designers have spared just a little thought to body line, and whatnot? Did it have to randomly squish everything together like a sausage? Not that she actually wanted to have a bunch of criminals leering at her, especially right now. So okay, fine--maybe that was best, after all. It was just—Arrrgh!

  Daphne had pulled out and uncorked a small vial, took a pinch of its contents, and stuck them beneath Captain Ong's nostrils. His head jerked back and he opened his eyes.

  "Wha... Where am..." Ong's head still wobbled a bit on his shoulders, as he blinked and looked around. "Not my ship... What you all doing... Here... Innah... Mmrrphl..."

  His eyelids began to sink down as his speech became garbled, but he recovered a bit when Daphne slapped him across the face.

  "Ow! Why'd you do--"

  "Ong!" snapped Benny. "Straighten up. What's the last thing you remember? Who attacked you?"

  "What? Attack? What attack? I don't..." He stared at them all in blank confusion. Daphne grabbed his chin and forced him to face her.

  "Think carefully. Concentrate." She carefully enunciated each word, trying to pierce his mental fog. "What. Is. The. Last. Thing. You. Remember?"

  Captain Ong furrowed his brows. He tried to shake his head like a dog—except Daphne was holding his chin. It was almost comical. "Was looking... For my crew…" he said. "They'd left their posts... Thought they were... And then... then I.…"

  His head started listing to the side. "Dunno... Everything all fuzzy.…"

  Daphne slapped him again. "Enough," said Benny. "Show him the other thing."

  Daphne pulled a thin book out of her purse and held it in front of Ong's face, yanking on his hair to keep him focused on it.

  "Care to explain this, Ong?" Said Benny. "Anything you'd like to say about it? Now would be the time."

  Joy recognized the small ledger she'd found in the secret compartment. Ong's eyes focused on it. It was hard to read the reaction of such a badly drugged person.

  "Whuh…" slurred Ong. "Where'd… get that?"

  "Where'd I get it?" said Benny. "Why, we fished it out of the harbor. And how'd it get there, I wonder? Why don't we ask the fish?"

  Joy found all eyes back on her. She saw no point in lying to protect Ong. "I found it on the ship. It was hidden in the chart room. Secret drawer."

  "Well, isn't that interesting," said Benny. Daphne kept the ledger up in front of Ong's face, flipped it open to the first page.

  "Insurance, Ong?" said Benny, sounding genuinely hurt. "Insurance on me? After all these years? After everything I done for you, everything we've been through? This is how you repay me?"

  Ong struggled to answer, weird half-expressions peeking out from behind the chemical fog that dulled his everything. "Jus' bizness…" was the best he could manage.

  "Business, huh?" said Benny. "Well, now I gotta take care of business. If I was nicer I'd off you now, while you can't feel it. But I think we're going to have a detailed discussion about insurance, after you've slept it off. Get him out of here."

  Benny's goons dragged the Captain off, even as he sunk back down into oblivion, even as Joy wondered exactly what kind of tranquilizer the Red Specter was using to get those results.

  "Now that we've got that out of the way," said Benny, turning back to Joy. "Let’s go back to the main issue of exactly where we found this little notebook. How did you find Ong's notebook? Who told you about it?"

  "Nobody," said "Joy. I found it in the chartroom, in a secret drawer. I thought it might be news."

  "Thought it might be news?" said Benny. "You're ducking my question. How did you just happen to find it, when it was hidden in a secret drawer? That you also just happened to find, without knowing anything about in advance?"

  "I... I know how that sounds, but it's the truth," said Joy. "I was picking the lock, and I realized there was another set of tumblers, hidden behind—"

  "Lock-picking, huh? They teach you that in journalism school?"

  Joy blinked. "N-no, I took supplemental courses—"

  Another gut punch cut her short. Each one hurt more than the last.

  "Supplemental courses," snorted Benny. "In lock-picking. Just what every reporter needs. Hey, Yang, you talked to her, right? She seem like a reporter to you?"

  "No way," said Yang, his grimace only slightly masked by the bandages on his nose. "It's definitely some kind of cover. Suckers you in with her act, and then--whammo! Definitely combat trained. She's got to be an agent for somebody."

  "I'm not," said Joy. "That was—"

  "Cut the bullshit," said Benny. "I been all over the world, and there's no way someone your size takes down someone like Yang without a ton of training. Years of it. Or are you saying that was more 'supplemental courses?' At Journalism School?"

  Joy's mind raced, desperately seeking some way out of the trap she'd fallen in. How could she phrase the truth so it wouldn't sound so unbelievable? And what happened to Benny's lie-sniffing ability? It would've been really helpful if it actually worked.

  "I... I didn't really beat him up," she said, "I took him by surprise. Sucker-punched him. And ran away before--"

  "No way," said Yang. "Chen was there, too, and she tossed him into me. Definitely an agent. Knew exactly which ship to go for, knew exactly where the weapons crate was. That ain't no accident."

  Joy cursed silently to herself. This was about Yang’s ego. The only way he could save face was to build her up to pulp hero status.

  "That's what I thought," said Benny. "So, let's talk about where you're getting your information. Who told you to target the Joanne Spaulding?"

  “Some dock worker, I don’t remember," said Joy, and realized she’d need to say more than that to forestall another beating. She needed to shift the thread of this interrogation. "Look, I stumbled into this whole thing. I came here on a story, related to a… a small riot at the docks, three days ago, involving an old woman, and the Red—"

  "Old woman?" Said Benny, leaning forward, "What old woman?"

  Joy was glad he’d interrupted her. She'd nearly mentioned the Red Specter and torpedoed whatever shreds of credibility she might have left. She started to answer, but got a vision of Triad thugs busting down Madame Zenovia's door. Sure, she hadn't liked the old fraud very much, but the idea of unleashing Benny the Shark on her was too awful.

  "It... It doesn
't matter who she is," said Joy. "She didn't tell me about you. It was something totally unrelated--"

  Joy saw Shiori haul off for a punch, braced for it, and was surprised when it didn't come. She opened her eyes to see Shiori's gauntlet—motionless, about an inch from its target. Then she rapped her knuckles against Joy's taut abdominals.

  "Agent, huh?" said Shiori. "Knows how to take a punch, at least. Time to switch this up."

  Shiori stepped behind Joy and grabbed her left hand, isolating the pinky finger and bending it backwards. Intense pain shot up her arm as the delicate joints were torqued in the wrong direction, small tendons stretched past the point they were meant to go. Joy had no defense against this, no way to brace. She could only endure.

  "You don't seem to get how this works," said Benny. "I ask for a name, you give me one. What you think is important don't matter, it's what I think. Now, who was the old woman. I want a name."

  "Wait, but it's not—Aiiggh!" Slowly, inexorably, Joy felt her pinky forced backward towards her wrist. The pain ratcheted upward exponentially: for each fraction of a degree further it went, her agony doubled. And beyond that, the fear, the anticipation of how much worse it would hurt the more this continued, if her finger was ripped off, no she needed it, had to say something, but she couldn't think, it was going to break tobreak tobreakbreakingbreaking….

  "Madame Zenovia! Madame Zenovia!" She screamed. "That's who it was, okay..." The pressure lessened to a point where the agony no longer overpowered her faculties, enough for her to feel ashamed. "But… she didn't say your name, or anything about you at all... you have to believe me, it was about something completely different—"

  "Of course she wouldn't mention me," said Benny. "I wouldn't put any stock in a spiritual advisor if she didn't know how to keep her mouth shut."

  "Yes, that's..." Joy blinked, surprise taking her mind off the pain for a bit. "Spiritual advisor? Madam Zenovia is your spiritual advisor? You?" Joy though back to the woman she'd met, disheveled and confused, peddling pure nonsense—palmistry, astrology, aura readings, and...