Wraith (Debt Collector 10)

by Quinn, Susan Kaye

  Wraith (Debt Collector 10)

  Copyright © 2014 by Susan Kaye Quinn

  October 2014 Edition

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced without written permission from the publisher. For information visit:

  www.DebtCollectorSeries.com

  Cover by Steven Novak

  The Debt Collector Serial

  Wraith - Episode 10

  NOTE: This is the Second Season.

  Recommended: start with the First Season.

  (available in ebook, print, and audio)

  Contains mature content and themes.

  Summary

  What’s your life worth on the open market?

  A debt collector can tell you precisely.

  Wraith is a shadow in the night, haunting the bedrooms of the rich “high potentials” who have stolen life energy from the desperate and dying. The justice and the sweet mercy hit that follow keep her from falling into her own personal abyss. Her secret nighttime work also keeps her on level for her real mission: carrying on her father’s legacy of attempting to bring an end to debt collection as a whole. But when a mysterious debt collector interrupts her in the act and discovers her secret, everything Wraith loves may be destroyed by the one thing she can never fix—the original sin of being a debt collector herself.

  Wraith is approximately 17,000 words or 68 pages, and is the first of nine episodes in the second season of The Debt Collector serial. This dark and gritty future-noir is about a world where your life-worth is tabulated on the open market and going into debt risks a lot more than your credit rating.

  Love the Debt Collector series?

  Join the Debt Collector Facebook Group for all the skinny while Season Two is being written.

  It is recommended that you start with the first season, but each season is a complete story for that debt collector and can serve as an entry point to the series. There are five planned seasons in the Debt Collector series, the first four each from the perspective of a different debt collector with the fifth season bringing all four together.

  PRE-ORDER

  Complete Season Two

  releases 12.15

  READING ORDER

  Season One – Lirium

  (Episodes 1-9: Delirium, Agony, Ecstasy, Broken, Driven, Fallen, Promise, Ruthless, Passion)

  Season Two – Wraith

  10 – Wraith (10.20)

  11 – Specter (10.27)

  12 – Menace (11.3)

  13 – Temptation (11.10)

  14 – Shattered (11.17)

  15 – Untitled (11.24)

  16 – Untitled (12.1)

  17 – Untitled (12.8)

  18 – Untitled (12.15)

  BOX SET (Vol 10-18) – (12.15)

  “The street-smart science of LOOPER meets the cold, just-the-facts voice of DOUBLE INDEMNITY in this edgy, future-noir thriller that will have you holding your breath, looking over your shoulder, and begging for more.” —Leigh Talbert Moore, author of The Truth About Faking, The Truth About Letting Go, and Rouge

  My new collection suit weighs less than a shadow on my skin, and my soft-soled boots don’t even whisper as I creep across the thick, yielding carpet of my target’s apartment. With the best bullet-resistant synthetics money can buy, the black curve-hugging suit makes me look more like female-special-forces than someone’s hot date for the night. It raised the bellman’s eyebrows, but an untraceable debit card got me waved through the lobby, no problem. Money buys a lot of things. Access to one of the highest-security luxury buildings in LA. A ninety-fifth-floor apartment high above the smog-soaked city, complete with all the clean air you can breathe. And the no-doubt illegal collection of ivory-handled daggers I passed on the way in. It’s too bad for data-mining mogul Adrien Odel that money can’t buy your way out of a blackened soul.

  I know.

  I’ve tried.

  And tonight I’ve come to collect a debt he doesn’t even think he owes.

  Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows of Odel’s apartment, the city is lit up with a nighttime electric haze, the kind that makes it look seedy even in the high-rent district. It’s the perfect backdrop for a collection, and my suit is a black silhouette against it, a hole of death punched in the city’s twinkling lights. The high-tech fabric clings to me like the original sin I can never expiate, the one every debt collector is born with: the ability to deliver death with the slightest touch. We traffic in it, surround ourselves with it, and can never escape it.

  Not that I haven’t tried that, too.

  But even a short three-week dry spell away from collecting has me needy as all hell. The craving for a life energy hit claws at my back, and every step across the carpet amps up the desire. Even the possibility of Odel pulling a gun and shooting me dead hypes the thrill a little. My palm aches in anticipation—for the justice and the high that comes with it—but I take it slow, watching the placement of my feet and checking the windows. Along one edge, next to a mile-wide screen and some pretentious artwork, there’s a control panel. Only the rich want windows that open in the city, but it’s a bonus for me, especially given the windows face the broad expanse of the skyline and not the high-rise next door.

  As I check out the control panel, the high-rise becomes a peep show. A woman’s naked body is pressed against the glass, exposed to the city’s onlookers as a man clutches her bare skin and makes love to her. I’m transfixed by the way they move, skin against skin, without care for the contact or the watchers. In a moment, they’re gone. Maybe reason broke through the passion. Maybe the glass was cold, in spite of the perpetual heat of LA.

  Regardless, the image holds me hostage.

  Having a lover isn’t something that’s part of my future. Or my present, for that matter. But that doesn’t stop the base need from surging up, usually at the least convenient of times. Then a different image—a cold, pale specter from my past—crawls out of the dark corners of my mind and reminds me I’m not the kind of woman who gets to have a normal life. I’m the kind who takes life and then gives it away. And the ecstasy of that is the closest I’ll ever get to the normal kind again—so it had better be good enough.

  I couldn’t stomach even that pleasure for a while, not after what the debt collectors did to my father. I managed a whole three weeks without a single collection. But in the end, it’s the only thing that keeps me stable. And I’ve had a severe lack of stable ever since my father’s death nearly tore down the teetering scaffold of lies that comprises my life. That’s when the abyss reared up and stared me full in the face. Will-power alone wasn’t enough to stop it—the darkness just opened its maw and threatened to swallow me whole. At least that would have put an end the torment… but I couldn’t let the sin of who I am destroy everything my father had worked for. That we had both worked for. So here I am, dressed like a phantom, stalking the rich to give to the poor. With a tremor in my hands that’s more than a little unsettling. For better and worse, it’s the one thing that keeps me out of that dark place and gives me hope that one day I might redeem everything I am and everything I’ve done.

  I stalk, heel-to-toe, past the windows, through a long hallway tastefully decorated with more pretentious art, and toward the back bedroom where Odel is supposed to be sleeping. I buy information just like I buy access. My source tells me Odel is in bed every night at ten, like clockwork, occasionally with companions, but mostly not. Tonight, his companion will be a darkness-clad nightmare who will leave him in a cold sweat, instead of a hot one.

  When I reach his room, it’s vast—there’s a ridiculous round bed that’s so large, it’s practically a playground; several lacquered pieces of furniture that form glistening shadow-lu
mps around the perimeter; and more windows, the kind with wide vertical slats that leave shadowed stripes across Odel’s room. A giant aquarium is built into the wall behind the bed, and bioluminescent creatures undulate through the clouded water. They cast a blood-red glow that oozes in between the slices of darkness. I have no idea how the man sleeps in this room, but his barely audible breaths are the slow, steady rhythm of the unconscious.

  There’s a lot of floor to cover before I can reach him, so I keep my footfalls muted. I give silent thanks that he’s alone in his bed—I could handle two at a time, but his companions are probably innocent of any real crime, with the exception of their bad taste in men. I slowly tug off my gloves on the way and tuck them in the back of my suit. The less DNA I leave behind, the better. Not that my targets are eager to call the police—too much scrutiny in their lives might turn up the source of those ill-gotten hits. And the mob doesn’t like it when a bright light shines on their bustling life energy trade business. The mob cutting Odel off from his supplier would be the best he could hope for. The worst would involve caskets and weepy nighttime companions. At least with me, he only stands to lose the years of life he’s stolen.

  I reach the bed without him waking. His bio says he’s ten years older than me, but thanks to a steady supply of life energy, he looks about my age: twenty-five, if you count the years, not the mileage. With all that life energy in store, he would outlive me by a long shot, if he kept everything he has taken.

  I’m about to fix that.

  Getting into position without waking him is a little tricky. I reach my palm toward his forehead. Just as I make contact with his skin, I climb onto the bed in one swift motion and trap him under the blanket by straddling his body. I keep one hand free, but I don’t have a gun or a knife or anything like that. My bare hands are far more dangerous weapons.

  Odel flinches, reacting to the sudden weight, even from the depths of sleep. My hand is aching with need, so I take a taste—it looks like I’m giving him some kind of blessing, hand-to-forehead, but I’m actually sucking the life energy right out of his body. It starts as a trickle, but even that small amount rushes the liquid gold feeling I’ve been craving. A little gasp escapes me with the relief. Odel arches his back, frozen by the death-feeling that’s flooding his body. The contact point on my hand heats with the hit, and I want more. So much more. I want to suck down every last drop he has. But I fight the urge and manage to slow the pull… and eventually stop. Odel gasps air back into his lungs, his eyes now wide-awake and staring in horrified surprise.

  Nothing quite like waking up to find your nightmare is real. And sitting on your chest, ready to deliver more.

  “Adrien Odel,” I say with my best judge-and-jury voice. This part is important. I want him to know why I’m here. I’m not a debt collector for the mob or some rogue collector out for juice on the side. I’m not the government’s grim reaper, cashing out the destitute to feed a corrupt life energy supply system. I’m something he’s never heard of: a debt collector who will make him pay for his sins. A vengeful angel brought to his bedroom by his own foul actions. At least, that’s what I want him to think. The suit usually helps, along with the wild-flowing curly black hair.

  “I… what…” He’s still breathless. But he’s smart, too, and quickly figures it out. His legs are trapped under the blanket, but his arms are free, so he lunges for me—the typical response. If he tried to twist away, making me lose contact with his bare skin, I might actually get into trouble. But my targets almost always go for my throat, especially the men. And most of them are men. I’m not biased—I’ll hunt down anyone who trafficks in life energy—but while the occasional socialite, movie star, or female corporate executive might make my list, it’s usually the men who think they can make deals with the mob and get away with it. And when they see a woman in a skin-tight suit perched on their chest in bed, they automatically assume they have the advantage.

  I pull another hit from him.

  Odel’s back arches again, but the pleasure is all mine.

  I let it go longer this time, closing my eyes and drinking it in. I’m careful not to pull too fast—I’ve still got a few scars from those early trial-and-error lessons in how to collect, and I don’t need any more angry red marks across my palms. Plus I’m not ready to do the full collection yet. Odel still needs to learn his lesson. But I take a drink and let the energy seep out to every living cell in my body.

  Damn, I’ve missed this.

  Not sure why I thought I could resist in the first place. And my targets do deserve everything they get. Any “high potential” who steals the life energy of someone “less deserving” needs a taste of what that kind of dying feels like. But I’m fooling myself if I think it’s only about the justice. I’m an addict, through and through. Really no better than the government’s debt collectors who do it for a paycheck and their ten percent cut of the hit.

  Might as well get used to that, too.

  I breathe out a deep sigh and stop the pull. I’m almost dizzy with the high. Too much. Need to be more careful. By the time I lazily open my eyes, Odel’s body is slack against the bed, his arms lying where they fell once I started the transfer. His chest is heaving, and the gray pallor is starting to show in his face. It’s hard to tell with all the creepy red glow-light in his room, but he’s definitely looking more like death than when I came in.

  “What do you want?” His words are wheezy.

  I lick my lips, already dry from the take. “You took something that doesn’t belong to you,” I say. “I’m here to take it back.”

  “I can… I can pay you,” he says, already reaching the desperate, bargaining stage. That was fast. “Anything you want.”

  “I don’t want your money, Odel,” I say, chastising him lightly. The high is making me want to play with him, and that’s not a good sign. It’s been too long. I should have known it would be hard to come back. “I want your life.”

  “Please.” God, he’s starting to tear up now. These pampered high potentials can be so soft once you get them out of the boardroom. “Please don’t kill me. I’ve… I’ve got a family.” He doesn’t try to escape my hold on his forehead this time, like he’s finally figured out my palm is a gun barrel pressed against his skin. But he flails his arm to the side, reaching for something.

  I shove down against his forehead, and his head sinks into the pillow. His hands go up in surrender.

  “Is there something you need?” I ask.

  “I just… I have… a picture…” He’s trying to look with just his eyes for whatever he was reaching for. Sometimes I forget how smart these high potentials are. I should know, I’m one of them. And a smart animal trapped in a corner becomes even smarter as the panic brings out every instinct for survival they have, including using all their brain cells at once. And sometimes they figure out my one weakness really fast.

  I lean back and look, even though I know better.

  He blindly reaches for the slick black photo cube. It’s the kind you tap and a holographic projection pops up whatever you’ve programmed: slide shows, video snippets, the slice-of-life stuff everyone has. It reaches in and stabs me in several different ways: because he has a smiling mother and a cute younger brother and a shiny-coated dog who adores him; because all the people whose life-energy he stole lost all of that and more; and because I have a cube just like it at home. Only the people on it are dead, and my empty apartment will only ever house me, my debt collector suit, and a haunting memory of a life that could have been but wasn’t. Because I do this instead.

  I hold my free hand out to him. “Give it to me.”

  He hands it over, a slight tremble in his fingers.

  My palm is still plastered to his forehead, but I ease up on the pressure a little. It’s starting to sweat, making the contact slick. I need to move this along.

  I hold up the cube. It’s still playing, so I freeze it. “Alicia Kentworth had a family, too. Only hers wasn’t rich. Trina Smith had two daughter
s she left behind. Matt Worthy was only twenty-five when they came for him, but he already had a beautiful baby girl. One who will never know her daddy.”

  “I… I swear, I don’t know those people.” The desperation in his voice is inching up to hope, like he thinks he can talk his way out of this.

  “No, of course you don’t.” I toss the cube aside, and it tumbles across the carpet. “You don’t think to ask about them when you’re getting your precious life energy hits, do you? You never say, Hey, Mr. Mob Boss, who had to die so I can be a little more peppy for that upcoming board meeting? Because then you’d have to think about it. And that might make it a little harder to sleep in this incredibly peacocky bed you have here.”

  Odel has gone very still with my words, and I can see it on his face: he’s gotten to the stage where he realizes he’s not getting out of this. That anything he says will probably only make it worse. What he doesn’t know is that’s what I was waiting for: the look that says he understands what’s happening. And he knows he’s going to pay.

  I lean forward. I always leave my hair unbound when I’m hunting—it adds to the effect—and now it falls like a curtain of curly darkness on either side of Odel’s face, closing us into an intimate space where it’s just him and me and my hand of judgment on his forehead. I feel his heart pounding under my palm. His eyes are wide, and his mouth gapes just a little. My face is close enough that I can finish this with a whisper.

  “My name is Wraith.” My words float into his face. “I’m reclaiming what you’ve taken. Don’t give me reason to find you again.”

  He frowns, but I don’t give him time to think about it—I pull his life energy through my palm, and his face twists in the agony of it. I take a good long stare at that expression of death in full bloom, then I slowly lean back, close my eyes, and revel in the pure rush through my body. I sense past the contact point in my palm and measure the deep well inside him. Years and decades of it. He was young to begin with, but Odel must have been getting regular hits for a long, long time to have this much in store. I open the tap a little and let it gush into me. It floods my brain and lights a fire on my palm, but the last thing I want is to slow down. In fact, I want to drink him all the way down. It would take a while, and it’d be one hell of a dangerous high, but my mind is already justifying all the ways he deserves for me to kill him outright.