Superhero by Night Omnibus Read online

  The typing stopped. “Well, now you have to tell me,” she said with a smile. Not a humorous smile, but a coy one.

  “Are you sure? I didn’t come here looking to endanger anyone. I just want to find The Wraith, if he’s still alive.”

  She nodded as she used her feet to shimmy her rolling chair around to the front of her desk. “Let’s do a trade then. I’ll tell you what I know, but you have to tell me your story first. Deal?”

  She was weird at best. Her movements were small, controlled. She typed carefully, moved carefully, and it seemed like she tried hard not to touch anything as she did so. In my time as a model I’d known a few germophobes and she acted like one. The only thing missing was the fifteen bottles of hand sanitizer.

  “This isn’t easy for me,” I said. “To me, it happened just a couple of days ago.”

  She nodded, then reached over to carefully pick up her water bottle and take a sip. “Go ahead?”

  So, I did. I told her everything. Even things I really didn’t have to, like losing my modeling job. Even things like Sara’s last moments. I closed my eyes and bit my lip so hard it bled when I got to that part. I refused to cry though: I couldn’t cry until after the people responsible were brought to justice.

  After what felt like an hour, I finished. Krisan blinked a couple of times and then, out of the blue, snapped her fingers. She pushed her chair back and dug around in the stack of books that littered the office behind her. After a moment she pulled out a magazine; an InStyle from the year before year. She flipped through it until she found what she was looking for then turned around and slapped it down on her lap for me to see. Of course, I already knew what she was showing me. It was me, in a pair of torn jeans and a button-down shirt open to my navel. It was about the sexiest shoot I had ever done, and it was very close to my line of no nudes.

  “This is you,” she told me.

  “I know,” I said. “I was there.”

  She shook her head. “But this is you? Right?” Maybe I had come to the wrong place. This woman seemed like she had a few screws loose. Here I had opened up to her, told her my story, and she wanted an autograph or something.

  “Yeah, that’s me,” I told her again.

  She bent the mag backward, running her hand along the crease to make it stay. “Listen Madi… can I call you Madi?” I nodded for her to continue. “Listen, I covered the whole ISO-1 debacle here. It was brutal. They’re thugs and killers.” She stopped for a second as if she realized who she was speaking too. Of course, I knew they’re thugs and killers. She went on. “Real brutal, they have very few lines they won’t cross. It worked well for them in South America and it worked well for them in the U.S.—that is until they tried to move into Detroit.”

  I looked out the window and raised one eyebrow. “No offense, but your city doesn’t strike me as a beacon of honesty and incorruptibility.”

  She laughed, a short bark of a sound that was almost a hiccup. “Oh, it isn’t. If it was, I wouldn’t have a job. No, it didn’t work well for them because it attracted his attention pretty quick. You know,” she said leaning close to me and continuing in a conspiratorial whisper. “The Wraith.”

  “Right….” I said slowly. “That’s why I’m here. I want to find him. I need to know how he beat them and if he can do it again. I want justice for Sara, I want them to pay.” My hands clenched into fists all on their own and my voice took on a guttural quality as I spat out the last few words.

  “Well, that is going to be a problem. You see… at the time we had a less responsible government—let’s call it that. They felt like criminals deserved more protection than the police or citizens. Instead of spending money to stop ISO-1 and the other gangs that ran rampant, they created a task force to go after the Wraith. When they finally caught up to him… well, he was shot several times and he’s never been heard of since. I’m sorry.”

  Her article had said as much… but… I had read all the stories I could find on him: the eyewitness accounts, the blogs, everything. From what I could tell, that wasn’t the first time he had dealt with gunshots and I just didn’t believe he was really dead. Maybe for my own selfish need or maybe because it didn’t seem right.

  “Can you give me a list of places he was most commonly sighted?” I asked. An idea formed in my head. If I could narrow down where he had patrolled most, maybe I could find his base.

  “Sure, sure. Listen, though. I want to tell your story. Can I?”

  I shook my head. “No.”

  She frowned, sucking in her lips and biting down on them, giving herself a bizarre, lip-less appearance. “Listen, I’m gonna be honest with you. I’m not really great at ‘no.’ How about, ‘not right now, but soon?’ I like that a lot better.” As she spoke, she nodded to herself more than to me.

  “Uh, okay, but not until I say you can,” I said. I didn’t think there was a way out of her writing my story, but maybe I could get her to put it off until I could be sure she wouldn’t give away where I was. The last thing I needed was more bodies on my conscience.

  “Oh sure, totally, Scouts honor,” she said, crossing her heart like a Catholic.

  “I don’t think that’s how that goes…” I said to her. “Can you tell me what I need to know now?” I asked. She shimmied herself back across the office to her desk, hit a few buttons on her keyboard, clicked the mouse a few times and then a printer I hadn’t seen sprang to life, spitting out a sheet of white paper with a list of addresses.

  “Before I give this to you, I just want to tell you, you’re not the first person to come and look for him. If he’s still alive, and I stress the ‘if,’ he doesn’t want to be found.”

  I snatched the paper from her hand and stood. “I have nowhere else to go,” I said. Without another word, I left the bizarre woman's office. She was nice enough but weird to the extreme.

  The paper had every address he’d ever been sighted at more than once. And it was a lot. It was covered in addresses in eight-point font and double-sided. I stopped at the elevator and hit the button a few times distractedly as I went down the list. I needed a map. A real map—not my phone. This was going to require time to figure out.

  Time… I had plenty of. Rage too.

  Chapter 9

  Are you telling me she disappeared?” Henry asked the man sitting behind the mahogany desk. Ever since he’d taken over as ADA things were going so well. ISO-1 threw low-level crooks from other organizations his way and he looked like a hero. As long as they were using New Orleans to traffic in drugs and women, it was relatively easy to manipulate the statistics to show crime was down. Because it was. What they didn’t need, what he didn’t need, was the bitch of his ex-wife ruining everything.

  “I don’t know what to tell you, Mr. Smith,” Sanchez El Cochran said. He was the PI Henry hired to find Madisun after she escaped New Orleans, and he was supposed to be the best in the business. “I followed her trail to New York. From there she could have gone anywhere. The only time I’ve seen this kind of cold trail is when the quarry realizes they’re being followed and heads somewhere new—somewhere with no family or connections, somewhere they’ve never lived before. If she’s done that, there really is no finding her until she re-surfaces through a credit card or some other mistake.”

  “Fine. Don’t expect a bonus.” Henry turned around to face the window overlooking the City Offices. If she were to come back she could… The man hadn’t left yet. Henry didn’t turn around when he spoke. “You can go now. I’ll call you if I need you.”

  Sanchez departed without another word, leaving Henry alone with his thoughts. He knew he had crossed a line—a bad one. It was one thing to have his boss murdered, but he hadn’t intended Madi and Sara to die. Madi was no great loss; as pleasing to the eye as she was, he couldn’t stand her. Sara though… he felt, well, not sad, but annoyed that she had to die.

  Ever since he got in bed with that underage hooker in Mexico, his life had gone from bad to worse. If only he hadn’t… once he had, IS
O-1 had him. Of course, that was their whole plan. Bribe who they could, blackmail who they couldn’t bribe, kill who they couldn’t blackmail.

  This was all Madi’s fault. If she had been a better wife he wouldn’t have had to leave and he wouldn’t have ended up on vacation in Cancun hooking up with an underage girl while he was still technically married.

  He kicked his chair in frustration, then kicked it again. If only she had just died in the fire. Or if they had listened to him and killed her in the hospital before she woke up. However, they had a point. Even they had limits. Making her family’s death appear to be an accident had cost time and money. And they weren’t willing to throw away even more money by killing her in the hospital when they might not need too.

  How the hell had she escaped? It wasn’t like she was a soldier or something… she was one damn step away from being a stripper.

  Frustration boiled up in him, causing his stomach to hurt. He pulled open the desk and threw a handful of antacids in his mouth. Well, he didn’t have time to worry about this now. If she was on the run, let her run. It wasn’t like she could survive without help. Her best case was to end up as a hooker.

  A chuckle escaped his lips as he pondered that turn of events. Maybe he’d even pay her a visit before they snuffed her.

  Chapter 10

  Women’s shelters aren’t the easiest places to live in but they’re warm and dry and they don’t ask a lot of questions. Since I was technically on the run from my ex-husband, they had no problem taking me in and giving me a bed. City of Hope Family Shelter provided two meals a day and a warm place to sleep. More than enough. More than I needed.

  The room wasn’t much more than a musty bunk bed, a sink, and a toilet, all shared with another woman who was also on the run. That was okay, though, any port in the storm. And after the last few days, I just needed to sleep for a week.

  Six hours would have to do. I awoke with a start, something I was growing accustomed too. My heart pounded, and I was covered in sweat. The images of Sara’s last few seconds ran through my brain. Would the nightmares ever end? Probably not.

  I pulled my aching body out of bed. All I had were the clothes I came in with, and they were starting to smell. No worries though, since I didn’t care. I dressed and made my way down to the little kitchen they offered in the shelter.

  “What happened to your hand?” The woman next to me in line for food saw me pick up a muffin. I snatched my hand back and slid it deep into my coat pocket.

  “Nothing,” I said to her. She didn’t need to know, and I didn’t need to go running from ISO-1 again. Besides, I could imagine what would happen if they showed up here in this place full of women and children.

  Three bran muffins and powdered milk later and I was on the move. I didn’t have time to rest or plan; I just needed to move forward. I had the printout with me and swiped a pen from the front desk on the way out. I could use this as a guide, checking off each address until I had searched them all. I stuffed a muffin in my pocket for lunch.

  I went outside into the rapidly warming air, checking my phone as I went. I wouldn’t have service for much longer, and I needed to take advantage of it while I could. The first address I wanted to check was on Helen and Mack, almost two miles away. I started walking.

  In the cold light of day, Detroit was even more of a dump than I thought. The farther I moved from downtown, the worse it got. Abandoned businesses were just the start. As I crossed over Lafayette Park it looked like no one had cleaned the streets in a decade. Despite the heat, I pulled my hood up to hide my face. I also started hustling—I needed to get in and out as fast as I could.

  Halfway there I was breathing hard, gulping for air, and I focused on putting one foot in front of the other. I was certainly going to need to exercise more.

  I reached Mack Ave and turned northeast, heading for Helen. Mack was a two-lane road with cracked pavement and huge potholes. It looked like it hadn’t seen any maintenance in years. Half the time the sidewalk was nonexistent and I had to walk on the shoulder. Traffic was busy enough that a car went by every few minutes… at least until I hit Helen St. Then no more cars, and I see why.

  The entire block were husks of burned out buildings. Well, not the entire block, but the vast majority of it. One house in the middle of the block had a green lawn and a wrought iron fence. Other than that one anomaly, the block was devoid of life.

  I checked the address on the paper, and the house was actually it. The one house surviving in the whole neighborhood? That couldn’t be a coincidence.

  I checked my phone for the story. Sure enough, Krisan had printed them out in chronological order. This was the location of the first appearance of The Wraith; a home invasion gone bad—as if there was a good home invasion. Two little girls and the mom were killed and the dad was shot multiple times before The Wraith showed up and killed all the attackers… with a kitchen knife. I closed my eyes for a second, trying to push that image out of my head.

  Eyewitnesses swore he took several rounds to the chest but kept on going. Either he had crazy good armor, or he was bulletproof. For a long, wistful second, I thought of Sara. If only I had superpowers—I could have saved her. Even if the cops were there and ready for those two freaks who showed up at Mom and Dad’s house that night, they couldn’t have stopped them. The Ghost walked through walls, and the other one—she was living fire. Regular cops would have been as useful as a screen door on a submarine.

  If only I could have done… something.

  It wasn’t my fault, I knew, but I had felt so… useless. I still did.

  I doubted the man who survived still lived here, but it was worth a shot. I walked up the fence, undid the latch on the gate, and made my way to the door where I rang the bell.

  Nothing.

  I rang it again. The soft thumps of movement echoed through the wooden frame. The blinds next to the door opened and a pair of brilliant blue eyes stared out the tinted window at me.

  “What do you want,” a man’s muffled voice said.

  That was an excellent question. Anything that would help me find The Wraith was the answer, but I wasn’t sure that would get me the information I was looking for. I thought quickly and manufactured a story on the spot.

  “I’m looking into a crime that was committed. I have this address from the Detroit Free Press as the location of the first sighting of The Wraith. Is that true?” I ask him.

  The blinds closed. “The Wraith is an urban legend. Go away.”

  So much for that.

  Loud music echoed down the block; all I could hear was the ‘thump-thump’ of the base as I left the property, careful to close the gate behind me.

  I crossed this address off my list in red ink. This part of the city was mostly condemned and there wasn’t much beyond burned-out houses, decrepit buildings, and yards overgrown with weeds. I wasn’t going to find what I was looking for here.

  The next sighting was three blocks south of here. Time to keep walking.

  The loud music continued down the streets behind me, accompanied by the rev of an engine. There wasn’t a ton of traffic this time of the morning in this neighborhood. Who would possibly want to come here? I tried to ignore it and hoped that it would just drive on by. I cursed silently as the music grew louder behind me while the engine grew quieter.

  Great.

  Unless they were superpowered freaks with blades, they’d have a hard time intimidating me. After the crap I had seen the last few days, a couple of guys in a—minivan?— weren’t really going to scare me.

  “Hey honey, you need a ride?” Laughing followed. There was more than one. I decided my best bet would be to just keep walking. “Hey, I’m talking you, the least you could do is look at me.”

  This was a trap. If I didn’t look at him, he would become frustrated and angry at me for being rude. If I did look at him, he would take that as a sign to keep trying. All I could do was hope they went away.

  I stopped to check the map I was follow
ing, and they took the opportunity to gun the engine and screech to a halt right next to me.

  “Maybe you didn’t hear me, but this is our neighborhood and you have to pay a tax walking around like this,” the driver said with a lecherous grin on his face. I can only imagine the tax. I needed to run but there wasn’t really anywhere to run to. Maybe back to the house I just left, but I seriously doubt that guy would let me in.

  I was so sick of running: I ran from the hospital, I ran from New Orleans, and I ran from New York. I didn’t want to run without a fight. A cool calm settled over my mind, a detachment. My heart raced and my breathing ran out of control, but my mind was calm. There were three men in the car and they all had the same lecherous look that spoke volumes. I knew what was coming—they weren’t going to ask me for my phone number.

  I turned to face them, taking my hands out of my pockets. I said nothing, just stood there with my hands at my side and glared at them.

  “Are you trying to stare us to death?” the driver asked. He turned to his buddies and said something I couldn’t hear that elicited a laugh from them. “Well, she ain’t sayin’ no boys!” Three doors opened as one. They were all large men, shaved heads, dark complexions, and enough black ink on their skin to print a book.

  I had one shot, and one only. As soon as the driver’s foot touched pavement I ran right at him. He barely had a second to register shock at my surprise move when I jumped, feet first, into his door. He only had one leg out and the door slammed against it, pinning his leg. He screamed over the crack of bone breaking. I didn’t have time to relish the agony on his face, I had to run.

  My feet hit the pavement hard as I took off back the way I’d come. I was a hundred feet away and already breathing hard when the squeal of tires warned me they were coming. I dodged across the street just past the one standing house and down the alley that ran beside it.

  The blare of a horn startled me, and I lost my footing. My arms pinwheeled as I tried to keep my balance, but it was no use. I fell to my knees on the dirt alley and rolled a few times. Before I could get up, they were on me.