Blood of the Masked God (Book 1): Red Wrath Read online

  By the time I was through, the solvent was burning my nose, but my weapon was spotless inside and out.

  That night, more nightmares came. Sleep felt like a sucking vortex I had to escape from but couldn’t. A void had opened beneath me and below I heard screaming, the sounds of torment, and a red fog rose to engulf me. I was falling and there was no bottom to the pit.

  The echo of my own scream died around me as my eyes popped open. The air was stifling hot. My AC wasn’t keeping up. For a moment I didn’t trust the dark apartment around me. I peered over the side of my mattress and saw no hellish abyss below. I forced myself to sit up, but my head wasn’t ready. I swooned and almost fell. The dizziness took a moment to pass. When it did, I saw it was just after two a.m. I splashed water in my face and drank down a glassful. Maybe this was the price of being obsessed with taking a life.

  It was too early to get myself up, even though I knew thirty minutes on the heavy bag would exhaust me so I could at least catch another fitful hour or two of rest. But the idea of lying back down on my bed made me nervous, as if the dream I had escaped from was there waiting for me.

  I looked at my phone.

  Another message from Carter waited for me. Blocking him would only take a second, but for some reason I hadn’t. How much of my failure could I actually blame on him?

  Check the news, his last text read.

  I got on my tablet and went to the BBC news app.

  Massive meteor strikes ocean off Iceland.

  A video feed showed a giant red fireball descending from the dark sky. The light of the falling object was so bright nothing else was visible. Then came an explosion that whited out the screen. A tsunami had already struck Iceland, and one was expected to hit Canada and the northeastern US within minutes. An evacuation warning was going out to all low-lying areas. The size of the wave was unknown, but the impact of the meteor had triggered seismometers and was initially reported as an 8.1-magnitude earthquake. A number of fishing vessels in the area were unaccounted for and presumed lost. Icelandic Defence Agency helicopters and US Navy planes out of Keflavík were beginning their survey of the impact site and searching for survivors.

  The looping footage of the meteor was mesmerizing. Horrible in its power and humbling as a reminder of how fragile our lives were. If the rock had struck a city the devastation would be catastrophic. Even still, the damage the wave might do was frightening. I couldn’t shake the feeling that all of this somehow meshed with my nightmare, even as I dismissed the thought as irrational.

  Then it clicked why Carter had texted me. Surely if it was just to hold hands with someone during a disaster he would reach out to his sister.

  I tapped out a message. Any Chronos sightings?

  Yes. Just now. He’s flying east over the Atlantic.

  Keep track of everything. But even as I sent the text, I knew that he would.

  I scrolled through the news but there was little real information, as the impact had only happened just an hour before. No one had even gotten word to the BBC that Chronos was coming.

  An idea was forming. Intercepting Chronos where he might show up was an ongoing gamble. But if I could find out where he went after his heroic appearances, I could prepare a proper ambush.

  Chapter Eight

  Fighting to stay awake, I refreshed the news app again.

  The report on the meteor dominated the headlines. Iceland and Greenland got slammed by a giant swell of water. The loss of life was surprisingly minimal, but the destruction was extensive, and still being revealed as the sky brightened on that part of the world.

  The waves hitting Canada and the US coastlines weren’t much more than a couple of inches higher than normal. Some minor flooding, but nothing catastrophic. The experts claimed it was because the water at the point of impact was so deep. Warnings were up for most of Europe, Scandinavia, and even Africa. Maybe it had something to do with the sea gates Maid of Honor helped build decades ago.

  There was more news on other items in the sidebar, including a sudden surge of people showing up at the hospital with severe headaches. But I was glued to the meteor footage. Several news agencies had live video. I waited to catch a glimpse of Chronos or any of the British or European Union heroes to show, but the pictures were dark and there really wasn’t much to see.

  Enough of my neighbors were awake that it started to sound like late afternoon all over again. But now all of Rufino’s children were crying, and there was no comforting them.

  I turned off my tablet and waited for the sun to rise. At the first traces of dawn, I texted Carter.

  Breakfast? I asked, and he responded seconds later.

  He picked me up and we drove to his bagel shop without much more than a nod of acknowledgment from either of us. His eyes were bleary, his face scruffy with stubble. At least the crowd in the shop was light for a Saturday. The girl at the counter looked like she was hung over and she didn’t make eye contact. I guessed everyone had a rough night.

  We each got coffee and a bagel loaded with everything and took a table where we could talk in private.

  “I shouldn’t have stopped you from trying to take a second shot,” he said. “You’re right. We might only get one chance, and you might have had it. I’ve been collecting data and clippings on him for so long, taking a risk like we did was overwhelming.”

  I tried to sip my coffee but it was nuclear. “I’m used to working alone.”

  “I get that. And I don’t want to become an obstacle. I really want to help.”

  “That’s not what I mean. You’re really smart and have done a lot of homework that can be really useful. I keep thinking I’ll only get one good chance. I thought I blew it earlier in the week, so when I had him in my sights yesterday, I thought it would be my only chance.”

  “Now that you’ve had time to think, what happened?”

  “Quite simply, I missed. I need to take the rifle to the range and test the sights with the scope off. I have no idea where I even put the bullet.”

  “Okay. I can take you if you want to go today.”

  I wasn’t going to turn down a ride to New Jersey, where we could use the rifle at an outdoor range I had been to before.

  “Anything else on the tracker?” I asked.

  “He flew out and was spotted by two eyewitnesses but so far hasn’t returned. Sometimes the sources on board the coast guard boats don’t post their sightings right away. That’s no doubt the case, especially with the crisis going on.”

  Up at the front counter, the girl working the register was getting loud. A woman in a long gray coat and sunglasses was asking her to try to run her debit card again, but the girl refused. The customer grabbed a cup of coffee resting on the counter and threw it on the girl. She shrieked. Then she came over the counter and attacked the woman.

  I ran over and pulled the flailing girl off even as the woman with the sunglasses tried to kick and slap her away. Then the woman with the sunglasses attacked me.

  I kept blocking her with my shoulder as I pulled the counter girl towards the back of the store. Both the woman and the girl kept screaming at each other. The coffee had been hot, but it hadn’t gotten on the girl’s face.

  A large man in a white apron came around the counter. The irate customer paused as if considering attacking him. He pointed towards the door.

  “Get out!”

  She scurried away. I sat the girl down, got some napkins, and blotted the coffee off of her shirt. She was breathing deep, almost hyperventilating.

  “You’re okay,” I said softly.

  The man in the apron stood at the door watching the street, as if the customer might come back with reinforcements. The counter girl was crying now and her hands were trembling.

  “Had a bad night?” I asked.

  She just nodded. When it looked like she had collected herself, I said to Carter, “Let’s get out of here.”

  He was watching us, had watched the whole thing, as if studying the confrontation. We stepped
outside. The woman with the glasses was nowhere in sight.

  “I know you want some range time and we can definitely do that,” he said. “But I think you might find it interesting to see some of the footage which got posted after yesterday’s engagement at the armored car.”

  Back at his place, we sat together by his computer while he pulled up some video he had downloaded. He had saved and labeled the files already. He did a quick search for anything new before showing me what he had.

  Thanks to people with phones and surveillance cameras, we had multiple videos of the whole thing. No sound on most of them, though.

  The first video Carter had tagged started with a static shot of the armored car showing up. The boxy light-gray truck moved along with the stop-and-go traffic before pulling up in front of a laundromat. A green bolt flashed, impacting the front grill of the armored car. The driver tried to get it started again but failed. None of the guards got out. Then the diminutive villain Mighty Mite appeared. He spent some time trying to talk to the guards, perhaps to get them to come out. Then he started blasting. His beam weapon quickly ventilated the armored vehicle.

  “At this point the driver gets wounded,” Carter said, narrating.

  Mighty Mite was moving around towards the back when he flinched. He used the armored car for cover for a moment and appeared to shout something.

  “Did he get shot?”

  “Yes. There was an off-duty cop eating breakfast nearby. The report said he called out for Mighty Mite to surrender and drop his weapon, but it doesn’t look like he ever said anything, judging by the villain’s reaction.”

  Mighty Mite looked pissed. He snapped off a few rounds and then threw something. An explosion followed, taking out a parked car and the glass front of a diner. The cop shooting at him vanished. Mighty Mite strode into the middle of the street, shouting and gesturing. Then his attention returned to the armored car.

  “None of the guards inside the vehicle took a shot at him the whole time,” Carter said.

  “Why not?”

  “Said they didn’t have an angle. I think they froze. After Mighty Mite shot down the cop it didn’t take too much goading for them to open the back and come out. Those first few blasts punched all the way through the vehicle like it was butter.”

  Carter hit a couple of keys and two other camera angles appeared on the monitor. Both were wavy, having been taken through windows on either side of the street.

  Mighty Mite was shouting at the armored car. Eventually the back doors opened. As they emerged, both guards had their hands up. Mighty Mite disarmed both of them before having them kneel on the street. Then he shot both of them.

  I gaped. “Did he—?”

  “Stunned them,” Carter said. “I think he has something in his gloves like a Taser. Both guards were on the ground before Chronos showed up. Speaking of which…”

  On-screen, Mighty Mite went into the back of the armored car. He emerged a moment later empty-handed and looked up. My heart raced as I saw Chronos float into view. All the tension of the previous day returned. Seeing it all from the different angles frustrated me even more as I watched Chronos maneuver and dodge Mighty Mite’s spray of green blaster fire. Too many times he paused, a perfect target. So many opportunities wasted. If only I had driven faster, gotten the rifle ready ahead of time, been a better shot. The fight continued until Chronos landed.

  “There,” Carter said, stopping all the videos and pointing at the screen. “That’s when you shot at him.”

  “Don’t remind me. I know I missed.”

  “That’s not the point.”

  He restarted one of the videos and played it again but at quarter speed. The angle was from a ground-floor window of a nail salon. Chronos was practically posing midair, looking like a balloon you just want to pop. He was toying with Mighty Mite and it seemed the villain was out of ammo. Then he landed and the image flickered ever so slightly.

  Carter hit pause. “Your shot.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “Jade, we don’t have high-speed cameras here, so there’s no way to see where your bullet went or what happened exactly, but the preliminary police report mentioned a slug had been found inside the engine of a nearby car, caliber and ballistics pending. I hope you didn’t have fingerprints on the bullet because you’re the only one to have fired a rifle.”

  “I handled it by the brass,” I said. “The bullet should be clean.”

  “That’s good. Now take a look at this.”

  We jumped back a few seconds. The video crept forward one frame at a time. Chronos was there standing, then a blur, and then standing in focus again.

  “Jade, I don’t think you missed. I think he got out of the way.”

  Chapter Nine

  I felt a growing sense of unease. “How is that possible? The bullet is supersonic. It’s not like he heard it coming. He wasn’t even facing me. He didn’t know I was there.”

  “Somehow he did. This just means he’s more powerful than we know and has additional abilities. I’ve charted him since his first appearance. Maybe this is all something new. He’s gotten stronger, flies faster, and now this. It could be his hearing. It’s possible he heard the rifle being readied, but to follow every small sound around him like that doesn’t seem feasible.”

  “We are talking about someone who flies.”

  “Good point. Then maybe he possesses some sort of fast-acting sonar. Again, if he’s able to react to a supersonic bullet, this ability is beyond normal comprehension and we’re left with speculation as to the mechanics.”

  “What about a danger sense? Like a premonition?”

  “No one has ever demonstrated true precognitive abilities.”

  “At least not yet. But he got out of the way and did it so quick the camera didn’t follow.”

  “He also didn’t react. It was like a reflex. If he knew you were there taking a shot at him, why didn’t he come and stop you?”

  I ran my fingers through my hair. It felt grungy. “This is Chronos we’re talking about. With his big ego, a pesky nobody like me doesn’t even warrant any attention. If I had a silly costume, then maybe.”

  “This is so much speculation. We can’t do anything with this yet. But it will give me something to look for in his previous engagements. I’d like to see if there’s any earlier evidence of this ability manifesting itself.”

  “That’s quite the project.”

  Carter shrugged as if it were no big deal.

  My phone pinged. It was Ellen Nagata, a wealthy client I trained one-on-one at the gym. She was the client I was least willing to flake on, as she tipped and it was usually big. If only I could get her on a weekly or even daily schedule. Apparently we had an early appointment. I checked my calendar. She was on it and we were supposed to be meeting at 8:00 a.m. Even with the world getting hit with a meteor, people wanted their tummies firm and their butts tight.

  It was only 7:15 and she was just confirming.

  “I have to go,” I said. “Can you send me this footage?”

  “Of course.”

  “And your software is tracking him now?”

  He alt-tabbed to another screen of numbers and data. “Looks like I have possible sightings to collate. There’s not many yet, and there’s always false reports. He might not actually be at the impact site. We just know he flew that direction.”

  “But that’s where the world’s attention is, so he’ll be there. Text me if anything interesting happens.”

  I was about to leave when I realized my scooter was back at my place and I was cutting it close on making my appointment.

  “Uh, Carter? Can you give me a ride into the city?”

  We made a quick stop at my place so I could get my gym bag and the rifle case. I didn’t know if we would be going out later. We had to learn more about what had happened when I took a shot at Chronos and missed. But at least I would be ready.

  Carter didn’t comment on my leaving the weapon, which had been used in th
e attempted murder of a superhero, with him in his car. I could get used to Carter’s mute compliance. I also liked getting dropped off at the ritzy gym by a guy in a black Mercedes. For a moment I felt like I belonged there with all the other ladies with their nice hair, perfect makeup, and expensive sneakers. But it only took a few minutes into the workout with Ms. Nagata to remember that I was just the help.

  “This feels too easy,” she said from her chest press machine. “But I don’t want to bulk up and look all muscular.”

  “That’s why I suggest you use some free weights for a similar routine,” I said. “It builds up your stabilizing muscles and burns more calories.”

  “No. Barbells will make my arms bulge. I don’t want that.”

  This was a conversation we’d had every week. She was amazingly fit, a bit stringy for a woman in her fifties, but well toned. I knew enough to steer clear of talk about diet. She needed some body fat, if I was to judge.

  So I increased the weight from thirty to fifty pounds. She tried to push and grunted. “Too much!” she said. “Are you trying to kill me?”

  Her comment was loud enough to garner a few stares from other gym members.

  “You’ve done this before and I’d like to see you do it again. Lighter weights aren’t better. You need to work the muscles until they can’t do it anymore.”

  She sat up. “I don’t want to do this exercise.”

  I followed her to the step machine where she spent most of her time. Cardio was good, but she had already warmed up. As with most days, she wanted to exercise her butt, and I decided I couldn’t keep her on the circuit of a well-rounded workout. Of course, by next week she’d be complaining her arms were sagging and she would have to do more upper-body exercises. This would be my fault. As she pumped her legs and bobbed up and down, I forced myself to smile and commended her on her good posture.