Superhero Detective Series (Book 4): Hunted Read online

  HUNTED

  Book FOUR of the

  SUPERHERO DETECTIVE SERIES

  By Darius Brasher

  Though this is a stand-alone novel which can be enjoyed without reading the other books in the series, you can check out the other books here:

  SUPERHERO DETECTIVE FOR HIRE

  THE MISSING EXPLODING GIRL

  KILLSHOT

  Click below to sign up for Mr. Brasher’s e-mail newsletter for exclusive information on his new releases. His novels are often sold at a discount for only a few days when they are first released. Newsletter subscribers are the first to be able to snap up these deals and discounts:

  DARIUS BRASHER’S NEWSLETTER

  Hunted Copyright © 2016 by Darius Brasher.

  All rights reserved.

  Cover design by RMG Book Cover Designs.

  First Edition, Published July 2016.

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual living or dead persons, businesses, events, or locales is purely coincidental.

  No part of this work may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  EXCERPT FROM CAPED

  CHAPTER 1

  Supervillains were a real pain in the ass, especially when one kicked you in the ass. Hard.

  I staggered forward from the force of the blow. Thick fog swirled around me. Pain radiated from where Antaeus had kicked me, setting my buttocks and entire left leg on fire. Though he was a small man and my six feet, two-inch frame towered over him, clearly Antaeus was a trained combatant. It was hard for someone who had not been trained to kick with such force. I knew that from experience. I had been a mixed martial arts fighter before I decided to use my superpowers and became a licensed Hero. I had been kicked more times than I could count by more people than I could count. Antaeus knew what he was doing. If I did not take him out quickly, I would instead be the one taken out.

  Though it made me clench my teeth in pain, I anchored my left foot. I spun towards where Antaeus was behind me, sending my right heel rocketing towards the center of his body. My spinning back kicks generated a lot of force. If I made contact with Antaeus, I would surely incapacitate him.

  I did not make contact. Right before my kick hit him, Antaeus disappeared with a slight whooshing sound. Swirling fog immediately took the place of where Antaeus’ body had been. One moment Antaeus was there, and the next instant he was not. If I had blinked, I would have missed it.

  Antaeus was a teleporter. Teleporters were the worst. Trying to fight one was like trying to swat a fly while blindfolded. Unlike most licensed Heroes, I did not wear a mask, cape, or any kind of superhero costume at all. If I did, dealing with teleporters like Antaeus would make me tear off my mask with irritation, hang up my cape in frustration, and find another line of work instead of being a private detective and Hero. Accounting, maybe. My business card could read “Truman Lord, Metahuman CPA Extraordinaire. No teleporters accepted as clients.”

  The forward momentum of my kick at Antaeus carried me forward, making me stagger again. I almost fell. Before I could recover, I felt two quick hard punches in the small of my back. I gasped in pain. Antaeus again. I twisted, sending my elbow arcing back toward where his jaw should be. That whooshing sound again. My elbow impacted only air. I had put a lot of force into that elbow strike, and my momentum sent me spinning. Physics was a bitch sometimes. I was thrown off balance. This time, I actually did fall. Antaeus reappeared. His foot shot towards my side. Apparently he had not heard you were not supposed to kick a man when he was down. Rude bastard. I rolled away from his foot, lessening the blow. Only somewhat, though. I grunted in pain. Antaeus might have broken ribs had I not reacted in time. I grabbed at Antaeus’ ankle, intending to bring him down to the ground with me. Whooshing. My fingers only managed to grab air. Fighting Antaeus was like fighting a ghost, a mean, evil ghost who could punch and kick me with impunity yet whom I could not seem to lay a hand on. This was no Casper the Friendly Ghost.

  I hastily got to my feet. I would have drawn my pistol, but what was the point of shooting at a target that blinked in and out of existence? I spun around, looking for Antaeus, and no doubt also looking foolish. Fortunately for my Heroic dignity, no one was around to see me spinning in place like a top or to see me getting my ass literally kicked. I was on the shoulder of a lonely mountain road in Maine. It was early. The sun had not yet burned off the thick morning fog. Across the road from where I stood was a guardrail; beyond that was a steep cliff and a deep lake. I had been in a car chase with Antaeus, and I had successfully forced him off the road, making his car crash. I had gotten out of my own car and dragged Antaeus out of his wrecked vehicle. I was about to question him and hopefully get the information I needed out of him when he had surprised me by teleporting right out of my grasp.

  Antaeus was not the only one with superpowers, though. I was a hydrokinetic, meaning I could mentally control water. Hydrokinesis was perhaps not as flashy as being able to teleport or fly or shoot plasma from your eyes, but it had its uses. Water was almost everywhere and in everything, and not just in liquid form. The thick fog around me, for example, was nothing but water vapor. While I had fought Antaeus, I had sensed with my powers a displacement of that water vapor the times right before Antaeus had re-appeared to hit me again.

  I turned to the right, probing the foggy area around me. Though I was looking around with my eyes, I was even more intently looking around with my powers, waiting to feel that slight displacement of water vapor that indicated Antaeus was about to reappear to take another swipe at me.

  There! To my right, and slightly behind me. I spun towards where I sensed the water displacement. I sent a hard left jab shooting toward where the smaller man’s face would be if he were already visible. Antaeus appeared out of nowhere right where I expected him. My fist collided with his nose. I heard and felt a satisfying crunch. There was a spray of blood. Antaeus’ head was flung back. He cried out in pain. Now he knew how I had felt when he had been kicking and punching me. Turnabout was fair play.

  I did not have time to savor the schadenfreude, rest on my laurels, or cradle my now throbbing left hand. Antaeus would no doubt teleport away again if I did not stop him. Like me, he was not wearing any sort of costume. He was dressed in jeans and a black and blue button-down, long-sleeved shirt. I grabbed him by his shirt and belt buckle. I heaved, lifting him off the ground. Though I did not have super strength, I did work out religiously. I did not exercise as much as I did for show, or just so I could flex impressively when pretty women were around. Okay, maybe I worked out as much as I did partially for that reason. But mostly I worked out so I would be ready to deal with people like Antaeu
s. Being a Hero was not for the weak or the easily winded.

  “Hey!” Antaeus said, squirming, his feet not touching the ground. “Put me down!” His broken and bloodied nose muffled his voice. He kicked at my groin. I twisted a bit so the kicks hit the meaty part of my thighs instead. The kicks still hurt, but the pain was not debilitating. Just annoying. I let go of the front of Antaeus’ shirt. I backhanded his face, hard. The slap sounded like a gunshot. Antaeus’ face was flung to the side. A spray of his blood sailed through the air.

  “Shut up,” I said. I gripped his shirt again. “If you don’t stop kicking me, I’m going to throw you off the side of this mountain.” I was almost annoyed enough to actually do it. This had not been the first time I had been punched and kicked. It would probably not be the last time. That did not mean it was fun. Maybe going into accounting was not such a bad idea after all.

  Antaeus stopped kicking me, though he still continued to squirm a bit in my grasp. I was satisfied to see he did not teleport away. I had apparently guessed correctly that he could not teleport unless he was in contact with the ground. I had the misfortune of dealing with teleporters before. Because of that, I knew that teleporters had some sort of limitation on their teleportation abilities. Some of them could only teleport as far as they could see; others could only teleport when nothing was touching them; still others had to rest up between teleportation feats. All of them had some sort of limitation. I did not know why. I was a private eye and professional butt-kicker, not a physicist specializing in Metahuman abilities. Maybe God limited teleporters’ abilities to give the rest of us a fighting chance. Who knew? I was not a theologian, either.

  Antaeus’ name had clued me in on what his teleportation limitation might be. His birth name was Jonathan Strayhorn; Antaeus was his code name. Most Metahumans chose a code name because the name indicated that Meta’s abilities, or because the name was imposing, or because the name hinted how the Meta’s powers were derived. I knew Antaeus was the name of a demigod from Greek mythology. That mythical Antaeus had wrestled with Hercules during the eleventh of Hercules’ famous Twelve Labors. Antaeus was invincible as long as he stayed in contact with the Earth. Hercules had defeated Antaeus by lifting him off the ground and squeezing him to death. I had guessed—correctly, it seemed—that Antaeus had chosen his codename because his teleportation powers only worked when he was in contact with the ground. Supervillains really ought not bake a hint to their powers’ limitations into their code names. It was a dumb thing to do. But supervillains were rarely also rocket scientists; they did dumb things all the time.

  And yes, I was a superhero who was well-versed in Greek mythology. That was because becoming a licensed Hero was a far more arduous process than putting on some colorful pajamas, tossing on a cape, and sallying forth to punch criminals in the face. In order to pass the Hero Trials and be awarded a Hero license, you had to have a working knowledge of a wide range of disciplines. One never knew when mythology, the battle tactics of Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie, how to defuse a bomb, or the migratory habits of the monarch butterfly would prove to be useful in fighting crime. A licensed Hero was a jack of all trades, and master of a few too.

  One of the things I was the master of was extracting information from supervillains. I gave Antaeus’ dangling body a good hard shake to get his attention.

  “I know you teleported into MetaHold, the prison holding the supervillain Chaos. I also know you siphoned some of his energy off of him before teleporting away. That energy was later used to kill a Hero. Who are you working for?”

  “Screw you,” Antaeus said, still squirming.

  I took one of my hands off of Antaeus long enough to slap him again. In response, Antaeus spit blood into my face. Blood and spittle got into my eye. Rude, not to mention unsanitary. I blinked it away. I took that as a sign Antaeus would not be answering my questions. I suppressed a sigh. I had seen this movie before. It would have been a nice change of pace if supervillains did things the easy way just once. Oh well. The hard way it was.

  Still holding the squirming teleporter aloft with stiffened arms, I strode across the empty mountain road. Being careful to not drop Antaeus, I stepped over the guardrail.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” Antaeus cried out. Panic was in his voice.

  “Taking out the garbage,” I said, stopping at the edge of the cliff. Though the fog was thick and I could not see how high up we were from the waters of the lake below, I knew we were over two thousand feet away from the water’s surface. I could faintly hear the water far below. The sound was eerie thanks to the fog’s muffling effect. Fear of falling was one of man’s most innate fears. There was a tightening in my loins. Being on the edge of the cliff made me nervous. Imagine how dangling from it made Antaeus feel. He was squirming around even more fiercely now, his wide terrified eyes rolling around in his sockets like marbles.

  “If you don’t stop moving around so much, I’ll drop you for sure,” I said in warning. Antaeus immediately stopped squirming, though his head still moved from side to side as he looked down into the fog. It was like looking down into the gaping mouth of an immense cottonmouth snake.

  “Let me down! I’m scared of heights!” he cried out. “I won’t teleport again. I promise!”

  “I don’t believe you.” My arm holding Antaeus up by his pants was getting tired; I shifted a bit so I was holding Antaeus up and out just by his shirt. “Besides, it’s the fall, not the height, that’ll kill you.” As I spoke, I took water vapor out of the air and moisture out of the ground to form a small coating of ice around my shoes. It anchored me to the ground. It would never do to accidently fall off a cliff to my death while interrogating a supervillain. Saint Peter would laugh at me when I got to the Pearly Gates. Or, Satan if I went to the other place.

  “The world’s record for cliff diving is at almost two hundred feet,” I said to Antaeus. “And that was done by a cliff diving expert. We’re several times higher than that, and I’m guessing you’re not a diving expert. At this height, if I drop you, hitting the water will be like hitting a brick wall. You’ll likely break every bone in your body. If that’s not enough to kill you, drowning will.” I gave his body a slight shake. “Now tell me what I want to know about who hired you to break into MetaHold or I’ll drop you like a bad habit.” I especially liked the “bad habit” part. I had been waiting to use that line on someone.

  Antaeus still looked terrified, with his eyes rolling around like the reels of a slot machine.

  “You’re not going to drop me,” he said, though his now high-pitched scared voice did not sound terribly confident. It was hard to sound sure of yourself when another man was dangling you over certain death. “You’re a Hero. You don’t kill people.”

  “Don’t you bet your life on it. There’s nobody around to tell on me if I drop you. If someone asks, I’ll just tell them I was chasing you and you fell. Such a tragic accident,” I said. As if on cue, there was a loud rip. Antaeus’ shirt tore a bit. Antaeus’ body slipped down slightly in my grasp as a result. He cried out in alarm. His legs sawed in the air. His hands clawed at my arms. I ignored the mute pleas of his hands and I tightened my grip. “Now tell me what I want to know,” I demanded insistently. “Your shirt won’t hold out forever. They don’t make them like they used to. Outsourcing.”

  “Let me down, let me down, let me down,” he gibbered. He probably didn’t even hear my outsourcing remark. I had boiled the United States’ manufacturing problem down to a single word in front of an unhearing and unappreciative audience. A waste. I was casting my pearls before swine. “I’ll talk, I’ll talk,” Antaeus cried.

  “Talk first, down second. I’m not as trusting as I used to be. Getting kicked in the ass tends to have that effect.”

  “Okay, okay,” Antaeus said. His mouth was opening and closing like a fish out of water. “I was hired to teleport into Chaos’ cell. The guy I did the job for is—”

  Antaeus did not get a chance to finish his thought. His
shirt suddenly ripped again with a loud sound that was like a stack of papers being torn in half. Suddenly I was only holding shirt fragments. Antaeus screamed bloody murder. He plunged into the fog below. He was swallowed up by it so quickly I would have missed it had I blinked. I did not miss his scream, though. His wail of fear and anguish stabbed at my eardrums even after he was gone from view.

  I cursed. Just a second or two more, and I would have had the information I needed. Nothing was ever easy. I dissipated the ice anchoring me to the ground at the speed of thought. I dove off the cliff headfirst into the foggy void in which Antaeus had disappeared a split second before.

  I had not been lying to Antaeus: hitting water after falling from this great of a height would be like hitting concrete reinforced with rebar. I was already rocketing down towards the lake below like a bug about to go splat on a windshield when it occurred to me that diving off the cliff after Antaeus was one of the stupidest ideas I ever had. That was saying something as some of my prior stupid ideas had been real dillies. Hindsight really was twenty-twenty.

  I plunged down like a dropped rock. I wished, not for the first time in my life, that flying was one of my superpowers.

  CHAPTER 2

  Probably the first time I wished I had the power to fly was many years before my fight with Antaeus when I had stood for the Hero Trials. The Trials were a series of tests a Metahuman had to go through and pass if he wanted to get his Hero license so he could legally use his powers under the Hero Act of 1945. When I had stood for the Trials, those of us going through the Trials had been made to practice skydiving. Each potential Hero had to do a solo dive at the end of all the practicing. If you did the dive to the satisfaction of the test proctors, you passed, and could proceed to the rest of the Trials. If you did not, you failed, and washed out of the Trials entirely. Here was the plot twist that each of us potential Heroes discovered as we were about to be shoved out of the airplane’s doors for the solo dive: they did not give us parachutes for our solo dive.