Back to GatefoldIssue #1 by Daniel Ingram
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“GATHERING THE BAND”
Detroit
Hurricane wondered if bunking down with a prostitute constituted a whole new definition of ‘laying low’, even though he kept it strictly platonic.
It had been little over three weeks since he’d returned from South America, where along with several other mercenaries, Hurricane had extracted the son of a drug lord, spirited him across the country with a legion of criminals on their tail and delivered the boy to sanctuary.
It was, by far, the most dangerous mission of his life.
But in doing so, Hurricane knew that he’d made a legion of enemies. Colonel Condor had, if not friends, then at least allies and dependants. People who needed him if they wanted their businesses to run like a well oiled machine, and who weren’t satisfied with the law to handle their vengeance and or, lost of revenue.
But Hurricane wasn’t too worried. Criminals didn’t hold grudges like that for long, and any bounty that lasted the next criminal fiscal quarter would amount to little more than bragging rights, a badge of honor.
But right now, Hurricane was ‘hot’ and he had to lie low.
To that end, he approached several prostitutes, and when he found one who rented a house and not an apartment, he offered her ten thousand on the spot. And since she had no known connection to him, her home was perfect to hide from criminals and law enforcement alike.
The woman’s name was Daisy, and at first it seemed like the perfect arrangement. Daisy was being paid not to work the streets and could spend time with her son, and Hurricane didn’t have to look over his shoulder, trying to figure out if anyone who crossed his path was law enforcement.
By the second day, Hurricane found himself so bored with day time television. So he went to the hardware store, and when Daisy returned from the park with her son, she found that the bathroom on the first floor had been retiled.
The arraignment was perfect. Until day eight, when Daisy’s pimp showed up.
“Daisy! You lazy bitch! Get out here!”
Hurricane was in the second floor bathroom, fixing the sink, when he heard the shouting.
“Peter!” Hurricane could almost feel the fear in Daisy’s voice, “I told you…my son’s sick. I’ll make it up to you, I swear!”
“I don’t care if your boy is near death!” Peter shouted, “you work when I say you work!”
Hurricane heard the familiar sound of a body hitting the ground, and Daisy cried out.
Hurricane stomped down the hall, and stood at the top of the staircase.
“Is there a problem here?” Hurricane growled.
He was a little shocked to see that ‘Peter’ was actually a stocky woman, wearing a leather cut with tattoos running down both arms. She had a knife in one hand, and looked thirsty for blood.
“You the dick this bitch has been entertaining?” Peter growled.
Hurricane walked briskly down the stairs, doing his best to look non threatening. Given that he wore Goodwill bought cover-all’s splattered with plaster, water and paint, he didn’t have to try hard.
“I’m a family friend,” Hurricane said, “if she owes you money, I’ll pay.”
Hurricane observed a small cut on Daisy’s upper shoulder, but he kept his calm.
“…we don’t want any trouble.”
“So this bitch has been holding out of me,” Peter pointed the knife at Hurricane’s throat, “lets make a deal. Give me all your money, and maybe you don’t walk away scarred for life.”
Hurricane sighed.
“You’re threatening me,” Hurricane kept a steady pulse, “you need to stop. And please leave.”
Peter pressed the knife harder against Hurricane’s throat harder.
“Are you some kind of…”, Peter’s eyes went wide.
Hurricane slapped the knife from her hand, and grabbed her throat.
“You’re…that guy!” Peter gasped, “they’re looking for you!”
“You should have left when I gave you the chance,” Hurricane’s voice was solid steel. He dragged Peter to the first level bathroom, and held Peter in the tub, “any last words?”
Peter laughed, “They told us about you! You got a code! You won’t kill me! I’m a woman!”
Hurricane chuckled darkly, “I do have a code. I call it the three Cs. No civilians, no collateral, and no cruelty. Now tell me…”
“…where does that say ‘no women’?”
Peter’s face paled.
-crak!-
Hurricane gently laid the body down. He dealt with death every day, but that was no reason not to be respectful.
“You…you killed her!” Daisy gasped.
Hurricane sighed. His ‘perfect strategy’ had just gone up in smoke.
“A pimp that wants more money is like a rabid dog,” said Hurricane, “gotta be put down.”
“You…killed her.”
“I’ll take care of the body,” Hurricane said, “you should probably take your son to a movie and dinner. It’ll be gone by the time you get back.”
Daisy nodded numbly. She grabbed her keys, and all but ran to the door.
“Hey, Daisy…?” Hurricane called out, catching her just as she was about to leave.
“Yes…?” Daisy said timidly.
“Why was her name Peter?”
“You don’t want to know,” Daisy replied, and then rushed out the door.
“Son of a bitch…,” Hurricane lowered his head, “…good while it lasted.”
# # # # #
Hurricane took a quick shower upstairs, no more than five minutes, and dressed.
He had a duffel bag full of his gear, and laid out his equipment. He dressed in brown cargo pants, and a standard issue army flak vest. He loaded a few grenades in his vest, a spare shotgun shells, and went to his handguns. He had two Glocks that he wore on both hips, and a shotgun he slipped into a holster on his back.
Next Hurricane took his machete, and wiped it down. He’d cleaned his weapons the second day of living here, so the blade literally gleamed. Made of vibranium, Hurricane had taken it off a man who tried to kill him and never once had it failed him. But a good soldier was kind to his weapons.
Hurricane slid a few spare clips into his cargo pants, along with some ball-bears and throwing knives and then packed the remaining weapons into his duffel bag.
Ready for war, Hurricane stepped into the backyard, and buried five thousand dollars wrapped in plastic. What was going to happen next was only barely her fault, after all and Hurricane prided himself on paying his debts.
Once that was done, Hurricane went inside, and sat by the door. He waited, and waited, and when the sun set, and when it did he went outside and sat on the porch.
“God damn, what is taking so long?” Hurricane grumbled, “never thought a black man would have to wait so long to be arrested for a crime he actually did commit!”
The mercenary expected Daisy to go straight to the cops, and frankly he couldn’t blame her. There was both a dead body and a killer in her home, and he gave her an easy excuse. What sane person wouldn’t run straight to the police?
But the wait was playing havoc with his nerves. His plan was to wait until the cops showed up, put up a fight (not kill anyone, but cops had good insurance), take the blame, and vanish. He had an exit strategy and everything.
But none of that meant a damn thing, if the cops didn’t actually show up.
“…am not going to wait here all night,” Hurricane muttered, as he pulled out an energy bar and began munching, “should just leave, call and confess.”
That was when three vans pulled up, and squealed to a halt in the front of the house. But Hurricane’s lip curled in disgust when he saw that they weren’t SWAT vans.
At least a dozen and a half men piled out, each and everyone dressed like some costumed maniac, which, Hurricane supposed, they were.
“God damn it Daisy,” Hurricane growled, “why’d you have to get greedy?”
“Greetings, Hurricane,” said a man in a skull mask. He wore a cape, and a black mist swirled around him, “I am the King of Shadows. I have a proposition for you.”
Hurricane raised an eyebrow, “The Shadow King?”
“No!” the man hissed, “King of Shadows!”
“Well, ‘Shadow King’…”
“King of Shadows, King of Shadows!”
“This wouldn’t happen if you chose a better name,” observed a green haired man who stood behind the King.
“Leave it, Vektor!”
“…I’m not interesting in joining a team,” Hurricane said, “I’m a man with standards, professional and operational. I doubt you meet them. So unless you’re here to collect on the bounty, get the hell out of my sight.”
“Lets not be hasty. I think our alliance of the elite would meet your standards without effort,” said King of Shadows, “for instance, I’m well aware of your abilities. My jade friend here is a telekinetic. You’re not fast enough to defy him.”
“Is he fast enough to catch a bullet?”
“You better…”
-blam!-
Vektor shrieked as he stopped a bullet from Hurricane’s Glock only a few inches from his skull.
“I’m impressed,” Hurricane returned the weapon to his holster, and whipped out his shotgun, “lets try that again.”
Hurricane squeezed the trigger twice, and two giant slugs went careening through the air. The first one struck the bullet from the Glock, driving it forward, and the third pushed the second. All three bullets smashed into Vektor’s skull as one, exploding it like a rotten pumpkin.
“In his next life, your man shouldn’t assume that everyone uses buckshot or that all bullets are the same,” Hurricane said to King of Shadows. He whipped the smoking hot barrel of his shotgun to the side, and heard someone scream. Hurricane back-handed the man in the jaw, and leveled his eyes on King of Shadows, “also, your invisible man should step lighter.”
“Calling yourself elite doesn’t change shit,” Hurricane said, “you’re all idiots using stolen gears or powers you barely understand. That’s not an issue I have. Right now? I can see a dozen ways out of this.”
Hurricane pumped his shotgun.
“Get in my way, and I’ll take the road paved with your bodies.”
“Alliance of the elite!” King of Shadows sneered, but stepped back, “take him!”
The first man who came at Hurricane wore the flight-rig of The Vulture on his arms, and a cheap knock-off of Doctor Octopus’ arms around his waist.
“You belong to the Bird of Prey!” he shouted. He swooped down, and entangled Hurricane in his tentacle. But when he tried to pull him into the air, nothing happened.
“You didn’t think this through, did you?” Hurricane asked, as he took a firm grip on one of the arms.
“Oh no…”
Hurricane swung the man towards three of his associates on his left, bowling them over like ten-pins. He then snapped the arms like a whip, smashing Bird of Prey face first into the ground.
“He got off easy,” Hurricane said, “next person who comes at me catches a bullet.”
The next person who came at him was a woman wearing some sort of harness on her back that powered the giant gauntlets she wore on her wrists. She leveled one hand at Hurricane, and he replied with a bullet to the knee.
She doubled over in agony, and accidentally triggered the release on her gauntlets. They sent energy flooding out, where it smashed into the ground and the recoil sent her flying through the air like a bottle rocket.
A neighbor’s tree was kind enough to stop her flight, but not catch her. She fell from branch to branch, and seemed to catch every large branch on her path down. Like a car wreck, no one, not Hurricane, the King of Shadows or her fellow teammates, could look away, no matter how much they wanted. Finally, she landed in a heap of limbs at all the wrong angles.
“Umm,” Hurricane rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly, “that…that was an accident.”
“Get him!” The King of Shadows snapped.
Hurricane’s shotgun flared, and three more men went down. He broke off, and ran towards the backyard. He wasn’t interested in a prolonged firefight, and there were enough corpses on the lawn for the cops not to hold Daisy responsible for the corpse in her bathroom.
Hurricane always tried to be a good guest.
He leapt the fence to the backyard…and found Daisy, standing in front of an eight foot muscle bound man, with a metal horn protruding from his forehead.
“…a unicorn theme?” Hurricane said, “really?”
“Give up,” the giant wrapped his massive paw around Daisy’s neck, “or the whore gets it!”
Hurricane grimaced. On the one hand, Daisy had betrayed him. But on the other, he’d wanted her to. He just wanted her to call the cops, not these thugs.
But she was still a civilian, in the end, and he had standards. Hurricane lowered his weapons.
“Thank you, Charger.”
The King of Shadows willed his abilities out, ebony tentacles binding Hurricane in a grip that felt like steel. One wrapped itself around his throat, and Hurricane fought to breathe.
“You may dispose of the whore.”
“No!”
Hurricane felt his consciousness fade, as he heard a neck snap.
# # # # #
Later, elsewhere
“I just don’t know why they aren’t killing the bastard,” Joe Public muttered.
“Because Kingy wants him as a point man,” replied Joe Public. Gifted with the power of self multiplication after a lab accident that he’d caused with his own stupidity, ‘Joe Public’ always seemed to draw guard duty for the Alliance’s ‘compound’ (which in reality was simply a defunct housing complex chosen because it somehow had street lighting and came with a lake for dumping bodies), “the bounties we’d get for his dead body would be peanuts compared to what we’d get if he was on our team.”
“Guess with Suzi Cannon and the other guys out of it, that would mean more money for us,” said Joe Public.
“See! Now you’re thinking!”
“I don’t know if that’s what it could be called.”
The two Joes turned their heads, and saw a woman approaching down the street.
She was Asian, little over five and a half feet tall, with a pony tail that went down to her hips. She wore a black cat suit, pistols on each hip, and throwing knives strapped to each thigh. Around her neck she wore a collar composed of several white whistles.
“Who’re you?”
“Me?” the woman said. Joe Public thought he recognized her accent, but he couldn’t tell from where, “I am called Warcry. And I’m here on a…I guess it is called a job interview?”
“Typical,” Joe Public muttered, “no one tells me nothin’…”
“That’s because,” Warcry smiled, “you’re part of the interview.”
Warcry opened her mouth, and screamed.
A wave of sheer force struck Joe Public, and launched both of them through the air like leaves caught in blower. They landed half a block down the street, aching all over.
“Okay,” Joe Public growled, “so it’s like that? Get ready for a riot, lady!”
Where there was only two Joes before, Warcry saw a dozen more.
“Hello, gentlemen,” Warcry said, “and good bye.”
Warcry whistled softly, and Joe Public suddenly found himself too dizzy to stand. He struggled, adrenaline pumping in his veins, but his stomach strongly rebelled. He looked around, and saw that each of his clones was having the same problem.
Warcry closed her eyes, and drew her pistols. She pulled the triggers in rapid succession, and Joe Q watched in horror as clone after clone was mowed down. The shots were far from perfect, no shots in between the eyes, but not a single one missed.
Warcry stopped her whistling, just as her pistols ran dry.
“I’ve got to learn to do that with my eyes open,” Warcry said. She looked at the host of bodies that were strewn out before her. Only three Joe Publics were left standing, and they regarded her with sheer horror.
“…how?” said one.
“I disrupted your inner ear with sonics,” Warcry explained, “and I used that same sonic pulse as radar when I shot. I know about Florida, by the way.”
Joe Public didn’t think it was possible to feel even more terror, but he found he was wrong. He felt like a newborn mouse in the crosshairs of a lion.
“Do you know what a sonic resonance is?” Warcry asked, as she reached down to her necklace of whistles, and chose one.
Joe Public tried to run, but he was still too dizzy to make it more than a few feet.
“It’s basically a shorthand term for how much sonic energy one thing can absorb, before it breaks,” Warcry explained, “everything has its own different frequency. Like the human eye, for instance.”
Warcry channeled her sonic abilities through the whistle, and every surviving Joe Public screamed. They felt their eyes shake in their skull, and it felt as if someone were rubbing glass inside of them.
As Warcry watched, the delicate organs shook, cracked and finally exploded like water balloons. Not a single Joe Public was spared.
“Now you know what a sonic resonance is.”
Warcry tapped the radio in her ear.
“Guard is down. You guys encountering any trouble with the rest?”
# # # # #
“You guys hear something?”
Charger turned the volume down on the television, and listened. Not that it was easy, in a house that had contained two dozen super-humans who wanted to party it up after a successful mission.
“I ain’t hear nothin’,” said Furnace Phil. He lit his cigar with a snap of his fingers, and then jumped like a spooked alley cat when the front door exploded inward.
“Mortals!” a dozen eyes fell upon the woman standing in the doorway. She was a tall redhead, wearing a sleeveless trenchcoat, a metal breastplate and blue jeans. She wore a patch over her right eye, and a pair of axes hung off her hips. On her right wrist was a modified foot trap, and looked like an alligator’s jaw bent perfectly backwards.
“Prepare for battle!” Hrist shouted.
In the blink of an eye, a dozen different forms of energy beams slammed into the Asgardian Goddess, and seemed to leave nothing in its wake but smoke.
“Did we get her?”
“Ha!” Hrist leapt from the smoke, axe in one hand.
# # # # #
A few seconds later
The criminal duo known as Hack and Slash, two moron brothers with the ability to turn their limbs into any sort of edged weapons, literally leapt through the wall of the house to get away from Hrist, but when they touched the grass, they found two people waiting for them.
The first was a young woman in a skin tight back suit, with a gray, ceramic like device that ran the length of her left arm. She wore a half mask that stopped at her nose, and her hair was grass green.
The second figure was a stocky young man, and both brothers did a double take.
The man looked as if he’d stepped out of ‘Braveheart’. He wore blue face-paint, and wore a belted plaid shirt and kilt, kilt! that looked as if it belonged in another century. In his hand rested a claymore that looked freshly forged.
“You supposed to be Braveheart…Braveheart?” Hack chuckled despite himself.
The young man with the claymore smiled, “Name’s Thrill Blade, the lass here is Scorpion…”
“…lass?” Scorpion muttered.
“…and those are the last two names you’ll ever hear in your life,” Thrill Blade said, “Scorpion, if I may?”
“Go ahead, feed your testosterone addiction,” Scorpion said with a roll of her eyes.
“Come on!” Hack and Slash flexed their muscles, and their arms became bladed steel. Two more arms ripped from their sides, with just as many blades.
“Not feeling so cocky now, are ya?” said Hack.
“Yes, yes he is,” Scorpion said, with a roll of her eyes.
Thrill Blade smirked as Hack and Slash came at him. Thrill Blade’s sword seemed to shimmer, and he stepped forward into the attack.
Scorpion saw only a flash of blades, as Thrill Blade deflected every attack with a fluid grace that belied his bulk. When Hack tried to disembowel Thrill Blade, the mercenary swatted aside all the arms in a blur of motion, and when Slash came at Thrill Blade’s unprotected back, Thrill Blade responded with a backhand that shattered the man’s jaw.
“I know the odds aren’t fair,” Thrill Blade said, “only two of you and all, but that’s life.”
Hack and Slash trembled in fear, as they saw that Thrill Blade hadn’t a single scratch on him.
“Scared? Afraid?” Thrill Blade smiled like the Cheshire Cat.
“For God’s sake, Thrill Blade, stop being cruel,” Scorpion said, “just end this already.”
“Give me a few more minutes,” Thrill Blade said, “my sword’s barely charged.”
“No,” Scorpion raised her right hand, and a burst of green energy shot out, and struck Slash in the back of his head. His eyes rolled up in the back of his head, and he fell over.
Hack looked at his brother, and was horrified to see that his chest was barely rising.
“That pit of terror you’re feeling? That’s me,” said Thrill Blade, “see, that’s my sword. I can make you feel anything I want, fear, courage, anything. You’re a puppet, and my magic sword pulls the strings.”
“Thrill Blade,” Scorpion sighed.
“Okay, okay,” Thrill Blade swept his sword at Hack, and a wave of pure fear struck Hack. He only had enough time for all his past crimes to flash before his eyes, before he gripped his chest and fell over, dying from a heart attack.
“Such a buzz kill, you know that?” Thrill Blade said, “Mr. Raven was clear, no witnesses.”
“That didn’t mean you had to be an ass about it.”
# # # # #
Hurricane blinked, as his mental facilities slowly returned. He found himself chained, hands over his head, and stripped of his weapons. He glanced to his left, and saw his tools resting on a table just out of reach.
And of course, standing in front of him was the King of Shadows.
“Awake?” said The King.
“You should have killed me,” Hurricane snapped.
“Those chains are indestructible,” King of Shadows said, “so relax, we have much to discuss.”
“The only thing we have to discuss is Daisy,” Hurricane growled, “what happened there?”
“The whore?”
“Call her that again, and I’ll pull your teeth out with my bare hands,” Hurricane said.
“You killed her pimp. Her pimp answered to people,” King of Shadows said, “those people knew of your recent activities, and contacted me.”
Hurricane looked aside, ashamed, “So it was my fault.”
“What does it matter?” King of Shadows said, “She’s just a whore.”
“So you want me to join or die, correct?” Hurricane said, “so what’s to keep me from saying yes and just killing you?”
“The fact that I intend to stick a control disc on you,” King of Shadows said, “but if you say yes, I’ll consider taking it off one day.”
“Good plan,” Hurricane said, “but a better plan would have been mooring these indestructible chains in equally strong .”
Hurricane tore the chains from the ceiling, and slammed them down on the King’s shoulder. He cried out as bone snapped.
“I made a promise,” Hurricane reached down and plunged his hand into the King’s mouth, and then pulled free a molar, “you may not be elite, Shadow King, but you’re one of the few. Not many make me break my code.”
Hurricane slammed his fist into the King’s face.
“But I won’t regret it one bit.”
“My men…will kill you!” King of Shadows said.
“They don’t even know I’m free,” Hurricane smiled like a tiger, “you should be careful when you sound proof a room, even if it’s for torture. Now, I’m going to take my time, and…”
“Excuse me…”
Hurricane turned his eyes to the door, and saw a man covered in all black, from head to toe, and wearing an equally black trench coat. He wore a vest that resembled the feathers of a bird if only made of steel, and wore goggles over his eyes that resembled that of an owl’s.
Standing next to him was a man in a black cloak and hood, with an ebony mist swirling around his feet much like the King of Shadow’s. The cloak cast a shadow over his face that seemed to defy the angle of the light.
“…are you busy?”
“You are?”
“Mr. Raven,” said the man in the trench coat, “and my associate is The Shroud. You’re a hard man to track down, and we need a moment of your time.”
“Fools!” King of Shadows summoned the darkforce to him, “I’ll…”
“Enough, amateur,” The Shroud reached out with his own abilities, and cast the King’s shadows aside as if they were paper, “the adults are speaking.”
“I’m busy at the moment,” said Hurricane.
“Fair enough,” Mr. Raven removed his sidearm, and put six shots into the King of Shadow’s skull. He met Hurricane’s eyes, “what about now?”
Hurricane glanced aside at his weapons.
“Let me get dressed.”
“Take your time,” Mr. Raven said, “we’ll be outside, destroying all evidence of our presence here.”
# # # # #
When Hurricane stepped outside, he was shocked to see the number of people waiting for him outside. They were illuminated by the fires that engulfed the entire complex.
“Hrist?” Hurricane look at the Goddess in shock, “good to see you again.”
“You as well, mortal flea!” Hrist said. She held up the head of Charger, “I must apologize. I meant to leave this kill for you, but got carried away. Would you care for the head as way of apology?”
“…I’m good,” Hurricane said, “so what’s the job?”
“Would you care for the broad picture, or gritty details?” Mr. Raven said.
“Broad picture,” Hurricane said.
“Heard of Hell’s Peake?,” Mr. Raven said.
“Refuge for criminals who can pay,” said Hurricane, “probably got dozens of super scum bags in there.”
“Hundreds,” Mr. Raven said, “and we plan to kill the man at the top. Welcome aboard.”
“That sounds like a mission a hundred times worse than my last one,” Hurricane said, “what on earth makes you think I’d agree?”
“Come with me,” Mr. Raven ushered Hurricane aside, and produced a picture.
Hurricane took one look at it, and felt his heart pounding in his ears.
“…this is impossible.”
“Not exactly. But you see why I need you,” Mr. Raven said, “in or out.”
Hurricane handed the picture back to Mr. Raven.
“I’m in. Lets go commit suicide.”
TO BE CONTINUED...
NEXT ISSUE: The Plan!
Hurricane wondered if bunking down with a prostitute constituted a whole new definition of ‘laying low’, even though he kept it strictly platonic.
It had been little over three weeks since he’d returned from South America, where along with several other mercenaries, Hurricane had extracted the son of a drug lord, spirited him across the country with a legion of criminals on their tail and delivered the boy to sanctuary.
It was, by far, the most dangerous mission of his life.
But in doing so, Hurricane knew that he’d made a legion of enemies. Colonel Condor had, if not friends, then at least allies and dependants. People who needed him if they wanted their businesses to run like a well oiled machine, and who weren’t satisfied with the law to handle their vengeance and or, lost of revenue.
But Hurricane wasn’t too worried. Criminals didn’t hold grudges like that for long, and any bounty that lasted the next criminal fiscal quarter would amount to little more than bragging rights, a badge of honor.
But right now, Hurricane was ‘hot’ and he had to lie low.
To that end, he approached several prostitutes, and when he found one who rented a house and not an apartment, he offered her ten thousand on the spot. And since she had no known connection to him, her home was perfect to hide from criminals and law enforcement alike.
The woman’s name was Daisy, and at first it seemed like the perfect arrangement. Daisy was being paid not to work the streets and could spend time with her son, and Hurricane didn’t have to look over his shoulder, trying to figure out if anyone who crossed his path was law enforcement.
By the second day, Hurricane found himself so bored with day time television. So he went to the hardware store, and when Daisy returned from the park with her son, she found that the bathroom on the first floor had been retiled.
The arraignment was perfect. Until day eight, when Daisy’s pimp showed up.
“Daisy! You lazy bitch! Get out here!”
Hurricane was in the second floor bathroom, fixing the sink, when he heard the shouting.
“Peter!” Hurricane could almost feel the fear in Daisy’s voice, “I told you…my son’s sick. I’ll make it up to you, I swear!”
“I don’t care if your boy is near death!” Peter shouted, “you work when I say you work!”
Hurricane heard the familiar sound of a body hitting the ground, and Daisy cried out.
Hurricane stomped down the hall, and stood at the top of the staircase.
“Is there a problem here?” Hurricane growled.
He was a little shocked to see that ‘Peter’ was actually a stocky woman, wearing a leather cut with tattoos running down both arms. She had a knife in one hand, and looked thirsty for blood.
“You the dick this bitch has been entertaining?” Peter growled.
Hurricane walked briskly down the stairs, doing his best to look non threatening. Given that he wore Goodwill bought cover-all’s splattered with plaster, water and paint, he didn’t have to try hard.
“I’m a family friend,” Hurricane said, “if she owes you money, I’ll pay.”
Hurricane observed a small cut on Daisy’s upper shoulder, but he kept his calm.
“…we don’t want any trouble.”
“So this bitch has been holding out of me,” Peter pointed the knife at Hurricane’s throat, “lets make a deal. Give me all your money, and maybe you don’t walk away scarred for life.”
Hurricane sighed.
“You’re threatening me,” Hurricane kept a steady pulse, “you need to stop. And please leave.”
Peter pressed the knife harder against Hurricane’s throat harder.
“Are you some kind of…”, Peter’s eyes went wide.
Hurricane slapped the knife from her hand, and grabbed her throat.
“You’re…that guy!” Peter gasped, “they’re looking for you!”
“You should have left when I gave you the chance,” Hurricane’s voice was solid steel. He dragged Peter to the first level bathroom, and held Peter in the tub, “any last words?”
Peter laughed, “They told us about you! You got a code! You won’t kill me! I’m a woman!”
Hurricane chuckled darkly, “I do have a code. I call it the three Cs. No civilians, no collateral, and no cruelty. Now tell me…”
“…where does that say ‘no women’?”
Peter’s face paled.
-crak!-
Hurricane gently laid the body down. He dealt with death every day, but that was no reason not to be respectful.
“You…you killed her!” Daisy gasped.
Hurricane sighed. His ‘perfect strategy’ had just gone up in smoke.
“A pimp that wants more money is like a rabid dog,” said Hurricane, “gotta be put down.”
“You…killed her.”
“I’ll take care of the body,” Hurricane said, “you should probably take your son to a movie and dinner. It’ll be gone by the time you get back.”
Daisy nodded numbly. She grabbed her keys, and all but ran to the door.
“Hey, Daisy…?” Hurricane called out, catching her just as she was about to leave.
“Yes…?” Daisy said timidly.
“Why was her name Peter?”
“You don’t want to know,” Daisy replied, and then rushed out the door.
“Son of a bitch…,” Hurricane lowered his head, “…good while it lasted.”
# # # # #
Hurricane took a quick shower upstairs, no more than five minutes, and dressed.
He had a duffel bag full of his gear, and laid out his equipment. He dressed in brown cargo pants, and a standard issue army flak vest. He loaded a few grenades in his vest, a spare shotgun shells, and went to his handguns. He had two Glocks that he wore on both hips, and a shotgun he slipped into a holster on his back.
Next Hurricane took his machete, and wiped it down. He’d cleaned his weapons the second day of living here, so the blade literally gleamed. Made of vibranium, Hurricane had taken it off a man who tried to kill him and never once had it failed him. But a good soldier was kind to his weapons.
Hurricane slid a few spare clips into his cargo pants, along with some ball-bears and throwing knives and then packed the remaining weapons into his duffel bag.
Ready for war, Hurricane stepped into the backyard, and buried five thousand dollars wrapped in plastic. What was going to happen next was only barely her fault, after all and Hurricane prided himself on paying his debts.
Once that was done, Hurricane went inside, and sat by the door. He waited, and waited, and when the sun set, and when it did he went outside and sat on the porch.
“God damn, what is taking so long?” Hurricane grumbled, “never thought a black man would have to wait so long to be arrested for a crime he actually did commit!”
The mercenary expected Daisy to go straight to the cops, and frankly he couldn’t blame her. There was both a dead body and a killer in her home, and he gave her an easy excuse. What sane person wouldn’t run straight to the police?
But the wait was playing havoc with his nerves. His plan was to wait until the cops showed up, put up a fight (not kill anyone, but cops had good insurance), take the blame, and vanish. He had an exit strategy and everything.
But none of that meant a damn thing, if the cops didn’t actually show up.
“…am not going to wait here all night,” Hurricane muttered, as he pulled out an energy bar and began munching, “should just leave, call and confess.”
That was when three vans pulled up, and squealed to a halt in the front of the house. But Hurricane’s lip curled in disgust when he saw that they weren’t SWAT vans.
At least a dozen and a half men piled out, each and everyone dressed like some costumed maniac, which, Hurricane supposed, they were.
“God damn it Daisy,” Hurricane growled, “why’d you have to get greedy?”
“Greetings, Hurricane,” said a man in a skull mask. He wore a cape, and a black mist swirled around him, “I am the King of Shadows. I have a proposition for you.”
Hurricane raised an eyebrow, “The Shadow King?”
“No!” the man hissed, “King of Shadows!”
“Well, ‘Shadow King’…”
“King of Shadows, King of Shadows!”
“This wouldn’t happen if you chose a better name,” observed a green haired man who stood behind the King.
“Leave it, Vektor!”
“…I’m not interesting in joining a team,” Hurricane said, “I’m a man with standards, professional and operational. I doubt you meet them. So unless you’re here to collect on the bounty, get the hell out of my sight.”
“Lets not be hasty. I think our alliance of the elite would meet your standards without effort,” said King of Shadows, “for instance, I’m well aware of your abilities. My jade friend here is a telekinetic. You’re not fast enough to defy him.”
“Is he fast enough to catch a bullet?”
“You better…”
-blam!-
Vektor shrieked as he stopped a bullet from Hurricane’s Glock only a few inches from his skull.
“I’m impressed,” Hurricane returned the weapon to his holster, and whipped out his shotgun, “lets try that again.”
Hurricane squeezed the trigger twice, and two giant slugs went careening through the air. The first one struck the bullet from the Glock, driving it forward, and the third pushed the second. All three bullets smashed into Vektor’s skull as one, exploding it like a rotten pumpkin.
“In his next life, your man shouldn’t assume that everyone uses buckshot or that all bullets are the same,” Hurricane said to King of Shadows. He whipped the smoking hot barrel of his shotgun to the side, and heard someone scream. Hurricane back-handed the man in the jaw, and leveled his eyes on King of Shadows, “also, your invisible man should step lighter.”
“Calling yourself elite doesn’t change shit,” Hurricane said, “you’re all idiots using stolen gears or powers you barely understand. That’s not an issue I have. Right now? I can see a dozen ways out of this.”
Hurricane pumped his shotgun.
“Get in my way, and I’ll take the road paved with your bodies.”
“Alliance of the elite!” King of Shadows sneered, but stepped back, “take him!”
The first man who came at Hurricane wore the flight-rig of The Vulture on his arms, and a cheap knock-off of Doctor Octopus’ arms around his waist.
“You belong to the Bird of Prey!” he shouted. He swooped down, and entangled Hurricane in his tentacle. But when he tried to pull him into the air, nothing happened.
“You didn’t think this through, did you?” Hurricane asked, as he took a firm grip on one of the arms.
“Oh no…”
Hurricane swung the man towards three of his associates on his left, bowling them over like ten-pins. He then snapped the arms like a whip, smashing Bird of Prey face first into the ground.
“He got off easy,” Hurricane said, “next person who comes at me catches a bullet.”
The next person who came at him was a woman wearing some sort of harness on her back that powered the giant gauntlets she wore on her wrists. She leveled one hand at Hurricane, and he replied with a bullet to the knee.
She doubled over in agony, and accidentally triggered the release on her gauntlets. They sent energy flooding out, where it smashed into the ground and the recoil sent her flying through the air like a bottle rocket.
A neighbor’s tree was kind enough to stop her flight, but not catch her. She fell from branch to branch, and seemed to catch every large branch on her path down. Like a car wreck, no one, not Hurricane, the King of Shadows or her fellow teammates, could look away, no matter how much they wanted. Finally, she landed in a heap of limbs at all the wrong angles.
“Umm,” Hurricane rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly, “that…that was an accident.”
“Get him!” The King of Shadows snapped.
Hurricane’s shotgun flared, and three more men went down. He broke off, and ran towards the backyard. He wasn’t interested in a prolonged firefight, and there were enough corpses on the lawn for the cops not to hold Daisy responsible for the corpse in her bathroom.
Hurricane always tried to be a good guest.
He leapt the fence to the backyard…and found Daisy, standing in front of an eight foot muscle bound man, with a metal horn protruding from his forehead.
“…a unicorn theme?” Hurricane said, “really?”
“Give up,” the giant wrapped his massive paw around Daisy’s neck, “or the whore gets it!”
Hurricane grimaced. On the one hand, Daisy had betrayed him. But on the other, he’d wanted her to. He just wanted her to call the cops, not these thugs.
But she was still a civilian, in the end, and he had standards. Hurricane lowered his weapons.
“Thank you, Charger.”
The King of Shadows willed his abilities out, ebony tentacles binding Hurricane in a grip that felt like steel. One wrapped itself around his throat, and Hurricane fought to breathe.
“You may dispose of the whore.”
“No!”
Hurricane felt his consciousness fade, as he heard a neck snap.
# # # # #
Later, elsewhere
“I just don’t know why they aren’t killing the bastard,” Joe Public muttered.
“Because Kingy wants him as a point man,” replied Joe Public. Gifted with the power of self multiplication after a lab accident that he’d caused with his own stupidity, ‘Joe Public’ always seemed to draw guard duty for the Alliance’s ‘compound’ (which in reality was simply a defunct housing complex chosen because it somehow had street lighting and came with a lake for dumping bodies), “the bounties we’d get for his dead body would be peanuts compared to what we’d get if he was on our team.”
“Guess with Suzi Cannon and the other guys out of it, that would mean more money for us,” said Joe Public.
“See! Now you’re thinking!”
“I don’t know if that’s what it could be called.”
The two Joes turned their heads, and saw a woman approaching down the street.
She was Asian, little over five and a half feet tall, with a pony tail that went down to her hips. She wore a black cat suit, pistols on each hip, and throwing knives strapped to each thigh. Around her neck she wore a collar composed of several white whistles.
“Who’re you?”
“Me?” the woman said. Joe Public thought he recognized her accent, but he couldn’t tell from where, “I am called Warcry. And I’m here on a…I guess it is called a job interview?”
“Typical,” Joe Public muttered, “no one tells me nothin’…”
“That’s because,” Warcry smiled, “you’re part of the interview.”
Warcry opened her mouth, and screamed.
A wave of sheer force struck Joe Public, and launched both of them through the air like leaves caught in blower. They landed half a block down the street, aching all over.
“Okay,” Joe Public growled, “so it’s like that? Get ready for a riot, lady!”
Where there was only two Joes before, Warcry saw a dozen more.
“Hello, gentlemen,” Warcry said, “and good bye.”
Warcry whistled softly, and Joe Public suddenly found himself too dizzy to stand. He struggled, adrenaline pumping in his veins, but his stomach strongly rebelled. He looked around, and saw that each of his clones was having the same problem.
Warcry closed her eyes, and drew her pistols. She pulled the triggers in rapid succession, and Joe Q watched in horror as clone after clone was mowed down. The shots were far from perfect, no shots in between the eyes, but not a single one missed.
Warcry stopped her whistling, just as her pistols ran dry.
“I’ve got to learn to do that with my eyes open,” Warcry said. She looked at the host of bodies that were strewn out before her. Only three Joe Publics were left standing, and they regarded her with sheer horror.
“…how?” said one.
“I disrupted your inner ear with sonics,” Warcry explained, “and I used that same sonic pulse as radar when I shot. I know about Florida, by the way.”
Joe Public didn’t think it was possible to feel even more terror, but he found he was wrong. He felt like a newborn mouse in the crosshairs of a lion.
“Do you know what a sonic resonance is?” Warcry asked, as she reached down to her necklace of whistles, and chose one.
Joe Public tried to run, but he was still too dizzy to make it more than a few feet.
“It’s basically a shorthand term for how much sonic energy one thing can absorb, before it breaks,” Warcry explained, “everything has its own different frequency. Like the human eye, for instance.”
Warcry channeled her sonic abilities through the whistle, and every surviving Joe Public screamed. They felt their eyes shake in their skull, and it felt as if someone were rubbing glass inside of them.
As Warcry watched, the delicate organs shook, cracked and finally exploded like water balloons. Not a single Joe Public was spared.
“Now you know what a sonic resonance is.”
Warcry tapped the radio in her ear.
“Guard is down. You guys encountering any trouble with the rest?”
# # # # #
“You guys hear something?”
Charger turned the volume down on the television, and listened. Not that it was easy, in a house that had contained two dozen super-humans who wanted to party it up after a successful mission.
“I ain’t hear nothin’,” said Furnace Phil. He lit his cigar with a snap of his fingers, and then jumped like a spooked alley cat when the front door exploded inward.
“Mortals!” a dozen eyes fell upon the woman standing in the doorway. She was a tall redhead, wearing a sleeveless trenchcoat, a metal breastplate and blue jeans. She wore a patch over her right eye, and a pair of axes hung off her hips. On her right wrist was a modified foot trap, and looked like an alligator’s jaw bent perfectly backwards.
“Prepare for battle!” Hrist shouted.
In the blink of an eye, a dozen different forms of energy beams slammed into the Asgardian Goddess, and seemed to leave nothing in its wake but smoke.
“Did we get her?”
“Ha!” Hrist leapt from the smoke, axe in one hand.
# # # # #
A few seconds later
The criminal duo known as Hack and Slash, two moron brothers with the ability to turn their limbs into any sort of edged weapons, literally leapt through the wall of the house to get away from Hrist, but when they touched the grass, they found two people waiting for them.
The first was a young woman in a skin tight back suit, with a gray, ceramic like device that ran the length of her left arm. She wore a half mask that stopped at her nose, and her hair was grass green.
The second figure was a stocky young man, and both brothers did a double take.
The man looked as if he’d stepped out of ‘Braveheart’. He wore blue face-paint, and wore a belted plaid shirt and kilt, kilt! that looked as if it belonged in another century. In his hand rested a claymore that looked freshly forged.
“You supposed to be Braveheart…Braveheart?” Hack chuckled despite himself.
The young man with the claymore smiled, “Name’s Thrill Blade, the lass here is Scorpion…”
“…lass?” Scorpion muttered.
“…and those are the last two names you’ll ever hear in your life,” Thrill Blade said, “Scorpion, if I may?”
“Go ahead, feed your testosterone addiction,” Scorpion said with a roll of her eyes.
“Come on!” Hack and Slash flexed their muscles, and their arms became bladed steel. Two more arms ripped from their sides, with just as many blades.
“Not feeling so cocky now, are ya?” said Hack.
“Yes, yes he is,” Scorpion said, with a roll of her eyes.
Thrill Blade smirked as Hack and Slash came at him. Thrill Blade’s sword seemed to shimmer, and he stepped forward into the attack.
Scorpion saw only a flash of blades, as Thrill Blade deflected every attack with a fluid grace that belied his bulk. When Hack tried to disembowel Thrill Blade, the mercenary swatted aside all the arms in a blur of motion, and when Slash came at Thrill Blade’s unprotected back, Thrill Blade responded with a backhand that shattered the man’s jaw.
“I know the odds aren’t fair,” Thrill Blade said, “only two of you and all, but that’s life.”
Hack and Slash trembled in fear, as they saw that Thrill Blade hadn’t a single scratch on him.
“Scared? Afraid?” Thrill Blade smiled like the Cheshire Cat.
“For God’s sake, Thrill Blade, stop being cruel,” Scorpion said, “just end this already.”
“Give me a few more minutes,” Thrill Blade said, “my sword’s barely charged.”
“No,” Scorpion raised her right hand, and a burst of green energy shot out, and struck Slash in the back of his head. His eyes rolled up in the back of his head, and he fell over.
Hack looked at his brother, and was horrified to see that his chest was barely rising.
“That pit of terror you’re feeling? That’s me,” said Thrill Blade, “see, that’s my sword. I can make you feel anything I want, fear, courage, anything. You’re a puppet, and my magic sword pulls the strings.”
“Thrill Blade,” Scorpion sighed.
“Okay, okay,” Thrill Blade swept his sword at Hack, and a wave of pure fear struck Hack. He only had enough time for all his past crimes to flash before his eyes, before he gripped his chest and fell over, dying from a heart attack.
“Such a buzz kill, you know that?” Thrill Blade said, “Mr. Raven was clear, no witnesses.”
“That didn’t mean you had to be an ass about it.”
# # # # #
Hurricane blinked, as his mental facilities slowly returned. He found himself chained, hands over his head, and stripped of his weapons. He glanced to his left, and saw his tools resting on a table just out of reach.
And of course, standing in front of him was the King of Shadows.
“Awake?” said The King.
“You should have killed me,” Hurricane snapped.
“Those chains are indestructible,” King of Shadows said, “so relax, we have much to discuss.”
“The only thing we have to discuss is Daisy,” Hurricane growled, “what happened there?”
“The whore?”
“Call her that again, and I’ll pull your teeth out with my bare hands,” Hurricane said.
“You killed her pimp. Her pimp answered to people,” King of Shadows said, “those people knew of your recent activities, and contacted me.”
Hurricane looked aside, ashamed, “So it was my fault.”
“What does it matter?” King of Shadows said, “She’s just a whore.”
“So you want me to join or die, correct?” Hurricane said, “so what’s to keep me from saying yes and just killing you?”
“The fact that I intend to stick a control disc on you,” King of Shadows said, “but if you say yes, I’ll consider taking it off one day.”
“Good plan,” Hurricane said, “but a better plan would have been mooring these indestructible chains in equally strong .”
Hurricane tore the chains from the ceiling, and slammed them down on the King’s shoulder. He cried out as bone snapped.
“I made a promise,” Hurricane reached down and plunged his hand into the King’s mouth, and then pulled free a molar, “you may not be elite, Shadow King, but you’re one of the few. Not many make me break my code.”
Hurricane slammed his fist into the King’s face.
“But I won’t regret it one bit.”
“My men…will kill you!” King of Shadows said.
“They don’t even know I’m free,” Hurricane smiled like a tiger, “you should be careful when you sound proof a room, even if it’s for torture. Now, I’m going to take my time, and…”
“Excuse me…”
Hurricane turned his eyes to the door, and saw a man covered in all black, from head to toe, and wearing an equally black trench coat. He wore a vest that resembled the feathers of a bird if only made of steel, and wore goggles over his eyes that resembled that of an owl’s.
Standing next to him was a man in a black cloak and hood, with an ebony mist swirling around his feet much like the King of Shadow’s. The cloak cast a shadow over his face that seemed to defy the angle of the light.
“…are you busy?”
“You are?”
“Mr. Raven,” said the man in the trench coat, “and my associate is The Shroud. You’re a hard man to track down, and we need a moment of your time.”
“Fools!” King of Shadows summoned the darkforce to him, “I’ll…”
“Enough, amateur,” The Shroud reached out with his own abilities, and cast the King’s shadows aside as if they were paper, “the adults are speaking.”
“I’m busy at the moment,” said Hurricane.
“Fair enough,” Mr. Raven removed his sidearm, and put six shots into the King of Shadow’s skull. He met Hurricane’s eyes, “what about now?”
Hurricane glanced aside at his weapons.
“Let me get dressed.”
“Take your time,” Mr. Raven said, “we’ll be outside, destroying all evidence of our presence here.”
# # # # #
When Hurricane stepped outside, he was shocked to see the number of people waiting for him outside. They were illuminated by the fires that engulfed the entire complex.
“Hrist?” Hurricane look at the Goddess in shock, “good to see you again.”
“You as well, mortal flea!” Hrist said. She held up the head of Charger, “I must apologize. I meant to leave this kill for you, but got carried away. Would you care for the head as way of apology?”
“…I’m good,” Hurricane said, “so what’s the job?”
“Would you care for the broad picture, or gritty details?” Mr. Raven said.
“Broad picture,” Hurricane said.
“Heard of Hell’s Peake?,” Mr. Raven said.
“Refuge for criminals who can pay,” said Hurricane, “probably got dozens of super scum bags in there.”
“Hundreds,” Mr. Raven said, “and we plan to kill the man at the top. Welcome aboard.”
“That sounds like a mission a hundred times worse than my last one,” Hurricane said, “what on earth makes you think I’d agree?”
“Come with me,” Mr. Raven ushered Hurricane aside, and produced a picture.
Hurricane took one look at it, and felt his heart pounding in his ears.
“…this is impossible.”
“Not exactly. But you see why I need you,” Mr. Raven said, “in or out.”
Hurricane handed the picture back to Mr. Raven.
“I’m in. Lets go commit suicide.”
TO BE CONTINUED...
NEXT ISSUE: The Plan!