Legacy

  For Stephanie and Dan,

  a true dynamic duo

  Gigantic gobs of gratitude to LeeAnne, my lovely and tortured wife, and to Mulder the wonder dog, for continuing to put up with my shenanigans.

  Thanks are also due to my brother from another mother, Christopher Golden, Liesa Abrams, James Mignogna, Kenn Gold, Dave “who threw the pies” Kraus, Mom and Dad Sniegoski, Mom and Dad Fogg, Pete Donaldson, Sheila Walker, Mike, Christine and Katie Mignola, Abby and Kim, and Timothy Cole and the League of Justice down at Cole’s Comics in Lynn.

  Up, up, and away!

  prologue

  Twenty Years Ago

  He could always see it in their eyes.

  The look that said, Why would anybody put on a costume and fight crime?

  He wanted to tell the poor slobs, If you have to ask that question, you’ll never know.

  You’ll never understand.

  The masked man, dressed in the tight-fitting costume of red and black, perched at the edge of an office building and surveyed the city sprawled below him.

  Seraph City.

  They—the citizens he protected—called him the Raptor, a sleek bird of prey feeding upon the vermin infesting the city.

  His city.

  They might not have understood him, but they were grateful for what he did, how he allowed them to sleep safely in their beds knowing he was out there.

  Protecting them from evil.

  The Raptor looked at his partner beside him.

  His sidekick.

  The newspapers called him Talon.

  The Raptor and Talon; it had a nice ring to it. They’d inspired other crime fighters in cities across the world. For there was only so much that law enforcement could do. No matter how hard the police fought, some bad guys would always slip through the cracks.

  It was up to the Raptor and Talon, and others like them, to pick up the slack.

  Talon noticed that the Raptor was staring at him and met his gaze. “What?” he asked.

  “Nothing.” The Raptor turned his eyes toward the rooftop of the building below them.

  The object of this evening’s mission.

  While the Raptor had indeed inspired the birth of heroes, these superheroes had in turn inspired the birth of a new class of criminal, a kind of evil the world had never seen before.

  Flamboyant. Colorful. Powerful. Deadly.

  The Raptor refused to accept responsibility for these new and dangerous criminals, convinced they would have arrived even if he hadn’t. The world was changing, and these villains were simply products of that change.

  Just as he and the other costumed crime fighters were.

  One side couldn’t … wouldn’t exist without the other.

  “So you think they’re down there?” Talon asked.

  The building below them had been designed to be Seraph City’s new convention center, a showplace to announce to the world that a restored Seraph was on the rise. That the dangerous, crime-ridden place of old was a thing of the past.

  But that was before construction workers discovered that the earth beneath the building had served as an illegal dumping ground for years, poisoning the area with toxic waste.

  The project had been stopped cold, leaving an abandoned, decaying shell, a perfect home for all manner of vermin.

  “They’re down there, all right,” the Raptor confirmed.

  He had been searching for the Terribles for more than a week, and finally, thanks to his many informants, he had located his prey.

  “Slippery Pete saw the Frightener and the Blade Master going in less than an hour ago,” the Raptor said.

  “Good old Slippery Pete,” Talon said with a chuckle. “It’s a good thing he’s more afraid of us than of the Terribles.”

  The Terribles had held the city in a grip of fear for weeks. Their recent armored car attack had left two civilians close to death and another badly burned.

  It was high time their reign of terror was brought to an end, and over the last three nights the Raptor had forgone sleep to spend every moment tracking the Terribles.

  Now he had found them.

  A thrill vibrated through his body as he readied himself to strike. He always felt this way before he went into battle; he always felt this good.

  There was movement in the shadows below them, and he and Talon both tensed, watching with predators’ eyes.

  The Raptor reached up to his mask, gently tapping the side of his head to activate the Owl’s Eye lenses in his face mask, which turned the night as bright as day.

  Below him, lighting up a quick smoke, was the Muscle. This villain was ten times as strong as a normal man, and twenty times as dumb. He would be the least of their problems.

  The criminal finished his smoke and returned to the protection of the nest.

  “It’s time,” the Raptor announced, spreading his arms to activate the flight sensors woven into the protective mesh of his costume. Talon did the same, and they leapt from the rooftop, riding the air currents to the unfinished convention center below.

  Silently they touched down in the cool darkness of the center’s entryway. A set of double doors secured with corroded, rust-covered chains and padlocks was now all that stood between them and their quarry.

  Talon looked at him, a glimmer of excitement in his eyes.

  “It’s all yours,” the Raptor said. It was like throwing a bone to a hungry dog.

  He smiled as he watched the boy lunge. The strength-enhancing exoskeleton built into the costume he wore allowed the boy to tear the doors from their hinges with ease.

  He was good; maybe good enough to carry on the legacy when it came time for the Raptor to step down.

  Of course, the crime fighter hoped he wouldn’t need to think about that for many years. There was far too much evil in the Angel City for him to think about stepping down as its protector.

  With a powerful leap, the Raptor bounded through the doorway to join his partner. Oddly, there was no sign of the Terribles.

  “What, did they see you and surrender?” he asked, coming to stand beside Talon.

  “Something’s wrong” was all Talon had to say. Suddenly the darkness was dispelled by a bright, almost blinding light as multiple spotlights set up all around the cavernous first floor were illuminated.

  Stunned, the Raptor realized almost at once what he and Talon had done. How could they have been so stupid? So overconfident?

  There were five chairs set up across from them, with five people bound and gagged in them. He knew each and every one. They were his agents, his informers, people he used and trusted to collect information to eliminate the criminal element from the city.

  Justin Spiewack, the incorruptible beat cop with a wife and two infant daughters; Patricia Doughtery, tough-as-nails reporter for the Seraph Sun; Brucie Mitchell, owner of the Ballentine club, Seraph City’s hottest nightspot; Dr. Lita Coughlin, personal physician to some of Seraph City’s most powerful criminal figures; and Slippery Pete, one of the greatest con men of the twentieth century.

  All of them tied to their chairs. All of them clearly terrified as the small digital clocks connected to explosive devices resting in each of their laps counted down the last seconds of their lives.

  Eight … Seven … Six …

  “What do we do?” Talon asked, his earlier excitement replaced by fear.

  Five … Four …

  A thousand and one scenarios ran through the Raptor’s mind. But he knew that none would be successful. “It’s too late,” he said.

  Three … Two …

  This isn’t how it’s supposed to be, he thought, frozen in place, feeling the fear emanating from those who had aided him in battle.

  The Raptor and Talon were supposed to charge into the dilapidated building, defeat the bad gu
ys, and bring them to justice.

  That was how it was supposed to be. How the game was played.

  How it always had been.

  One.

  The world around the Raptor was consumed in fire and smoke, and a sound that could very well have signaled the end of the world.

  The end of his world.

  Evil had changed the rules.

  1

  Even with the industrial-sized fan blowing, it was hot as hell inside the garage of Big Lou’s Gas Up & Go.

  Lucas Moore was under the hood of Jeb Dolahyde’s old Ford truck, using a ratchet wrench to tighten the spark plugs he’d just installed. He could feel trickles of sweat tickling the scalp of his shaggy head, eventually dripping down to and across the bridge of his nose. It was days like this when he wished he had the courage to get a crew cut, to shave it all off, but the ladies seemed to like his untamed, curly black hair.

  And what the ladies liked, he kept.

  He stood up and pulled a red bandanna from his back pocket, wiping the sweat from his face. All he had to do was change the fluids and he’d be done with the first car of the day, leaving only five more to go.

  His head pounded and his stomach was becoming increasingly sour. He knew he should probably have something to eat, but the thought only made him queasy. Lucas wanted to blame his misery on the blazing Arizona heat, but he knew it was more likely the beer and whiskey shots from the night before.

  He headed to the workstation in the corner of the garage, stopping in front of the fan and closing his eyes. The warm air didn’t provide much in the way of relief, but it was better than nothing.

  Head throbbing, he pulled himself away from the fan and dropped the wrench on the workbench. His stomach burbled, and again he considered getting something to eat at the diner across the way, but then he realized that would mean seeing his mother, and he thought better of it.

  He flashed back to earlier that morning when his mother had been preparing to leave for work at the Good Eats Diner (also owned by Big Lou). She had started to lay into Lucas about how he had come in drunk, and how he wasn’t even old enough to be drinking, and pretty soon that had led into how he wasn’t doing anything with his life, and how he would never amount to anything without a high school education.

  The fact that Lucas had dropped out of high school earlier that year was a real sore spot for his mom, but Lucas saw it as looking at things realistically. He believed high school wasn’t going to teach him anything that was going to help him much in life, especially when he more or less knew he was going to end up fixing cars in Big Lou’s garage anyway.

  Dropping out of school had just helped him on his way to an inevitable career path. But try telling his mother that.

  He was walking over to a display of radiator fluid when he heard his name called.

  Lucas turned to see Richie Dennison and two of his punk friends, Teddy Shay and Vincent Clark, saunter into the garage.

  “What can I do for you, Richie?” Lucas asked, taking a plastic container of radiator fluid over to the pickup.

  “I told you last night it wasn’t over,” Richie said. He stood with his hands out to either side, like a gunfighter ready to draw.

  Lucas’s head immediately began to throb harder. “What wasn’t over?” he asked, setting the container of coolant down in front of the truck and approaching the three.

  “You know what I’m talking about,” Richie snarled. “Playing stupid isn’t going to help you.”

  Seeing Richie had begun to stir up some memories from the night before, but they were buried pretty deep. Lucas vaguely recalled making a comment about Richie’s girlfriend. “This doesn’t have anything to do with something I said about Brenda, does it?” he asked.

  “I told you never to say her name to me again!” Richie shouted, coming at Lucas with his fists clenched.

  Lucas backed up, throwing his hands in the air. “Hey, look, I’m sorry, all right? I don’t even remember what I said. But I’m sorry. Okay?”

  Richie smirked and his friends chuckled.

  “Figured you’d try to get out of it once your buddies weren’t around to back you up,” he said.

  “Look,” Lucas began, “I don’t remember much about last night. … I guess I was a little drunk.”

  “Not too drunk to run your mouth and talk trash about my girlfriend,” Richie replied.

  Lucas thought for sure he was going to throw up. The heat and his hangover were making him feel sicker by the second. “What do you want from me?” he finally asked, trying to keep the annoyance out of his tone. “I said I was sorry. I shouldn’t have talked trash about Brenda.”

  Richie moved more quickly than Lucas expected, slamming a fist into his jaw and sending him stumbling to one side.

  But he didn’t go down.

  “I told you not to say her name,” Richie said menacingly.

  Lucas held the side of his face. “I think it’s time for you all to get the hell out of here,” he said, jaw throbbing.

  He knew he’d been wrong the night before, even though he couldn’t remember exactly what he’d said. He did have a tendency to run his mouth after a few beers, and probably deserved that punch.

  But no more.

  “We’ll get out, all right,” Richie said as he and his buddies came at Lucas. “Just as soon as we’re done stomping your ass.”

  Lucas liked a good scuffle as much as the next guy, but three against one? That just wasn’t right.

  He ducked his head low and charged. Teddy tried to hold Lucas’s arms behind his back, but Lucas drove the heel of his heavy work boot down onto Teddy’s sneakered foot. The kid screamed, limping backward, giving Lucas a chance to concentrate on the other two.

  Vincent knocked him back with a punch that grazed his cheek, but it gave Lucas the opportunity he needed. He dove at the guy, grabbing him around the waist and bringing him down to the ground. He pinned Vincent to the floor and put everything he had into a punch to the kidneys.

  Richie threw his arms around Lucas’s thick, muscular neck, pulling him from his friend, who now writhed on the floor, moaning. Lucas jabbed his elbow back into Richie’s stomach, loosening Richie’s grip enough that Lucas was able to turn and throw a right cross into the guy’s face, sending him sprawling to the floor.

  Breathing heavily, Lucas stood unsteadily as he watched Teddy help Vincent up from the floor. Both eyed him cautiously.

  “Get out,” Lucas said, spitting a wad of bloody saliva onto the concrete floor.

  They didn’t move, waiting as their ringleader got to his feet.

  “Don’t make me tell you again,” Lucas warned. He really wasn’t ready for round two, but he didn’t think the three of them had it in them either.

  “This isn’t over,” Richie said, his back to Lucas.

  What happened next was a blur.

  Lucas thought the boy was leaving, but Richie spun around. Something glinted in the glow of the fluorescent lights as he surged toward Lucas. Lucas tried to block the thrust, but he wasn’t fast enough, and suddenly there was an explosion of pain, followed by a cold numbness in his stomach.

  Lucas looked down at himself as Richie stepped back. He could see the new hole in his T-shirt, a scarlet stain starting to expand around it.

  “What did you do?” Lucas asked, horror beginning to sink in.

  He looked up to see the three wearing expressions of shock as they started to back toward the garage exit. Richie was still holding the blood-speckled knife in his hand.

  Jeb Dolahyde appeared in the entrance just then, his ample belly making it around the corner before the rest of him. He was taking the plastic wrapping off a pack of discount cigarettes but stopped short when he noticed Richie and then Lucas across the room.

  “What the hell …”

  The punks bolted from the garage.

  Lucas could smell the blood from his wound. He stared at the scarlet blossom on the belly of his T-shirt until his eyes began to blur. For some reason it no
longer hurt as much as it had, and he knew that had to be a bad thing.

  “Lucas?” Jeb called to him, his cowboy boots clicking across the concrete floor.

  Lucas continued to stare at the stain on his shirt, afraid to look beneath the fabric. Outside he heard the screeching of tires as Richie and his friends fled.

  “Lucas, you all right?” he heard Jeb ask. “Do you need me to call 911?”

  Lucas didn’t answer. He was distracted by the fact that he could no longer feel any pain. Gathering his courage, he grabbed hold of his bloody shirt and lifted it. His exposed stomach was smeared and sticky with blood, but no matter how hard he searched, he couldn’t find the wound.

  With a tentative hand he reached down and began to feel around, expecting a lightning bolt of pain that never came.

  There was nothing there.

  “No,” he said finally, looking up into the concerned face of Jeb Dolahyde. “It … it looks worse than it is.”

  It was like he hadn’t been stabbed at all.

  It was a good thing Lucas kept a spare shirt in the back of his truck. He threw the bloodstained T-shirt into one of the barrels inside the garage.

  He quickly returned to the job of finishing Jeb’s truck.

  Jeb hovered for a while, asking a lot of questions about what had happened, but he finally gave up and went outside when it became clear that Lucas wasn’t giving any answers. It wasn’t that Lucas was intentionally being rude; it was just that he really couldn’t explain it. No matter how hard he thought about it, he always came up with the same answer.

  Richie Dennison had stabbed him.

  But if that was the case, why wasn’t he hurt?

  Lucas threw himself into the job, changing the radiator coolant, then topping off the fluids for the wipers and the brakes. And all the while, the questions kept right on coming.

  It wasn’t that he hadn’t been hurt. He’d been hurt, all right. He’d felt the blade go in—it was one of the most painful things he’d ever experienced. And he’d bled like a stuck pig, too.

  But in the time it took Jeb to come into the garage, something had happened.