Blindside Read online

  ***

  New York, present day….

  The dirty lights above the urinals bounced off the needle Mac held at his neck. A quick plunge of his thumb would freeze his blood with poison. A quick shove, a quiet painful kiss. This cocktail of herbs, muscle relaxants, and inhibitors would drown his powers and ensure his “fans” didn’t regret spending their money watching a has-been hero fight.

  Yeah, he was real super, shooting up over the cracked sinks, listening to the boos and whistles from the audience waiting for him outside the john. The dives and cities changed, but the syringes and the groupies didn’t. Ten grand a night, with the only stipulation that the fight was “fair.”

  His dead parents would have been so proud seeing their one and only on the news, his stats up for the world to memorize. Can shield himself from bullets. Can push himself off the ground or solid surfaces to give the illusion of flight. Projects a form of energy as a result of the adrenal glands fused with an unclassified functioning similar to blood sugar.

  The whole world knew his real name. He’d been offered millions so governments could probe him. And some nights, when the alcohol couldn’t drown out the aches and pains of busted joints, Mac wondered if he should give those scientists a call.

  “Are you ready to Rrrrock!” The drawn out R had fans chanting for blood. With a long steady plunge, his focus cold in the cracked mirror, Mac Gamble, Narc, San Michael’s unmasked hero, thrust the needle into his neck.

  Seconds ticked by. He waited for the heat to shrivel up and die inside a fresh doze of the poison, a relic from the Cold War he bought with money left over from each fight.

  “Let’s bring him out then. You know him as Narc, San Michael’s Superhero, or Mac Gamble. And on his last day here, he’s ready to take on the baddest of New York. Shall we give him something to worry about?”

  The answer was a resounding roar.

  His neck stinging from the needle, Mac pushed through the double doors to make his way through the sweaty, alcohol-drenched crowd. The cage with its bright lights loomed ahead.

  “I can’t hear you, New York.” The bold voice rolled over the tightly packed arena, rattling the mesh cupping the stage. “Ready to take on Narc?”

  The noise shot up in volume, whistles and boos and screams like fists beating him down. Watch an ex hero fight—a damned good tagline. No one to save, no innocents to choose from.

  “The first challenger is an MMA fighter from New Jersey.” Everyone and their mother claimed to be MMA. “Weighting at two hundred pounds. Welcome the Hammer!”

  The first “client” bounced already center stage, knuckles taped up, lights glistening off a recently shaved head.

  “Now, ladies and gentlemen. Before each match, Narc must prove he has no powers.” Translation: a free sucker punch in the gut.

  “I saw him on TV. Didn’t he kill a bunch of people outside San Michael?” Voices floated around him. The wired cage rose up behind the pile of bodies in his way.

  “No, it was their harbor. He sat fire to the docks. And didn’t he blind a cop?”

  Clenched fists, guilt a familiar potent bile in his mouth. Mac pushed away the memory of her still form, a broken doll sprawled on the burning planks, blood coloring her sunshine hair crimson.

  His screams for her roaring in his head, he made his way through the tunnel of fans to lean a hand against the cage and down the standard pre-fight shot of whiskey. The client stared daggers from above with wide determined eyes, his taped hands convulsing in an attempt to shadow box.

  Lights flashed then dimmed, the stands went wild. Whiskey sloshed in the greasy pit that was Mac’s gut when he vaulted up into the cage and closed the door cut out of steel behind him.

  “Whenever you’re ready, son.”

  Three years ago, he used to taunt them. These days, he didn’t give a shit. Win or lose, he still got enough money to pay old debts and have enough left over to buy drugs for the next round.

  The client took a couple of shuffles forward, jabbing the air with both fists, pectorals flexing under trendy tribals. Elbows too high above his ribs, he shot off a few practice crosses before a mile-wide hook sent Mac into the cage wall. The crowd roared in sync with the rattle of steel, whiskey and bile a foul combination in his mouth. He let himself hang on the cage for a moment, a confidence builder for the opponent and a tense moment for the fans.

  The bursts of pain, the black spots in his vision were par for the course in his chosen vocation.

  “Got all the proof you need?”

  The guy gave a sharp nod to go with his sharp smile, then raised his gloves. “Let’s go.”

  A tap of gloves as if they were honest sportsmen.

  Without wasting time after the bell, the client laid quicksilver punches at Mac’s elbows, pushing him back against the wire. “Come on, muthafucker.” Spit flew with each word. “What can you do?”

  A kick to his ribs got Mac to pay attention. A barely missed back-fist was followed by a knee aimed at his gut. Good thing New York hadn’t wised up to lining their cages with barbed wire.

  “Come on, come on! You’re givin’ up already? ” The client hopped from side to side then wheeled a high and useless hook kick. “Aren’t you some sort of hero? Or, with your shit gone, can you barely fight?” Each word hissed through the black mouth guard shiny with saliva.

  An elbow in his gut had the stands going wild. Mac blocked a foot aimed in a too-high kick and shoved the man a few steps back, gaining a second to get up, letting the whistles and the boos wash over him. Tonight, he’d lose, and all his haters would get a show worth their money.

  A hand swiped over his stinging mouth came away with blood.

  “Jesus, you’re nothing. You got a black belt in run-Fu?”

  Mac meant to lose tonight—not every fight, but the first and last match would be those his fans would remember. His power frozen in his veins, he had nothing but regret and skill, bruises like badges of courage.

  Three more rounds, two minutes each, the pain’s edge dulled but never quite blocked out by whiskey. Instead of waiting for a KO punch, he drew the fight out to keep the fans chanting for blood.

  Another kick, another defensive elbow. A short jab into his chin sent Mr. Tribals into the mesh, the cage shuddering under the impact. The air drowned in shocked and sudden silence.

  “Get up.”

  Nothing but that same quiet, his opponent’s gaze an empty stare amidst the growing hum of derision from the crowd.

  “Come on, get up.”

  Eyelids rapidly blinked before closing shut. The boos and whistles swirled, this time not for Mac, but for the asshole who couldn’t last more than ten minutes in a cage fight. Good thing they both got their pay upfront.

  Despite the unexpected win, he lost the last fight of the night as planned, giving the fans something to talk about for next stop in Boston. Another ten thousand dollars in his pocket, Mac found the nearest quiet bar with its low murmur of the news and patrons brooding into their Irish coffees. More cop layoffs throughout the country. Strangely enough, homicide rates kept inching up.

  “Slow night for you.” Amusement in a rough familiar voice–the guy must’ve followed him here from the arena. Are you really a super hero? Did you really kill those people and give up your mask? I have this great business idea, not exactly legit but….

  Mac would’ve gotten up if the man didn’t stop him with a gloved hand on his arm, spot on the fresh bruise blooming above his elbow.

  “I need your help.” He finished off his drink, his face hidden by a Dodgers cap, his posture of sweeping the room for exits and troublemakers screaming law enforcement.

  “I’m out of the helping business.”

  “Not what you used to say.” A small, sharp smile, toothy enough to spark a jolt of recognition.

  “Commander Williams.”

  “My men call me Doc. You want another?” Under the low drawn hat, Williams tilted his chin in the direction of Mac’s emptied shot glass.
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br />   “No thanks.” He hadn’t drunk enough to drown pride and the arrogant bitch refused to let him flee from the man who ran him out of town.

  “I’m here to offer you a job.”

  “My body fluids go for millions.” Sometimes he considered dealing with fed and private science types when the aches of busted joints kept him awake till morning.

  “I’m offering you a chance to come back. Be a hero. Do something right for once.” Williams flicked up two fingers to signal for another round. “You got my city crazed with vigilantes. I got them everywhere, running around in idiotic capes and tights. Kittyway, Invince. Some nerd rigged up a coat with cameras so people could see through him. Some of them even do some good. And then I get the real deal.” That last part barely carried over the splash of whiskey.

  Mac lifted his glass to his lips, letting the taste warm up his gut on the way down. “Super powers?”

  “Same stats as you but doesn’t fly. Power used as some sort of shield. The Night Rook—that’s what the papers call him. A friend of yours?”

  “No one I know.” Whiskey turned ashen in Mac’s mouth.

  “Your kind can transfer power to each other. I’d figured you’d be interested, considering this one has your stats.”

  Mac kept his face stone cold, easy enough to do when his body went frigid. “I thought your kind dealt with facts.”

  A sharp, predatory smile. “You want facts? Five years ago, the Hero of New York is said to have lost his powers. About the same time, a man broke through the vault of Central Bank. Ripped it apart, by all accounts. Then there was a man in Russia who could fly after a rescue by Red Square. Twenty years ago, your old man couldn’t shield himself from gunfire.”

  Glass shattered in Mac’s hand.

  “Guess you weren’t lying about the serum.” With a raised eyebrow, Williams shoved a stack of napkins at the nearest drop of blood.

  Shards of memories nullified the jagged cuts over his fingers. “My father—”

  “Died saving your ass. I looked it up.” A faint shrug, as if the act meant nothing. “Maybe you did something similar before you left San Mike. Maybe you thought you made a hero, left a legacy.”

  “I didn’t.” The words ripped out of him, sharp like the edges of the broken glass. He crumpled up napkins to press against the cuts, to stall for time and keep something in his fingers.

  Not possible.

  “I got a guy who has your stats, reports dating back for about a year.” Williams slammed his glass hard on the wood imitation counter. His drink, a vile-smelling vodka, sloshed cheerful and clear over the rim. “He’s beating up dealers, messing up the supply chain. I got badasses crying like kids with broken pinkies.”

  “You’re saying that’s bad thing?”

  “Assault is still assault. He’s skimming their profits.”

  “Your problem. Not mine.” Except Mac couldn’t shake the ugly rolling in his gut that had nothing to do with the lost fight or the thin whiskey.

  “He has your powers.” Damning quiet words followed by a knowing smile. Bastard no doubt thought he finally got through. “Maybe you got a cousin, or maybe you transferred you powers to someone who’s enjoying them too much. Either way, this mess is on you.”

  Just walk away. “You got a bead for who he is?”

  Those knowing eyes studied his face. “Built like a linebacker and wears a black cape. Know someone with a flair for dramatics?”

  Relief coursed through his veins. Williams hadn’t mention blindness. Had it been Lana, the Rook would’ve been dubbed the Vampire, and people would swear any sign of daylight set fire to “his” cape.

  But he couldn’t deny his weakened state during the fire. The way Lana had bounced from the docks, safe from the fire but bleeding from the impact. He’d thought her flight over the flames had been from the second explosion. Wrong time, wrong place. Now…. “It only happens with my kind and never lasts more than a week.”

  “At least you don’t deny it. I spent two weeks with Homeland on that dance.” Grudging tone, a flare of a match touching the tip of a slim cigarette hanging from William’s mouth. Either the bar was one of the few left in New York where a jackass could light up, or nobody gave enough of a fuck to tell Williams to put out the cancer-pencil. “Everyone wants to keep this info down. In their shoes, I’d feel the same. Every idiot on the street will say he’s got the blood type of a ‘hero.’” Air quotes flickered ashes from the cigarette. “You think transferred powers don’t last; you keep on believing that. Safer for everyone around. But I have to go with my gut and it’s telling me you’re at the root again.”

  Mac schooled his features to remain stone cold, the acrid tease of nicotine burning his nostrils. “For all you know, this Night Rook could be me.”

  “I thought about it.” Williams throw him a smile around a cigarette clamped between camera-ready teeth. “You couldn’t be at two places at once—I had a friend checking you out. I ride a desk, but I’m still a cop.”

  “The Hero of New York can help you.”

  “San Mike business stays in San Mike. And City Council asked for you on the invitation.”

  “An invitation that you also extend?”

  “God, no.” Ashes rained onto the tray, bright amber glowing and then fading. “I don’t need you to interfere with police work. I need trained men out there, not somebody who acts before he thinks. But politics are shit, and in the end, I’m just a public servant.”

  Honesty for honesty, even if the exchange smelled putrid.

  Mac forced his next words to stay nonchalant. “I have no means to fight, if he has powers. And you were all over the media about keeping superpowers out of the cops’ way.”

  “You break you word you gave San Mike, that’s your call. I asked for your help in good faith.” Under the Dodgers cap, Williams let out a ring of smoke and flicked more glowing amber at the ashtray.

  Mac fought to push past busted joints and the dull throbbing edge of pain. “I’ll train your guys.”

  “We can’t afford to give your drug vials to every cop in town.”

  Unbidden, the image of Lana coalesced in his brain, her cop uniform shredded by bullets, stained dark with blood. “If this Rook bounces bullets, a needle won’t stand a chance against his shields.”

  Under the Dodgers cap, a smile. “The power isn’t constant. You’d know how to get that timing right. And believe me,” he said, looking at the cigarette butt glowing in the ashtray, “If I could get anyone else, I would.”

  The Night Rook wasn’t Lana. Couldn’t be her. “I’m paid ten grand a night.”

  “We’ll call it even for the harbor.”

  God, he wanted another drink. “You publicly told me to stay out of San Michael.” And that had been another fist into Mac’s gut.

  Williams stuffed a pair of ones under the ashtray. “And now I’m publicly asking you back.”

  Chapter Two

  The uber-expensive tinted face shield of Lana’s helmet took the edge off the pools of light. Lucky for her, the city didn’t care much about the broken street lamps in the slums of downtown.

  “You wanna score?” The young and hardened voice came at Lana from under a Triple X sign flashing in a graffiti decorated window. With the neon not bright enough to cut into her eyes, she made out monochromatic features of a teenage boy, his left eye bruised and swollen shut, his body tall and skinny.

  “Fifty a gram, ninety for double.” Small hands in tattered gloves dug out a plastic baggie, and the tint of her shield made the powder glitter razor pink.

  “Don’t want to show me that, kid.” The helmet deepened her voice to a growl, straddling the line between ridiculous and freaky. She couldn’t process light, but she had plenty of cash for toys thanks to the monthly checks from the Friends of the City fund. The grant had shown up just as her short term disability ran out, and it was either take the money or filch off her parents.

  “You don’t look like a pig.” Weary eyes watched her without fea
r. “You’re the Rook. I saw you on TV. Bet you ain’t fast enough to catch me.”

  Lana dug out a C-note. “I need Pavlic Mendoza. Know him?” Stupid question given that Pavlic ran the block, probably taking half of the kid’s profits.

  “I don’t know nothing. Bet you can’t even beat me up.”

  She caught a tiny whiff of fear, a subtle spike of shame.

  “You’re too bony to beat up,” she said and waved the money at his eye level. For all the affected bravado, he didn’t quite have the guts to try to snatch the bill out of her hand.

  “Mendoza,” she said again and dug out another bill. Might as well spend the city’s money—not much difference between paying for sources and taking online classes. Both gave her information. Nice way to justify it, freak.

  The kid’s neck mimicked the gentle swaying of LIVE NUDE GIRLS reflecting in his overblown pupils. “He ain’t gonna talk to you.”

  She matched his tone. “That ain’t your problem.”

  His quick grin made him look younger, innocent. Not part of this eastside slum with its inevitable stench. “He hangs down at that bar, the one with stupid red flamingos.”

  Peachy. She held out the money, hoping he’d get himself something to eat. “He bust your eye?”

  The kid brushed a hand over his swollen eyelid and shrugged off the question. “Sure you don’t want anything? Got primo shit.”

  “Don’t push it.” No choice but to turn toward painful lights. Red was the worst, the sharpest color in the spectrum. Under the shield, her eyes stung with moisture, and Lana fought the need to push a hand under the helmet and wipe her face. You’d think after a year and change, she’d get used to the tears.

  “You really the Rook?” The kid fell into step beside her, his gait controlled and light, ready to bolt at first smell of trouble. “Do something. Show me.”