Sentinels Read online

  SENTINELS

  the omega superhero

  book THREE

  By Darius Brasher

  Check out the first two books in the Omega Superhero Series here:

  CAPED: THE OMEGA SUPERHERO, BOOK ONE

  TRIALS: THE OMEGA SUPERHERO, BOOK TWO

  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

  Sentinels Copyright © 2017 by Darius Brasher.

  All rights reserved.

  Cover design by RMG Book Cover Designs.

  First Edition, Published August 2017.

  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

  EXCERPT FROM SUPERHERO DETECTIVE FOR HIRE

  CHAPTER 1

  If you had told me years ago when I was a skinny, bullied farm boy that I would eventually become the licensed superhero known as Kinetic who fought crime in one of the country’s biggest cities and that late one night I’d break into the apartment of a mob enforcer named Mad Dog and wait for him to come home so I could scare him to death, I would have laughed in your face and asked what you were smoking. And if I had been a lot more adventurous back then, I might have asked you for a hit of it.

  But I hadn’t been adventurous. Back then I had merely been a small-town farm boy who had never been anywhere or done anything or used any name except the one my parents had given me, Theodore Conley. But now, as a 20-year-old who had operated as the licensed Hero Kinetic in Astor City, Maryland for over six months, I was a lot more adventurous. Developing superpowers at the age of seventeen, discovering you are an Omega-level Metahuman who therefore has the potential to become one of the most powerful Metas in the world, enduring the rigors of Hero Academy, defeating the supervillain who killed your father, being Amazing Man’s Apprentice near Washington, D.C., completing the terrifying Hero Trials, being attacked by Mechano of the Sentinels during the Trials, and surviving multiple assassination attempts all tended to have the effect of making one more adventurous.

  Or dead. Fortunately, the former instead of the latter had happened to me.

  Then again, the night was young. I was lying in wait for Antonio “Mad Dog” Ricci, after all. He was a leg-breaker for the Esposito crime family. I doubted Mad Dog had gotten his street name because he was a canine lover who was just mad about man’s best friend. When he came home to discover me lurking inside, it was unlikely he’d mistake me for a dog, and greet me with a pat on the head and an indulgent “Who’s a good boy?” Him trying to cave my skull in with a tire iron was far more likely.

  Though my former farming self would never have believed it, waiting to confront a mob enforcer in his high-rise Astor City apartment in the still of the night was not the craziest thing I had ever done since getting superpowers. Heck, it wasn’t the craziest thing I’d done this month.

  Not everyone agreed.

  “Have I mentioned how crazy this is?” asked my best friend Isaac Geere for the umpteenth time. Isaac murmured his question in a near whisper. Though alone in Mad Dog’s apartment, we had been keeping our voices down. In the stillness of the dark apartment, speaking in a normal tone sounded like a shout.

  Isaac was also known as the Hero Myth. He had the Metahuman ability to turn into various mythological creatures. Though he wasn’t currently using his powers, he still managing to do a pretty good nagging harpy impersonation without them.

  “Not in the last five minutes or so,” I responded in a similarly low voice. We had been over this several times. Though Isaac was partly joking around—when was he not?—I knew he was partly serious, too.

  “Time for a reminder, then. You’ve had some horrifically bad ideas in your time, but this one’s a doozy. I think it even edges out the time you sucker-punched one of the Hero proctors during the Trials. Intimidate a guy named Mad Dog? The madness of it is right there in the guy’s name. Trying to scare a guy named that is like trying to drown a shark. Either his parents named him that, which means Mad Dog is carrying around the genes of lunatics, or people gave him that nickname based on his behavior, which means he acts like a lunatic. Either way, I doubt he scares easily.”

  “Of course Mad Dog is not his real middle name. Who’d name their kid Mad Dog?”

  “A crazy bitch.”

  I groaned. “How long have you been sitting on that pun?”

  “I thought of it thirty minutes ago. I’ve been waiting for the right time to spring it on you.”

  Since it was so dark in the room we were in, I more sensed than saw Isaac grin at me. The only illumination was the faint glow of the city’s night lights leaking in through the closed blinds of the apartment’s windows, especially the floor-to-ceiling glass window directly behind us. Plus, Isaac blended into the dark room because he had on plain dark clothes rather than the colorful costume he normally wore as Myth. Two years older than I, Isaac was also taller. He was toned, but on the wiry side.

  Like Isaac, I also wore plain dark clothes instead of the costume I usually wore as Kinetic. We each had on black ski masks and gloves which we had donned after entering Mad Dog’s apartment. Wearing my Kinetic costume made me feel ten feet tall and like I was truth and justice personified. My current outfit made me feel about as heroic as a cat burglar.

  Isaac said, “On second thought, we’re the ones who are the lunatics. After all, we’re government-sanctioned superheroes sworn to uphold the law, not to mention truth, justice, and the American way. Despite that, we illegally broke into an apartment to frighten a private citizen. I must have been absent from class with the flu the day the Academy taught us that breaking and entering to intimidate someone was A-OK. And, the fever from the flu must’ve done permanent damage to my brain since I agreed to go along with this cockamamy idea.” I faintly saw his head shake. “Do you hate your Hero’s cape so much that you’re looking to have it taken away from you so soon after earning it?”

  “We didn’t break into anything,” I said. “We opened the door like we owned the place and strolled right in.”

  “Try that argument on the judge who presides over your felony trial. Call me to let me know how it goes. Assuming they let you make phone calls from prison. I wouldn’t know. I’ve never been locked up like you have. Why a salt of the earth Hero like me hangs out with a jailbird like you is a mystery.” There was another barely seen head shake.

  When we had arrived at Antonio’s apartment earlier, I had used my telekinetic powers to unlock the door. The door had opened for us as easily as if we were Antonio’s
landlord. We discovered once the door was open that Antonio had an alarm system. It beeped at us, demanding attention, as soon as we were inside. Leave it to a criminal to be security conscious.

  As its beeping had made obvious, the alarm system had been armed. Its luminescent numeric keypad was mounted next to the door. I had been about to reach inside the guts of the alarm with my powers to disconnect the power when Isaac warned me against it. A lot of alarms were designed to go off in a remote location when the local power was killed, he had said. So, I instead had lightly run my telekinetic touch over the keypad. Most of the keys were stiff from disuse. Three of them weren’t—the five, the two, and the zero. Surmising those keys weren’t stiff like the others because they were the ones Antonio used to deactivate the alarm, I started hitting those keys, hoping to stumble on the correct combination of numbers before the alarm went off. The math that had been drilled repeatedly into my head at the Academy told me I had about a seventeen percent chance of getting the access code right with each attempt if the code was merely three digits.

  Fortunately, the guardian angel who protected Heroes turned burglars must have been looking out for us. The access code had been zero-two-five. I had gotten it on my third try.

  “With you clearly misunderstanding what constitutes breaking and entering, how you managed to pass the Academy’s Hero Law class is beyond me,” Isaac was saying. “Maybe you cribbed the correct answers off my test papers. Now, where was I before you interrupted me with your jailhouse lawyer nonsense about how we didn’t break into anything? Oh yeah, I remember—I was talking about what a great idea coming here is. It’s so great, thinking about it makes me sick to my stomach. We’re dressed up like the Hamburglar, sitting in the dark apartment of a sociopath who terrorizes people for a gang of even worse sociopaths, waiting for him to come home so we can beard the lion in his own den. And did I mention this apartment is numbered 1313? Everybody knows the number thirteen is good luck. Nothing but rainbows and butterflies. It’s why the Apollo 13 mission went so swimmingly. Everything about this whole situation is just peachy-keen. What could possibly go wrong?”

  “Swimmingly? Peachy-keen? Beard the lion in his own den?” I repeated. I grinned. “You sure do talk funny for a black guy from Los Angeles.”

  “You sure do talk funny for a black guy from Los Angeles,” Isaac repeated mockingly in an over-the-top exaggeration of my South Carolina accent. “You’re one to talk, Gomer Pyle. You’re the hick pot literally calling the sophisticated kettle black. Ironic, not to mention racist. I prefer Melanin American over ‘black guy.’ Anyway, I take back what I said before. You’re not Gomer. You’re more like Lucy Ricardo. This is the kind of harebrained scheme she’d come up with. Next you’ll suggest we break into the Tropicana Club so you can sneak into Ricky’s act.”

  “No one’s got a gun to your head—”

  “Yet,” Isaac interjected. “No one’s got a gun to my head yet. Just wait until Mad Dog gets home. I’m sure he’d be more than happy to rectify that.”

  “What I was going to say before I was rudely interrupted was that you can always back out and go home. When you get there, maybe watch some modern television shows so your references aren’t so dated. While you’re bringing yourself up to date on contemporary pop culture, I’ll take care of Antonio by myself.”

  “You’re chock full of both bad ideas and bad taste today, aren’t you? Most modern shows are rubbish. Classic TV is the best TV. As for me leaving you here by yourself, you can forget that. You might need backup who’ll save you from your own bad ideas. I said I’ll help, so I’ll help. I’m no welsher. Besides, even though this is a horrifically bad idea, at least we’re here for a good cause. Your heart’s in the right place. Apparently, you believe that the ends justify the means. I must’ve also been sick the day they taught that at the Academy.”

  “If only you had contracted a permanent case of laryngitis,” I said. Isaac ignored me as if I hadn’t spoken.

  “On the plus side, if this thing does go sideways, I’ll on the scene so I can be the first to say ‘I told you so.’ Also, someone needs to be around to bail you out of jail.”

  “If this goes south, you’ll likely go to jail with me. You’re an accessory before, during, and after the fact.”

  “Darn it, I hadn’t even thought of that.” I faintly saw his head shake again. “You see what you’ve done to me, Lucy? Your bad planning and shaky grasp of the law have rubbed off on me.”

  I grinned. Isaac would likely be making jokes on his deathbed. “If I’m Lucy, you know that means you’re Ethel Mertz, right?”

  “That’s the one part of these shenanigans that makes me happy. There are far worse people to be. Ethel was kinda hot. I’ve got a thing for mature white women in frumpy dresses and comfortable shoes.”

  “Sometimes I think you overshare. Other times—like now—I’m sure of it.”

  It was well after 2 a.m. Despite my ongoing banter with Isaac, I felt myself getting drowsy, like weights had been attached to my eyelids and they were slowly getting heavier. I fought the temptation to close them. If Isaac was right that this was a bad idea, a worse idea would be for Mad Dog to come home and find me curled up asleep on his couch.

  I stood up from the large couch I had been on with Isaac. I was a little stiff from sitting for so long. I stretched. My shoulders popped. It sounded like a cap pistol being fired in the stillness of the dark apartment. We had been waiting for Antonio to arrive for over two hours. My movement stirred the otherwise still air. I got a fresh nauseating whiff of rotten seafood and decaying takeout Chinese. I had grown so accustomed to the stench of Antonio’s overflowing kitchen trash can that I could barely smell it anymore except when I moved around.

  In addition to the trash can being in dire need of emptying, clothes and other of Antonio’s belongings were strewn sloppily all around the apartment. Apparently, he was so busy beating up his girlfriend and terrorizing people for the mob that he was an indifferent housekeeper. Contrary to what the Book of Proverbs said about idle hands, Antonio’s busy hands were just as much of the Devil’s workshop.

  Isaac was in the middle of yammering about how I was his sidekick when my powers alerted me that someone was outside the apartment’s door. He said, “You’re the Ron Weasley to my Harry Potter, the Hodor to my Bran Stark, the Chewbacca to my Han Solo, the—”

  “You’ll be the Abel to my Cain if you don’t pipe down,” I hissed. “Someone’s outside.”

  I focused on the presence on the other side of the door. My hands burned a little, as they always did when I exerted my powers. My powers had developed a lot since they had first manifested years ago. They were like a muscle—the more I used them, the stronger they grew. One thing I was now capable of doing was to emit a pulse of telekinetic energy that allowed me to map out my surroundings. It was like the echolocation some bats used to hunt in the dark, only my powers were tactile rather than sound-based like bats’ echolocation was. If it weren’t for the fact DC Comics would sue me into poverty, I’d change my name to Batman.

  I sensed a large man on the other side of the door slide a key into the lock. “He’s coming in,” I whispered. Isaac got off the couch and stood near me.

  The lock turned. The door opened. I squinted a little against the light flooding in from the hallway. The light framed a tall and broad man wearing dark pants and an untucked white button-down shirt. His shaved white head was slightly conical. It reminded me of a hollow-point bullet.

  Antonio’s huge body filled the doorway like he was a giant entering a dollhouse. He was even bigger than he had appeared in the pictures my Astor City Times co-worker Hannah Kim had shown me. Looking at him, I had no doubt Antonio was good at his job as a mob enforcer. If I didn’t have superpowers and a guy Antonio’s size showed up to demand the vig on money I’d borrowed from a mobbed-up loan shark, I’d poop my pants and hand over my last dollar so fast it would make George Washington’s head spin. Even with superpowers, facing a guy Antonio’s s
ize made my sphincter tighten a little.

  Antonio stepped inside. He apparently didn’t see me and Isaac concealed in the shadows of the room. His keys jangled as he threw them into a bowl on a table by the door. Antonio turned his back partly to us to flip on the lights. I blinked away the abrupt brightness.

  Now that I could see him clearly, Antonio’s belly swelled out a bit, rounding out the fabric of the shirt above his pants. Though he clearly was overweight, the tightness of his shirt across his barrel-chest indicated there was a lot of muscle underneath the fat. My farming father would have described Antonio as “hard fat.” I knew farmers back in South Carolina like Antonio, men who were very strong thanks to lives of physical labor, but who ate what they wanted when they wanted, so they carried a lot of extra weight around. Theirs was a functional strength. They weren’t vain gym rats who weighed their food, flexed at themselves admiringly in the mirror, and fretted about sculpting the perfect abs.

  I had spent most of my life in terror of guys who looked like Antonio. I guess old habits die hard because I felt a sudden surge of fear as I stared at Antonio. A guy like me trying to scare a big, thick guy like Antonio was like a mouse trying to scare a water buffalo.

  Then I realized how silly I was being. I swallowed my fright. I wasn’t a naive, rail thin farm boy anymore. I was a licensed Hero. I had faced people far worse than a beefy non-Meta like Antonio. So what if he looked like he grabbed smaller guys like me and picked his teeth with us? If he tried to pick his teeth with me, I could knock them out of his mouth and make a necklace out of them.

  As soon as I felt a surge of confidence brought on by my internal pep talk, I tried to tamp it down. The last time I was overconfident, I had just foiled a bank robbery in Washington, D.C.’s Chinatown and had nearly gotten my swelled head blown off after a hot blonde snuck a bomb into my clothes. Despite having superpowers, maybe it was smart to also have a healthy amount of fear.