He loathed going through the camera footage and audio afterwards and grew wretchedly bored whenever he was actually staking them out from a nearby car or apartment. The girls had mundane, unambitious lives. They worked meaningless, middle-management jobs and were trapped in office cubicles all day long. Then they spent their nights watching TV, playing with their gadget phones, and smoking pot. They’d get on the phone with someone they’d just insulted and complain about their other friends, boyfriends, jobs, and how they needed to find the time to get back to the gym. None of them laughed or sang just for the hell of it. They went out to clubs, not to enjoy themselves, but to show up their friends and see who drew more attention by dressing up like a prostitute. Whenever they actually took a guy home, the sex was awkward, dull, and pathetic. Nightshadow couldn’t believe how short and disappointing it was for both the guy and girl each and every time.
By comparison to them, Piper seemed a bright, beautiful, burning supernova of a girl. Studying these girls’ lives made Nightshadow realize just how lucky he had gotten with Piper. Her acting jobs were at least somewhat interesting, she was always smiling and singing, and she loved everything they did together in bed. Her howls and moans were proof of that.
Finally, at the end of a grueling month, Nightshadow hit pay dirt. He’d tapped the girls’ phones and pirated into their email accounts. After trolling through hours of worthless conversations about shoes, shitty music, and dogs, Nightshadow discovered a text message Mandy had sent to her friend Lana.
“
Hey gurl,
Is Danny still just coach-surfing around? I miss his face. :(”
Lana replied, “Dannys been crashing here for a bit. He hates imposing on every one, but i told him its cool. How bout we all do dinner soon?”
“
Kewl :),” Mandy answered.
Nightshadow traced Lana’s phone number to an apartment in Downmichael, a northern Salome City suburb on the other side of the lake. Downmichael was a considerable distance off and didn’t have many tall buildings, so gliding there would draw too much attention to himself. The sewer tunnels didn’t go all the way out to that suburb either. He thought it’d be better to travel incognito anyway, so as not to tip off anyone to where he was headed.
He dressed up as a biker, complete with a helmet painted up like an eight ball. In the garage adjacent to his Triangle Park lair by the docks, he dusted off his customized Harley and fired it up. The motor purred, and he rode through the sewer tunnels up into the city streets. After cruising through uptown, he roared over the bridge out of the city.
***
Downmichael’s houses and apartment complexes bunched up together with a few small play-lots dangling off of the street corners. Every block had wide roads, high street curbs, and weeping willow tree branches brushing down against the sidewalks. Slimy mist curled off of the lake and swept through the area. A damp, blurry, purple sky loitered above. Neon beer signs in tavern windows glowed. Street lamps lit up dimly. At this time of night, almost everyone had gone to bed for work or school in the morning, and the streets were mostly empty.
Nightshadow hid his bike in an alley and quickly got changed into a wing-suit inside of a dumpster while ignoring the smell. His wing-suit had given off a worse stench when he’d sprayed it down earlier with pheromones specially designed to help deal with the Spider-Specter.
After scaling a tree, Nightshadow leaped off and glided over the quiet, murky little homes on his wings. He perched upon the roof of the taller apartment building next door to peer down into Lana’s place. His mask’s lens switched to binocular night vision to see in through the window. The apartment looked a mess with clothes piled up everywhere and the floors in dire need of a mopping.
Seeing no one home, Nightshadow jumped down to Lana’s back porch. He picked the door’s lock and slipped inside. In the kitchen, he discovered a work schedule pinned up on the fridge by a Hyperman H-shaped magnet. The manager’s night shift at a twenty-four-hour grocery store had been circled for tonight, meaning that was where Lana probably was at the moment.
Nightshadow stalked down the hallway to check the rest of the place out. The apartment featured a long living room and one big walk-in closet. An old but serviceable TV and a dusty, scratched-up stereo crowded together into the corner. Water stains spotted up the coffee table, and a blanket and pillows lay on the sofa. Amongst the clothing heaped up all around on the apartment’s floor, Nightshadow found more than a few pairs of men’s jeans and underwear. He even thought he recognized a few old t-shirts Danny used to like wearing.
Pulling the blanket off of the sofa, he found a beat up little wallet that had sunk down between the cushions. He flipped through it. The wallet only contained a few dollars and photos. The pictures showed a pensive-looking, reddish-brown-skinned kid and a skinny, pink-haired Asian girl. They hugged while riding a roller coaster, swam together through a green leafy lagoon, and finger-painted onto each other’s faces.
Danny and Carly in better times,
Nightshadow thought.
If Danny was bunking down here, where was she? Had something happened to her? Did that have anything to do with Danny killing Lethe?
A sudden loud blasting noise erupted from right outside. Nightshadow jerked his head in that direction. He leaped back as a maniac came crashing in through the windows on a jet pack, bringing down part of the wall and the TV and stereo.
***
The jet pack blared louder and louder, sounding like the world’s most annoying vacuum cleaner. Its sounds grated against Nightshadow’s ears and made it hard for him to concentrate.
Black, squat, and big-boned, the jet pack’s owner looked young and wild with dreadlocks and a white scarf flipping about in the jet pack’s updraft. He wore a brown leather pilot’s cap and goggles with a matching jacket and boots. His chest bore a strange motif of a clock striking 4:20. On his back, three attached spherical tanks blasted pure force down out of their thrusters, elevating him a few feet above the floor. While hovering above the apartment’s hardwood floor, he aimed two retro futuristic-looking guns at Nightshadow.
While they’d never met before, Nightshadow recognized Killjoy from S.I.L.E.N.T.’s files. Mostly, Killjoy operated in Southern California and had constantly harassed Danny when he’d lived out in Breaker’s Bay. The kid was an anarchist troublemaker who claimed to be striking back at corrupt corporations. However, he was obviously really doing it for attention.
Seeing Nightshadow, Killjoy did a double take. “What are you doing here?” he loudly asked, trying to talk over his jet pack’s roar. Before Killjoy could think to shoot him, Nightshadow whipped an escrima fighting stick at him. It twirled through the air and struck Killjoy right between the eyes, sending him reeling back.
Nightshadow next threw a smoke pellet that exploded right in Killjoy’s face, fogging up his goggles and further disorienting him. With Killjoy distracted, Nightshadow grabbed his hands to point his guns away, struggled with him, and they both spilled out through the broken windows.
During the fall, Killjoy slipped free of Nightshadow’s grasp, but Nightshadow landed in a somersault and rolled up to his feet on the patchy front lawn. He heard the jet pack’s thrusters roaring again. A short, hot bolt of electrical fire blackened and burned the grass before him. He danced swiftly away from two more bolts. Killjoy hovered noisily down through the air before him, tossing his goggles away and laughing.
“
I came for the Spider!” He cackled. “But I’m more than willing to do you too! I’ll be a motherfucking legend!”
Lights shot on in houses up and down the street. Dogs barked. People shouted and began banging open their doors. Young and old voices squeaked.
“
Holy shit! That’s Nightshadow!”
“
Dude’s got a jet pack!”
“
Somebody call the army or the police! Jesus!”
Though they kept their distance, the neighborhood tumbled out onto their porches and sidewalks to see what was happening. Nightshadow sighed. He hated having an audience. They might get in his way or hurt. Right on cue, Killjoy began taking shots at the people, but wildly missed without his goggles providing proper night vision, and his eyesight was still probably murky from the smoke pellet anyway. As his targets scrambled away, his bolt shots hit the sidewalks and a few houses.
With Killjoy busy doing that, Nightshadow made his move. He drew his other fighting stick and fired a whole load of sharp ninja stars. Killjoy darted and weaved through the air to dodge, but a couple of stars still nicked his hands and caused him to cry out and drop his guns. Nightshadow then tossed a flash grenade up into the jet pack’s thrusters.
“
Wait!” Killjoy shouted as his jet pack’s thrusters gurgled and smoked. The thrusters chaotically jolted up, carrying him with them, and erupted. Flashing, flickering lights burst out of the thrusters across the sky like the Fourth of July. The bystanders shielded their eyes or looked away. Nightshadow’s visor protected his vision.
The jet pack sputtered and shorted out. It thumped noisily down to the street and pulled Killjoy crashing down right on top of it. Nightshadow immediately pounced on him. He ripped Killjoy free from the jet pack’s straps and slammed him back down onto the street. Killjoy’s pilot cap fell off when Nightshadow snatched him up by the collar and shook him.
“
Why were you after the Spider-Specter?” he hissed.
“
No, man!” Killjoy said, looking dazed. “Not telling you nothing!”
Nightshadow noticed an old couple hovering over the smoking jet pack. “Don’t touch that!” he shouted and pointed at them. His glare made them back slowly away with their hands up. Nightshadow then realized that Killjoy’s guns were lying around somewhere too, and he couldn’t let anyone get their hands on them. He fired a grapple to snag the handguns away before a pair of curious-looking teenagers could grab them. He roped them up and hung them from his utility belt. “Go home where it’s safe!” he barked at the teenagers.
Once the teens fled, he stomped his heel down onto Killjoy’s groin. Killjoy screamed and squirmed, grabbing Nightshadow’s foot and unsuccessfully trying to pry it off. “THE SPIDER! WHY?” Nightshadow bellowed, loud enough to scare away any bystanders creeping up for a closer look at the vigilante superhero.
“
We know who he is!” Killjoy whimpered. “His secret ID! His new one anyway! According to the deal, we can’t tell anyone else, but we’re still going after all the little prick’s friends!”
“
What deal?”
“
Look! My jet pack!”
“
It won’t help you now.”
Nightshadow ground his boot down even harder into Killjoy’s crotch.
“
No! God! Shit!” Killjoy squealed. “Listen! You tampered with the pack. That means you set off the automatic self-destruct!”
Nightshadow glanced over at the pack. On it, a small screen glowed, showing a timer counting down from ten seconds.
***
“
EVERYBODY GET AWAY!” Nightshadow shouted. He dove and covered the jet pack with his whole body. He almost yelled out “CAL!” However, he doubted even Hyperman could get here fast enough to save them all.
“
NIGHT! LET GO!” a worn, hoarse voice cried.
Nightshadow and everyone else gazed up.
“
YOU!” Killjoy shouted, lolling his head over to look.
The Spider-Specter had appeared, wall-crawling down the front of a brick house. Tiny talons had sprouted out of his fingertips and toes, which clawed into the brick and allowed him to cling and climb. He wore a patchy, grayish-black body stocking that completely covered him. The outfit’s tight silk web fabric showed off his lanky-limbed frame. An intricate webbing design laced throughout the whole outfit. A dirty, blotchy-white spider covered his mask’s face, and a screaming, hook-legged spider-demon stretched across his chest.
Inhumanly agile, he leaped off the house and soared through the air down the block, shooting a wicked-white web that snagged the jet pack out from under Nightshadow. When he landed, he swung the jet pack high up in the air (higher than Nightshadow could have thrown it) and it erupted in three fierce explosions, each one brighter and hotter than the last. Quickly, the Spider-Specter laced a big web from house to house and tree-to-tree to catch all the falling, burning wreckage before it struck anyone.
With everyone distracted, Killjoy recovered and clobbered Nightshadow in the back of the head. Going down, Nightshadow cursed and grunted, wondering how some punk had gotten the drop on him like that. With Nightshadow down, Killjoy snatched his bolt guns back off Nightshadow’s utility belt and squeezed off a few frantic shots.