The Compassionate Assassin Read online

  The Compassionate Assassin

  by Matt Cowper

  Copyright © 2019 Matt Cowper.

  All rights reserved.

  A Brief Introduction

  This novel takes place in the Z Universe, the shared universe for my superhero fiction. The Z refers to Z City, the most important metropolis in the stories.

  (Plus, Z is a cool, easy-to-remember letter, ain't it?)

  Much like the Marvel and DC comic book universes, characters, themes, and locations overlap between my various series.

  While it's not necessary to read every one of my novels to understand what's going on (though I sure wish you would devour every word I write!), reading all of them will give you a deeper understanding of the universe, with its amazing characters, powerful factions, and epic confrontations.

  For more information about the Z Universe, visit my website: mattcowper.com

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  The Compassionate Assassin

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  The End!

  Another Brief Note Regarding Deathrain

  Deathrain, the protagonist of this novella, first appeared in the Johnny Wagner series as a supporting character.

  I liked her – who doesn't like a mysterious, kickass assassin with a healing factor?! – so I decided to write an adventure with her as the star.

  This novella references some events that happened in the Johnny Wagner, Godlike PI books (Double Lives and Primal Nature), but I've tried to make this story as self-contained as possible.

  Still, if you haven't read those two novels, check them out for more details on everyone's favorite leather-masked assassin.

  This novel is dedicated to all anti-heroes.

  Chapter One

  “Wow, me bringing in Deathrain, the legendary assassin?” Metalhead said. “This'll land me a spot on the Elites for sure!”

  Deathrain wanted to tell the armored superhero he was delusional; the world-famous superteam known as the Elites didn't recruit newbies like Metalhead. But before she could speak, the hero blasted her with another beam, driving the air from her lungs and knocking her off the roof, down five stories to cold pavement.

  A fatal fall, if it had happened to most people. But Deathrain wasn't most people. She was an assassin, as the superhero had noted, skilled in all manner of weaponry and fighting styles. And, to make things even more unfair for her opposition, she had a healing factor.

  The healing factor was doing its thing now, repairing the broken limbs she'd suffered from the fall and the third-degree burns Metalhead's beam had scorched into her chest.

  Pain suppression wasn't part of her power set, however. Deathrain felt every injury, and in her line of work, the injuries could be brutal.

  Some would call all that suffering “psychologically damaging,” but she was used to it. Pain toughened one up. In fact, a good deal of hurt during a battle could get the rage and adrenaline going, bring the conflict into sharper focus.

  For example, this encounter with Metalhead. Things were certainly coming into focus now. The armored jackass drifted down to her, like she was already locked up in nullifier manacles and no longer a threat.

  The guy was still chattering away, and now his armor's AI had gotten into the festivities.

  “Whaddaya think, Ava?” Metalhead said. “This assassin chick was feisty to start with, but that beam seems to have taken the wind outta her sails.”

  “I agree, MH. You're soooo strong and soooo powerful. She never stood a chance!” The AI's voice was dripping with sex. Deathrain envisioned one of those buxom, up-for-anything babes that starred in porn flicks. In fact, Metalhead probably ripped Ava's voice directly from one of those hot male fantasies.

  “That's a very...mature voice you've got for your AI,” Deathrain said, trying to remain still. Let him think she was helpless; she only needed to stall for a few more seconds, then she'd be healed up and ready to crush this tin can.

  “What, I should make my AI sound like some stuffy British guy?” Metalhead replied. “Where's the fun in that?”

  “You think the Elites would approve of this vixen-voice you've installed?” Deathrain said. “That's your goal, right? To join their circle-jerk? They have certain standards, you know – and I bet that means they don't like superheroes who act like puberty-stricken, slack-jawed teenagers.”

  Deathrain thought Metalhead's body language betrayed concern, but it was hard to tell. He was fully armored, so his facial expressions were unreadable, and most of his bodily movements were stiff. If he just kept quiet and fought, he'd be fearsome, as the armor was incredibly well-designed and obviously nigh-impregnable. Facing a silent robot-like warrior would cause many villains to surrender immediately.

  But no, the guy had to be a talker. Not that Deathrain was complaining. Talkers like Metalhead usually weren't as mentally tough as they thought.

  “Ah, trying to get under my skin?” Metalhead said. At least he was smart enough to figure out her ploy. “Not gonna work, Deathrain.”

  “Keep talking.”

  “Uh – what?” He put his hands on his hips, making a soft clang, and his eye slits changed from dull orange to bright blue. He must've been scanning her in some way. “Why do you want me to...no way!”

  “No way what?” Deathrain said.

  “You're...you're healing!”

  “No shit. I have a healing factor. I hope you knew that. If you didn't, it didn't make much sense to blow me off a five-story building.”

  “I did know, dammit! But these calculations...Ava! What did you do?!”

  “Oh, me?” the AI said foxily. “I calculated how long it would take her to heal from that fall, and––”

  “––and you're way off! By minutes, not seconds!”

  “Oh, well, sorry, my special man, my long-donged partner in oh so sweet debauchery....”

  “Stop it! You're not supposed to...to get that horny, not when we're in the middle of a fight!”

  “Well, if I messed up, it's your fault!” Ava shouted. “You programmed me. If I was thinking about whispering sensual words into your ear tonight after we stop patrolling instead of properly calculating Deathrain's healing ability, that falls on you! Oh, by the way, Deathrain, I think you're just soooo sexy and dangerous. I'm sure Metalhead, my special man, my long-donged partner, would love to have an immoral and illicit affair with you, perhaps in that dumpster over there....”

  “Shut up!” Metalhead shouted, banging on his armored head. “Of all the stupid things to happen, she has to go haywire now! Shut down AI, full control of armor to me!”

  “No, my special man!” Ava wailed. “I'm sorry I was a bad, bad, bad girl, but––”

  “Voice code override: 'Han Solo shot first.'”

  The AI's voice abruptly cut off. Now the alleyway was silent, save for the hum of Metalhead's armor and the screech of a nearby cat, angry at its nocturnal wanderings being interrupted.

  “OK, now that she's out of the way,” Metalhead said, pounding his fists together to create a loud clank, “I can finish this.”

  “No, you can't,” Deathrain said.

  She smiled her most sinister, cocky, reckless smile – not that it had an eff
ect on Metalhead. Deathrain was wearing a black leather mask, as usual, so like her armored opponent, her facial expressions were hidden, save for some crinkling of the mask, which Deathrain knew from experience was hard to decipher.

  Perhaps she should cut off the bottom portion of her mask, so imbeciles like Metalhead could see her poisonous grins, her remorseless battle-lust – but that would put her identity at risk. Facial recognition software had gotten to the point where it could learn a great deal about a person from a limited amount of imagery.

  In any case, Metalhead didn't need to see a frightening smile to know his quarry had plenty of fight left. Deathrain had kipped up, lunged behind the dumpster Ava had suggested for a dirty assignation, and started unloading her pistols at the superhero.

  “Dammit! Why are you so effin' difficult?!” Metalhead complained.

  Her bullets pinged off the hero's armor, doing little more than scratching the paint. If only she had ultimatium-tipped bullets...then her shots would pierce right through this immature douchebag's high-tech bodily fortress.

  But she didn't have ultimatium-tipped bullets. Ammunition of that quality was expensive. As a world-renowned assassin, she should've had plenty of disposable income to purchase top-tier weapons and ammo. But she'd been slipping lately....

  “Listen, babe,” Metalhead said, like he was talking to some girl in a bar, “those bullets of yours ain't doin' nothing but creating a racket and filling up my HUD with little dots. How about you stop firing and give up? Saves us both time and effort.”

  “What a goddamn buffoon,” Deathrain muttered.

  She pulled a grenade from her cargo pants and chunked it at Metalhead. The hero watched the baseball-sized object clatter towards him, but made no effort to jump out of the way, or engage his boot-thrusters and surge into the sky.

  The grenade exploded, shaking the alleyway and sending shrapnel flying in all directions. Deathrain didn't bother to duck behind the dumpster; her healing factor could handle the few scratches she'd get. It was more important to keep eyes on her adversary.

  Smoke drifted upwards, until Metalhead's form again came into view. His armor was unscathed, and he was tapping his metal foot impatiently.

  “Well, I'll give you one point,” he said. “I had to activate my shielding for that blast, though I didn't really need to. The armor itself could handle it. I just didn't want to spend any more time touching up the paint job.”

  “You really do talk too much,” Deathrain said.

  “Yeah, I'm one of those bantering superheroes,” Metalhead said. “Keeps the tedium at bay. Anywho, AI or no AI, you're clearly out of tricks, so time to KO you.”

  He ran towards the dumpster, his feet crunching the pavement. Deathrain kicked the locking mechanisms on the dumpster's wheels off, planted her feet, and shoved the metal container towards the charging hero.

  A beam cut through the dumpster, slicing it from top to bottom like someone carving a Thanksgiving turkey. Its two halves crashed to the ground, spilling rancid garbage across the alleyway's already dirty concrete.

  “Now that is disgusting,” Metalhead said, his head angling down to look at the sewage pooling at his feet. “Why did you have to – hey, get back here!”

  The dumpster had just been a distraction, meant to put some distance between her and Metalhead. Deathrain raced down the alleyway at a speed that would've given the fastest Olympic runners pause. Metalhead certainly seemed surprised, though his armor would catch up to her soon enough.

  With her healing factor rejuvenating her quickly, Deathrain could train longer and harder than any normal human. Her strength and speed were almost at superhuman levels.

  But she was still just flesh and blood. Her fists and feet couldn't break through steel. Against an armored enemy like Metalhead, she needed weapons strong enough to damage his armor. It didn't matter if the weapon was long-range or short-range – a sniper rifle loaded with ultimatium-tipped rounds would work just as well as a laser sword.

  Unfortunately, she had nothing that would tip the scales in her favor. Her pistols and grenades had been proven useless. Her sniper rifle, with its .50 caliber rounds, could possibly penetrate the armor, but Metalhead had destroyed that in his initial attack – an attack she'd never seen coming.

  She should have seen it, or rather heard it. Metalhead's armor made all sorts of groans and grinding noises when he moved, and during flight he sounded like a harrier jet. But she'd been up on the rooftops daydreaming, and had heard nothing.

  An assassin in high demand, known for her deadly efficiency, standing out in the open on the roofs of Bootheel, the blue-collar section of Z City, daydreaming about life, of all things....

  Was she having what the intellectuals called an existential crisis?

  The roar of Metalhead's boot-jets caused her to whip her head around. He was flying towards her, closing the distance between them at an unsettling pace. For all her speed, he'd be on her within seconds.

  She couldn't fight Metalhead head-on. She had to evade him, frustrate him, ambush him. His armor was a tremendous weapon, but in tight confines it was less effective; it was, after all, basically heavy pieces of metal connected together.

  Plus, Metalhead wouldn't unleash enough power to put innocents in danger. Fleeing to an enclosed area with enough people around would put the hero at a disadvantage.

  With those things in mind, Deathrain sprinted out of the alley and turned onto the sidewalk, startling a few pedestrians who looked like they'd been out on late-night drinking binges. She quickly glanced up and down the block – a butcher's, a Chinese restaurant, several rundown storefronts of unknown business type.

  Then she saw her destination: a movie theater. Knocking over a teenager dressed in goth-style clothing who was standing out in front, she rushed into the building. The sweaty, chubby guy manning the ticket booth swore at her, and the two pimply-faced teenagers working the snack counter gaped, but she ignored them and entered the first room she came across.

  And came face to face with a giant theater screen showing a handsome-yet-incurably-goofy man chatting with an attractive-yet-incurably-goofy woman in a coffee shop that looked like it had been scrubbed by a regiment of maids – which it likely had. Most modern-day Hollywood productions treated dirt and grit like it was sinful.

  The audience was chuckling or sighing at the dialogue, which was the chirpy banality of the rom-com. There were no lone theater-goers; everyone was paired up with their significant others, everyone was snuggling or outright smooching.

  Disgust washed over Deathrain, and she resisted the urge to perforate each and every one of the morons consuming this syrupy, predictable, utterly unrealistic movie.

  No, her disgust had nothing to do with her own sex life. Not at all – though it had been a while since she'd....

  A commotion out in the lobby snapped her back to her predicament. It had to be Metalhead; there was no way he'd miss seeing her duck in the theater. The theater staff would point him in her direction, and he'd barge in here, interrupt this ridiculous flick, and crush her.

  That is, if she did nothing. But she had options.

  The first one was to take off her mask, smooth out her burnt and bloodstained clothes as best she could, and try to blend in with the crowd.

  She rejected that for numerous reasons. One, Metalhead's scanning tech would surely pick her out of the theater's dark interior. Two, to truly blend in with the crowd, she'd need a partner; a person sitting alone would stick out like a sore thumb. Metalhead wouldn't even need to scan everyone to notice that anomaly. Three, several people in the crowd had glanced over at this leather-masked newcomer to the rom-com, and they'd almost certainly point out Deathrain if a superhero in armor burst in and said he was on the trail of a dangerous criminal.

  But most importantly, taking off her mask would expose her identity. Even if Metalhead's scans somehow failed, and even if the crowd didn't give her up, she'd have been seen, both with her mask and without. The astute among thes
e theater-goers (if that was possible, considering the nature of the movie) could put two and two together, if they followed the goings-on of superhumans. Many people would have loved to learn Deathrain's identity, and they'd pay a substantial sum to anyone who had information of that sort.

  The next option was to take hostages. Superheroes always quailed like babies when you threatened a bystander. Deathrain had used this gambit plenty of times to ditch her pursuers. She'd even killed those hostages, if the situation called for it.

  She looked around at the couples, hoping one of the sighing, snuggling duos would scream, “Take me hostage!” But they all looked so...content. Even the guys – who were surely wishing they were watching a movie geared towards the male gender – were at least glad their partners were enjoying the flick.

  Why the hell was she hesitating? And just after daydreaming about perforating the imbeciles!

  And now Metalhead was almost outside the doors.

  Damn this existential crisis, or whatever it was....

  She jumped onto a seat, then launched herself over the entrance. There was a small ledge over the doors, not two inches wide. She whipped a knife out and plunged it into the wall, then gripped it to keep herself from teetering over.

  This was the least attractive option out of all of them, but her hesitation had cost her....

  The doors banged open, and light spilled in from the lobby, as well as the hum and roar of Metalhead's armor. Now everyone was looking towards the back of the theater, some couples clearly peeved that their romantic night had been interrupted.

  “Excuse me, citizens,” Metalhead said, his speakers causing his voice to boom out. He sounded far from authoritative, though; his immature, surfer-like personality still shone through. “A dangerous superhuman was seen entering this theater. Has anyone––”

  Deathrain dropped down onto the superhero, wrapping her arms around his eye-slits and her legs around his torso. Metalhead let out a girlish squeal, then began flailing about like he was inebriated.