Legacy Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  PART ONE The Job

  01

  02

  03

  04

  PART TWO The Haven

  05

  06

  07

  08

  09

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  PART THREE Hostage

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  PART FOUR The Station

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  36

  37

  38

  PART FIVE Revenge

  39

  40

  41

  42

  43

  44

  45

  46

  Epilogue

  The End

  Legacy

  Copyright © 2020 Travis Brett

  All rights reserved.

  Dedicated to Amelia-Rose Rubin, whose input into Legacy cannot be overstated. Thank you for having the tough love to tell me honestly when my first drafts were simply awful, yet having the kindness to believe they could become something worthwhile.

  And to Zane Barker, who surprised me by making the first printed copies of Legacy. He is the true hero we don’t deserve, but so desperately need.

  PART ONE

  The Job

  01

  Roman knew he was being followed.

  Judging by the footsteps, the one on his left was barefoot. The other breathed far too loudly. Damn amateurs. They had been following him for the last two blocks, gradually drawing closer. Sooner or later they would make their move.

  He hoped it would be sooner. There was no point delaying the inevitable.

  Rubble blocked the road ahead. An office block had collapsed, brought down by a century of radiation decay. A streetlight protruded from the wreckage, half buried and precariously tilted. It briefly flickered into life, illuminating the ruins beneath it.

  Roman frowned at the roadblock. Fucking hell, he thought, yet another collapse. How long would it be before the entire city was nothing but broken relics of the Ancients?

  He paused at the foot of the wreckage, listening. The night was silent except for the footsteps following him, which promptly stopped after he did. If they had been waiting for the perfect ambush spot, this would be it. He pretended to be adjusting his belt, taking his time to give them a good chance to attack.

  But still, they waited.

  Disappointing.

  Roman began to climb, the frayed hem of his coat brushing against the rubble as he stooped low to keep balance. Chunks of concrete crumbled beneath his leather boots. He wondered if anyone had been inside when the building collapsed. Welcome to Legacy: if the radiation doesn’t kill you fast enough, falling debris will.

  He paused at the apex of the rubble, looking out at the empty street ahead. Broken windows. Boarded up doors. Walls carved with obscene graffiti. The sight angered Roman — it was a crime for a city to rot like this. Especially when it might be the last city mankind had left.

  He climbed down, carefully testing each step before committing his weight. He nearly stumbled on an unstable brick, but corrected his balance just in time. Hopefully one of his stalkers would be less lucky. That would be worth a laugh. Roman pushed another two bricks loose and picked up a third.

  Jumping off the last ledge of rubble, he landed back on the cracked pavement. As he resumed his stride he wondered where Ruby was watching from. She’d be close, but there was no point looking for her. Ruby would stay invisible until she wanted to be seen.

  A silhouette emerged out of the darkness ahead. Too large to be Ruby.

  So that’s what they were waiting for.

  Roman halted, readjusting the situation in his head. Three against one. These crooks weren’t the gambling kind. But his confidence didn’t waver. He was here tonight to hunt an Adrenalite, so a simple gang of bandits wasn’t going to frighten him. He tossed the brick between his hands, weighing it up.

  Heavy enough to hurt, at least.

  In one well-rehearsed motion, Roman spun and hurled the brick at the closest bandit, who was only a couple paces away by now. The clay shattered against the man’s face and he collapsed.

  A glint of steel drew Roman’s focus to the second bandit. This one was a short, stocky bastard, with an ugly jaw like a dog. Roman charged, keeping low, dodged under a clumsy punch, then rammed his elbow into the man’s chest.

  The bandit gasped, winded. Roman aimed a second blow at his kneecap. The leg buckled. With a cry of pain, the bandit dropped to the ground. Roman landed one quick jab to the temple, ensuring the bandit wouldn’t be rising anytime soon.

  Movement to his left. Roman threw himself to the side, just as a blade sliced through the air where he had been a moment ago. He regained his footing while clutching his coat pocket, checking that the two syringes hadn’t been broken. Still intact. He breathed a sigh of relief.

  The third bandit advanced, a rusty blade held in front of him. His ragged tunic hung loosely from his skeletal frame. Roman wondered whether the bastard was planning to rob him or eat him. Out here in the outskirts of Legacy, who knew what desperate men would resort to.

  The bandit lunged, yelling. Roman caught him by the wrist — he swore he almost felt the thin bone break in his grip — and retaliated with three left-handed jabs to the gut, ribs, and the chin. His opponent stumbled back, stunned, knife falling from limp fingers.

  Roman held back, offering the bandit a chance to flee. Instead, the man attacked again. Roman brushed aside a punch, swerved away from the mad dive, then used a sharp kick to the shin to send the bandit tumbling to the pavement.

  Only then did Roman pull out his revolver.

  Now the bandit decided to stay back. His expression quickly changed from anger to terror. “Oh, gods . . . please, I’m sorry!”

  Roman aimed his pistol at the bandit’s chest. “What’s your name?”

  “Uh . . . Garth. Please don’t kill me, sir!”

  “Now, Garth, here is the more important question: do you know who I am?”

  The bandit’s gaze passed over Roman’s dark skin and tangle of matted dark hair. His long black cloak. His revolver. That’s the real clue. Anyone who could afford a gun wouldn’t be here in the outskirts, unless—

  “Oh fuck,” Garth whispered. “You’re that bounty hunter.”

  “Congratulations. You’re not a complete idiot.”

  “Please! I didn’t mean . . .”

  Roman lowered the pistol. “I’m not going to shoot you.”

  “Thank you. Thank you so—”

  “Shut up. Now, you’re going to tell all your associates that if anyone bothers me while I’m doing business, ever again, I won’t be so kind-hearted. Got it?”

  Roman had given his last six muggers the same message. It never helped. Bandits in the outskirts were as inevitable as cancer.

  “I got it. I do!” Garth stumbled over each word. “So you’re, er . . . here on business?”

  “I’m definitely not in your neighbourhood because I like the smell.”

  The thug’s face paled even further.

  “So if I were you,” Roman continued, “I would leave this district, right now, and hide in a very, very deep hole. Got it?”

  Garth nodded vigorously, leapt to his feet and fled. He didn’t even stop to he
lp his unconscious partners. Roman watched him go with disgust. Men like him were the parasites of Legacy, maggots feeding off the corpse of this city. Yet they were insignificant.

  This city’s true disease was the Adrenalites.

  Roman slipped his revolver back into his coat and resumed his journey. And with any luck, before morning breaks there’ll be one less Adrenalite in Legacy.

  * * *

  Two blocks later, another set of footsteps approached. Light, subtle steps. Roman wouldn’t have noticed if he hadn’t been expecting them.

  “You know, Ruby,” he said without turning around, “I’m not sure what the point of you watching my back is if you don’t actually warn me when there’s danger.”

  She laughed. “You call that danger?”

  “Well . . . no.”

  She fell into step beside him, movements so graceful she practically glided over the potholes. Her dark eyes flicked from side to side, scanning each shadow.

  “I decided to let you have the fun,” Ruby said. “Besides, I didn’t want to touch them. They looked filthy.”

  Roman raised an eyebrow at her scruffy leather jacket, stained with dirt and dust. “Since when has getting your hands dirty ever bothered you?”

  “Since I figured that you could to do the grimy work for me.”

  “I thought you worked for me.”

  “Keep telling yourself that.”

  They turned into an alleyway. A cat glared at them from deeper in the passage. As they approached it darting away, hissing. Roman stepped over a sleeping beggar who reeked of piss and booze. The man gave a soft grunt, then resumed snoring. An overfilled dumpster blocked half the alleys exit. Roman crouched in its shadow and slowly stuck his head out, inspecting the street.

  “And there she is,” he whispered.

  Lady Luck. It might have been a hotel before the Days of Fire, bold and majestic, with bright signs enticing customers. Now Roman would have assumed it abandoned if not for the bouncer outside or the thin beams of light visible in the cracks of its window boards.

  Lady Luck was a cesspool of the city’s filthiest bandits, criminals, and mercenaries, all crammed together to drink, gamble and spend their ill-obtained credits. If the four Ministries kept any semblance of law and order in the streets of Legacy, it didn’t reach this far.

  A man stumbled down the road, heading for Lady Luck’s doors. Roman couldn’t make out the brief exchange of words, but he noted how the bouncer’s right hand never left the machete hanging from his belt while the other hand conducted a rough body search of the newcomer. A satisfied grunt came from the bouncer, who then opened the rotten wooden doors and ushered the man inside.

  Roman leaned back into the darkness of the alleyway. “Everything looks normal.”

  Ruby nodded. Her right hand kept twitching back to her hip, where a quiver of arrows normally hung — she wasn’t the kind of person who liked being unarmed. “You’re nervous,” she said.

  “So are you.”

  “I’m not the one trying to pull my own hair out.”

  Roman hastily stopped running his fingers through his hair. “I’m fine,” he muttered, turning back to the street and away from this topic of conversation.

  But Ruby wasn’t so easily discouraged. “You still don’t trust having Sparks on the team,” she said. It wasn’t a question.

  Roman grimaced. “You know how I feel about him.”

  “Just because he’s an Adrenalite doesn’t mean he’ll go rogue.”

  “They all go rogue eventually. It’s in their nature. They’re not human, they’re monsters.”

  Ruby shook her head. “He’s just a kid.”

  “I’ve seen him fight. I don’t think any kid is capable of what he can do.”

  “Of course he can fight. That’s why we hired him.”

  “That’s why you made me hire him,” Roman corrected her. “And I still think it was a shit idea.”

  “But you did it.”

  And how I hate myself for it. There was only one reason Roman had agreed to recruit an Adrenalite: Ruby had threatened to leave the team if he didn’t. And, as far as Roman was concerned, that wasn’t an option.

  “You know why we need him,” Ruby continued. “Our luck can’t last. Eventually, another job is going to go to hell. And this time, we need a backup plan that doesn’t let one of us die.”

  Roman’s frown deepened at the mention of Harry. He had been a good man, and a good friend. He didn’t deserve to die as he did. “You’re right about one thing, at least. We can’t afford to lose anyone else.”

  Ruby put her hand on his arm. “There was nothing you could have done.”

  “I’m the team’s leader. His death is my responsibility.”

  “That doesn’t mean it’s your fault.”

  Roman pulled away from her. “I got revenge, at least,” he muttered. “That’s what matters.”

  “You did. But unless you want another reason for revenge, promise me that you will activate Sparks — if we need to.”

  Roman reached into his jacket and touched the two glass syringes resting there. They were cold, and, despite their lightness, they felt impossibly heavy. “You know how risky that is.”

  “It’s a risk we have to live with.”

  “I’m more concerned about dying from it.” Roman leaned back against the dumpster. But damn it, she’s right. If Sparks becomes our last option . . . Then we’re fucked either way.

  “I promise,” he said.

  * * *

  They didn’t have to wait long before Caleb and Sparks arrived. Roman stuck his head out from the alley and watched the pair approach Lady Luck. Sparks’ short figure looked tiny next to Caleb’s massive silhouette.

  “They’re early,” Roman said.

  “Fortunate,” Ruby whispered back. “The weather won’t hold back much longer.”

  The first drops of rain were beginning to fall. Roman felt a drop strike his cheek, running down his unshaven chin. He shook his head, dislodging water from his tangle of hair.

  Raised voices interrupted his thoughts. “—don’t care if he’s registered or not. We don’t allow—” A gruff voice Roman didn’t recognize. Must be the bouncer.

  “We’re only after a drink. No trouble.” Caleb’s low, gravelly tone.

  “Well, you’re looking for it.” The scraping of metal — the machete sliding from the bouncer’s belt.

  “There’s no need for that.”

  “Then show me your backside and fuck off.”

  Sparks’ younger voice: “You want to see the goods? I didn’t realize this was that kind of establishment, but I can’t judge a man for his tastes.”

  “You little bastard!”

  Roman rose to his feet and strode out of the alley. Ruby joined in step beside him.

  The bouncer was a giant of a man. Despite the cold, he wore only a woollen vest, leaving his hulking biceps visible. He held his machete in a hand that had a sixth finger growing from the back of his wrist.

  But if the bouncer was a giant, Caleb was a mountain. He stood over eight feet tall. A barrel of a chest, arms thick as posts, shoulders so broad they very nearly buried his neck. With close-cut hair and a thick jaw, his face suited his form. He stared down at the machete with a bemused expression.

  Behind Caleb, Sparks bounced from foot to foot. Roman tensed at the sight of the boy. Barely sixteen years old, yet there’s no hint of innocence about him. Sparks’ ragged brown hair hung low over green eyes and an acne-covered face. He had excessively long arms that never quite stayed still. His neck moved in erratic motions, and the tattoo etched into its side danced with the movement.

  “We’re thirsty men,” Caleb said. “You wouldn’t come between a man and his beer would you?”

  Ruby ignored the tense scene, boldly striding up the stone steps, Roman a pace behind her. Only at the last moment did the bouncer’s attention turn to them.

  “Hold up there, Miss.”

  Even without seeing her face, Rom
an knew the kind of smile Ruby was flashing. The kind that made men do brainless things. Ruby’s voice was as smooth as glass as she lied: “It’s okay, handsome, we’re not here for any trouble.”

  Roman opened his coat and smiled reassuringly. He kept his arm held at a careful angle that ensured his gun and needles stayed hidden.

  “Wait up!” The bouncer held up his free hand to stop them, but as he did Caleb stepped forward threateningly, and the guard’s attention reverted to him. Ruby seized the moment, slipping past and opening the door.

  A second bouncer stepped through it.

  Roman stifled a curse. The second bouncer — a shorter man, but packed with no less muscle than the first — looked over the scene. “Is there a problem here?” His hand moved to the club hanging from his belt. The door slammed shut behind him.

  “Aye,” the first bouncer said. “These folks—”

  Roman didn’t wait for him to finish. He jabbed the second bouncer in the throat — cutting off his cry of alarm before it could come — while also kicking him in the groin. Ruby finished the job by stepping behind the bouncer, twisting her leg in front of his, and using it to send him tumbling to the ground. His head hit the pavement and he was out cold.

  Roman turned towards the first bouncer, who by now was also on the ground, unconscious, blood flowing from a broken nose. Caleb stood over him, his expression as nonchalant as ever. As if he hadn’t just knocked out a grown man with a single punch.

  Sparks folded his arms, pouting. “You guys didn’t leave anyone for me."

  “Maybe next time,” Caleb muttered as he and Roman dragged the two men away. They left them behind a pile of rusted metal beams.

  Ruby entered the bar first. Before following, Roman turned to Caleb and Sparks. “Wait out here,” he ordered. “Make sure no one else comes in. If anyone leaves, check them for tattoos. Come inside if you hear the signal.”

  Sparks scratched his jaw in mock thoughtfulness. “The signal . . . The signal . . . Is that when you scream like a little bitch?”

  “Just come if you hear a gunshot.”

  “Whatever you say, old man.”

  Roman scowled. He hated it when the kid called him that. He was only twenty-eight; he still had at least another five years before cancer would claim his life, just like it claimed anyone in Legacy who managed to survive long enough. Which, to be fair, wasn’t many. And Roman probably wasn’t going to be one of them.