The Murder of Crows | Book 2 | Red Right Hand Read online

  Titles by Chris Tullbane

  The Murder of Crows

  See These Bones

  Red Right Hand

  One Tin Soldier *

  Stories from a Post-Break World

  The Stars That Sing

  The Storm in Her Smile

  Fire of Unknown Origin *

  The Many Travails of John Smith

  Investigation, Mediation, Vindication

  Blood is Thicker Than Lots of Stuff *

  Ghost of a Chance *

  The Italian Screwjob *

  A Dead Man’s Favor *

  Godswar *

  John Smith Doesn’t Work Here Anymore *

  * Forthcoming

  Red Right Hand

  Chris Tullbane

  First published by Ghost Falls Press 2020

  Copyright © 2020 by Chris Tullbane

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

  Publisher's Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  provided by Five Rainbows Cataloging Services

  Names: Tullbane, Chris, author.

  Title: Red right hand / Chris Tullbane.

  Description: Henderson, NV : Ghost Falls Press, 2020. | Series: Murder of crows, bk. 2. | Also available in audiobook format.

  Identifiers: ISBN 978-1-7334824-7-9 (paperback) | ISBN 978-1-7334824-6-2 (ebook)

  Subjects: LCSH: Superheroes--Fiction. | Conspiracies--Fiction. | Self-actualization (Psychology)--Fiction. | Bildungsromans. | Fantasy fiction. | Science fiction. | BISAC: FICTION / Superheroes. | FICTION / Coming of Age. | FICTION / Fantasy / Action & Adventure. | FICTION / Science Fiction / Action & Adventure. | GSAFD: Fantasy fiction. | Science fiction. | Bildungsromans.

  Classification: LCC PS3620.U45 R43 2020 (print) | LCC PS3620.U45 (ebook) | DDC 813/.6--dc23.

  Book Cover Design by ebooklaunch.com

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents portrayed in it are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  First edition

  For Nami,

  the reason for everything

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  This book would not be what it is without the support of a number of wonderful people.

  Nami, my angel-wife. The power on the throne and the secret to my success.

  Johanna, my whisky buddy. I told her how this whole thing would end... and then she forgot.

  Jamie, protector of the free world, who remains both the best and only brother I’ve ever had.

  Keith and Shawn, who listen to my book-related monologues every day and have yet to unsubscribe.

  Simon, poet and friend, whose words create worlds.

  Kerri, who read this whole book on her phone and didn’t try to kill me afterward.

  And last but never least, my mother and father; great people and even better parents.

  Thank you all.

  Table of Contents

  Titles by Chris Tullbane

  Acknowledgments

  The Class of 76

  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

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Interlude

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  About the Author

  The Class of 76

  Alan Jackson (The Manimal) - Beast Shifter

  Caleb Mikkazi (Supersonic) - Jitterbug/Flyboy

  Damian Banach (Walker) - Crow

  Erik Thorsson (The Viking) - Titan

  Erin Pearson (Cyclone) - Wind Dancer

  Evelyn Mandelhoff (Wormhole) - Teleporter

  Frederic Ficus (Muse) - Switch

  Ishmae Naser (Phoenix) - Pyromancer

  Jason Abara (Nug) - Hydromancer

  Jeremiah Jones (Stonewall) - Mineral Shifter

  Johannes Callum (Prince) - Siren

  Kayleigh Watai (Vibe) - Empath

  London Sullivan (Ember) - Pyromancer

  Matthew Strich (Paladin) - Stalwart

  Nadia Kahale (Orca) - Stalwart

  Olympia Kennedy (Spectra) - Lightbringer

  Orson Douglas (Oscuro) - Shadecaster

  Patricia O’Connor (Makara) - Hydromancer

  Penelope Von Pell (Winter) - Weather Witch/Wind Dancer

  Rebecca Wells (Static) - Spark

  Santiago Tomayo (El Bosque) - Druid

  Shane Stevenson (Unicorn) - Healer

  Sofia Black (Silt) - Earthshaker

  Tessa McShane (Poltergeist) - Telekinetic

  CHAPTER 1

  My father murdered my mom when I was five.

  Thirteen years later, I quit superhero school to return the favor.

  I’d say that’s when everything went to hell, but that would be a lie. Hell is seeing your mom’s blood spread across the kitchen floor. Everything that comes after is just life. You either survive it or you don’t.

  I’m a survivor.

  Survived Mom’s murder. Survived more than a decade at Mama Rawlins’ House for Unwanted Brats. Survived a year at the Academy as the school’s only necromancer student. Even survived that mess out at the Hole, where a lot of other people died. Better people, mostly. If life’s taught me anything, it’s that you scrap and claw for every moment you can get. And if you’re a Crow like me, you don’t let a little thing like dying get in your way.

  My name is Damian, but most people call me Walker.

  •—•—•

  In Los Angeles, cold is something that happens to other people… to the sad sacks who live up north or inland. Bakersfield, where I was born, abandoned, and sort of raised, has its own brand of winter—fog, fog, and more fog—but it’s not until you get into the Badlands, to the scattering of tiny towns disappearing by the year, that you learn what real cold is; ice and snow, limbs turning blue, and piec
es of you dropping off like you’re a mindless walker some asshole Crow raised.

  In L.A., the land of sunshine and balmy ocean breezes, Winter is just the name of one of my more annoying classmates.

  I was sitting on a stone bench in the clearing on the west side of campus, watching ghosts flicker in and out of existence around me. After a year of school, I still didn’t understand what ghosts really were. Fragments of people, maybe. Echoes of what was, pulled into the orbit of my power. Most of them silent, most unaware I was even there.

  There were exceptions, of course.

  A few months back, Mom’s ghost had hit me with a vision of her own death, revealing that I’d been my dad’s intended target. And then she’d gone right back to humming her silent song, a mindless specter in a yellow sundress, smiling blankly into space. No explanation. No words. Not even a shared glance.

  Dad’s ghost was newer. Not even a month old and clear as daylight, shuffling aimlessly through the trees around me. I hadn’t been the one who killed him, but he’d followed me back to the Academy just the same. Part of me hoped he had his own vision to share—something to explain why he’d wanted to kill me and murdered Mom instead—but most of me just wanted his translucent ass gone for good.

  He’d been a Crow, back when he was alive. One of too damn many things we had in common. Everyone assumed that’s why he’d gone bad—just another necromancer succumbing to madness—but before his death at the Hole, he’d told me otherwise. Told me Sally Cemetery, herself long dead, had come and made him remember.

  Remember what?

  No fucking clue. Sally was as infamous a Crow and Black Hat as there’d ever been, and somehow, death hadn’t kept her from appearing to my dad and destroying my life. It also hadn’t kept her from showing up on the Academy grounds thirteen years later and saving that same life, right when I was on the precipice of madness.

  Damned if I could understand why she’d done either.

  If all that wasn’t enough of a mindfuck, I’d stumbled across another shocker while awaiting the results of my expulsion hearing. The Finder who’d come to Bakersfield just before my eighteenth birthday, who’d somehow gotten me enrolled in the prestigious Academy of Heroes? The mysterious Mr. Grey, who was as bland as his name except for two eyes that shined like copper pennies? He was number nine on the Security Council’s most wanted list, a Black Hat known to the Free States as Tyrant.

  I’d been sent to hero school by one of the worst villains in the country, and I had no idea why.

  Shit on the left of me, shit on the right, and a whole mess of dead bodies behind. The only path was forward. Another year at the Academy. One last chance to prove I could be a Cape. If I flamed out a second time, I was fucked.

  But that’s life too, isn’t it?

  We’re all survivors right up until the day we aren’t.

  CHAPTER 2

  As I left the woods, the sound of orientation hit me like a Titan’s fist; music and cheering and a godawful number of eighteen-year-olds relishing their first day away from Mommy and Daddy. For the normals who formed the bulk of the Academy’s student body, it was a day of celebration.

  The Powers who made up the incoming class of first-years weren’t getting a party. They were in an auditorium near the center of campus, where Dean Bard was telling them they were all going to die. Welcome to life as a Cape in the only democracy left in North America. Shit’s not easy. Even making it to graduation isn’t a guarantee.

  As if the thought had summoned him, I saw Shane’s ghost in the distance; a teenage ginger we’d named Unicorn who’d had dreams of healing the world. He’d died in our first semester. Wish I could say his death had been for something. Wish I could say seeing him didn’t still hurt. Wish I could say a lot of things, but wish is just another word for dream, and ever since the Break, Dr. Nowhere’s dream is the only one that matters.

  I met Unicorn’s vacant eyes, unleashed some of that emptiness that makes me a Crow, and watched my friend’s ghost fade away.

  •—•—•

  If you’re a first-year, Orientation gets you a seat in the auditorium and the dubious pleasure of Dean Bard’s one and only speech. If you’re a second-year, all you get is a note on your Glass, telling you what sub-dorm you’ve been assigned to. See, that initial year at the Academy is about testing future Capes as individuals; seeing who has what it takes to not snap under the pressure.

  Can’t say I handled it all that well, given I’d quit school and run off to murder my dad, but the expulsion board had seen fit to give me another chance anyway.

  By second-year, the Academy was done testing us as individuals. Now, it was time to see how we performed in teams. That’s where the sub-dorm thing came in. Second-years lived with their teammates in one of ten smaller buildings on the east side of campus. Four bedrooms, one bathroom, and a common area for me and three people who, chances were, hated my guts.

  Knowing my luck, I’d be stuck with Wormhole, Supersonic and Paladin. Or worse… I’d share a bedroom wall with Santiago like I had as a first-year. Another year forced to listen to him and London having sex would drive me crazy faster than my power ever could.

  I checked my Glass one last time before sliding it into the bag that held my possessions; underwear and toiletries, a half-dozen sets of Academy grey sweats that matched the ones I was currently wearing, a faded t-shirt with the adult Paladin’s logo across the chest, and a glossy black card with a single-use net address in raised lettering.

  I’d already used the card, making it little more than a reminder of the woman who’d given it to me, the leather-clad Shifter mercenary known to me as Her Majesty and to the Free States as the Queen of Smiles. I now knew she’d been hired by Tyrant to get me to the Academy. What I didn’t know was why she’d helped me afterwards, bringing me the gun I’d smuggled into the Hole to kill my Dad.

  Had all of that been part of Tyrant’s plan too? Hell if I knew, but I was tired of feeling like a pawn.

  Only five of the ten sub-dorms were in use. The Academy had been built to house hundreds of potential Capes, but those numbers had yet to materialize. To hear Bard talk, the Capes of the Free States were fighting a war of attrition… and losing.

  My home for the year was distinguished from the other sub-dorms by a V on its door. That’s the Roman numeral five, for you lucky bastards who never had to sit through a full year of pre-Break history. Loud and angry voices were already coming from inside. Fights were kind of a staple of our class—from Supersonic coming after me at Unicorn’s funeral to the brawl at the Liquid Hero that had made us all famous as first-years—but I wasn’t used to having them start without me.

  The door opened on a small common room with a couch, a vid screen, two easy chairs, and a pair of furiously arguing women. One of the women had dark hair, shoulder-length and curly, while the other had silken white hair to her waist and a nose almost as crooked as mine.

  Tessa McShane and Penelope Von Pell. Better known to our class as Poltergeist and Winter.

  Because of course I’d get stuck on a team with both.

  Fuck my fucking life.

  Both women turned as I entered. I watched the emotions parade across their faces, terminating in what could only be described as disappointment.

  “You’ve got to be kidding.” For once, Winter had her hair down instead of up in one of the ridiculous styles she favored. It might have softened the narrow planes of her face if she hadn’t been so busy frowning.

  “Of course it would be you.” Poltergeist scowled.

  “That’s my line.” They weren’t my least favorite people in the class, but it wasn’t for lack of trying. “Is it just the three of us? I don’t know if I can deal with you two by myself for an entire year.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” demanded Winter.

  “Our fourth is in his room,” said Poltergeist, nodding to the hallway and the one door off of it that was closed. “Sleeping.”

  “With the noise you two were ma
king? Yeah, right.”

  “Sleeping,” she repeated, this time adding air quotes. “He was drunk when I got here.”

  “Shit.” There was only one person I could think of who would already be drunk before school even started. Frederic Ficus, sometimes called Freddy, but mostly referred to by his Cape name. “Muse?”

  “If he pukes, I’m not cleaning it up.” Winter wrinkled her long nose and sighed. “I guess it could have been worse. None of us like each other—” For some reason, she gave me the side-eye. “—but powers-wise, we’re going to be tough to handle.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding.” Poltergeist shook her head. “This team is a disaster!”

  Winter pulled herself up to her full height and looked scornfully at the other woman. “You’re a Low Four, I’m amazing, we have the class’ only Switch, and Damian…”

  “What about me?” I couldn’t wait to see where Winter went with this.

  “You’re a jerk, but you fought at the Hole and killed Carnage with a touch. Who in our class can stand up to that?”

  “Anyone with ranged abilities,” Tessa and I said at the same time. The dark-haired woman shot me an irritated look, then continued. “Do you really think the Academy will let the Crow just start killing our classmates?”

  “I have a name, Poltergeist.”

  “Whatever. Damian.”

  “I meant my Cape name.”

  “I’m not calling you Walker. Bad enough that the Academy has a Crow student. You don’t need to rub what you are in everyone’s face.”

  “Nobody died and made you the boss of Cape names, Tessa,” interjected Penelope.

  “Winter’s right, for once,” I said. From the twin glares shot my way, neither woman appreciated my contribution. “Anyway, Dominion didn’t have a problem with the name, and I value his opinion a lot more than either of yours.”

  That ended the debate, like I’d hoped it would. As the country’s only Full-Five, Dominion had been the very first Cape and remained far and away our greatest.

  “Fine. Whatever. Walker.” If Poltergeist’s tone hadn’t already communicated how she still felt about my name, her rolled eyes would have done so. “My point stands. The teachers aren’t going to let you kill our classmates, even if you do somehow get your hands on them. That makes you useless as a front-line fighter. And once Muse amplifies us, he’s basically just a normal.”