Lucas was dreaming.
In this dream, he left his bed, drawn by the delicious aroma of bacon cooking. He shuffled into the kitchen and found his mother standing at the stove, turning the sizzling meat in a frying pan.
Lucas didn’t care for bacon that was too crispy, and he certainly didn’t like his mother that way. He stared at her as she worked at the stove, her body black and still smoldering.
And suddenly he had to wonder, was it the bacon he smelled?
Or was it the burning body of his mother?
He came awake with a yelp.
He was lying in an enormous bed, his naked body covered by cool silk sheets. Lucas looked around in a rush of panic. The room was huge, bigger than his and his mom’s entire mobile home, and filled with big pieces of heavy wooden furniture.
And then it all came back to him.
He remembered his father, who he was.
Shifting on the bed, he felt a sting in his arm and looked to see that he was hooked up to an IV bag hanging on a bracket over his bed, dripping clear fluid into his vein. He reached over and carefully pulled the needle from the bend in his arm, dropping it onto his pillow. He maneuvered himself into a sitting position and threw his legs over the side of the big bed, letting his feet touch the floor.
He felt different.
Lucas studied his legs, arms, and stomach, not quite understanding what he was seeing. His body seemed harder, more muscular. It reminded him of some of his friends who spent way too much time at the gym.
He saw a mirror across the room and sprang off the bed toward it.
“Oh my God,” he whispered, staring at his reflection. It was like he’d been given a whole new body. He’d always wanted to look this way, muscular and cut, but he’d never had the discipline.
Lucas quickly looked back at the bag of liquid that had been draining into his arm, wondering if there was a connection. He decided it was high time for some answers.
A bathrobe and a pair of sweatpants were slung over a wingback chair in the corner of the room. He quickly dressed and went to the closed door. He feared it might be locked, but it wasn’t, and he turned the knob, stepping out of the room into a long, curving hallway.
“Hello?” he called out, his voice sounding strange in the silence.
He walked toward a staircase at the opposite end of the hall and peered over the banister. The house seemed to be enormous.
“Hello?” he called out again, but still got no response.
Lucas went down the stairs and found himself in a large foyer. The floor was marble, and the furniture looked antique. On a circular table in the center of the hall, he noticed a vase of dead flowers and a thick coating of dust. In fact, dust coated just about everything.
As if nobody lived here.
He walked over to the large wooden front door and opened it, stepping outside. The air was cool, and he pulled his bathrobe tighter around him as he turned around and took a look at where he’d ended up.
“Holy crap,” he muttered, walking backward to try to fit the view in. He was outside a mansion; that was the only way to describe it. It reminded him of one of those old English manors he’d seen in movies about British royalty. The home was huge, with lush, green grounds on either side, and beyond them, thick woods.
His curiosity stoked, he went back inside, strolling from the dusty foyer into what appeared to be a parlor; it was hard to tell because the furniture in this room was covered with long white sheets.
Across the parlor was an open doorway, which led to a sunroom with glass doors looking out onto a patio.
Swinging the glass doors open, he stepped outside, gazing out over more woods and a pristine blue lake to an almost dreamlike vision of a city barely visible through a heavy fog.
Seraph City, he guessed as a warm breeze flowed across the lake, dispersing some of the mist.
“An amazing view, isn’t it?” asked a familiar voice behind him.
Lucas turned to see Clayton Hartwell wheeling a cart through the doorway onto the patio, cane tucked beneath one arm.
“Thought you might want some breakfast,” he said.
Lucas had a million questions, but, enticed by the smell of the food, he decided they could wait. At once he felt an aching emptiness begin to form in the pit of his belly. Like somebody hypnotized, he walked to the glass-topped table, pulled out a chair, and sat down.
Hartwell lifted the metal covers from the various plates on the cart. “I’ve got scrambled eggs, cereal, toast, sausages, and grapefruit,” he said. “Help yourself.”
Within seconds, Lucas had filled a plate to overflowing and was eating as though it would be his last meal.
“How is it?” Hartwell asked, hanging his cane from the edge of the table as he sat down across from the boy. He was dressed in his usual dark attire, his white hair slicked back.
“Good,” Lucas said through a mouthful of eggs and toast.
“It’s been a while since I’ve cooked anything. I’m surprised it’s edible,” Hartwell said with a chuckle.
Lucas poured some orange juice from a glass carafe. “You made this? Don’t you have any maids or butlers or anything?”
“No, it’s just me.” His father smiled. “As my life grew more … complicated, I found myself having less to do with Clayton Hartwell and more to do with the Raptor. Eventually I thought it best to let the staff go, and I’ve been living here alone in the mansion’s lower levels.”
Lucas refilled his plate with even more food, then glanced at Hartwell sheepishly. “Sorry,” he apologized. “I’m just really hungry.”
“That’s perfectly normal for your condition,” Hartwell said.
“My condition?” Lucas asked before taking a bite of his third piece of toast. “Are you talking about my body?”
“I thought you would have noticed,” Hartwell said.
Lucas nodded. “Well, I’ve never had muscles like this before.”
“That’s because the nanites in your blood weren’t fully activated until now.”
“Nanites?” Lucas repeated, his skin suddenly itchy.
“I guess I should probably start at the beginning.” Hartwell poured a cup of coffee from a silver pot.
“Your mother and I were involved in a serious relationship, but one that became strained by my revealing to her that I was the Raptor.” He poured a splash of milk into the dark liquid and stirred it with a silver spoon. “When she became pregnant, she left me.” Hartwell sipped his coffee, staring out into space.
“And what does that have to do with these … nanites you mentioned?” Lucas asked. He grabbed half a grapefruit and began to devour it.
“As she feared for her … our baby’s safety, so did I.” Hartwell paused as if considering his words before continuing. “And the last time we were together, unbeknownst to her, I injected her with the nanites—microscopic machines programmed to ensure the health of our unborn child.”
“Microscopic machines?’ Lucas asked incredulously.
Hartwell nodded. “It’s why you didn’t die during the trailer park attack.”
It suddenly started to make sense to Lucas. “And why I didn’t die when I got stabbed.”
Hartwell looked at him, head cocked. “You were stabbed?”
“I’ll tell you later. Go on,” Lucas urged.
“The nanites were programmed to activate only when your life was in danger,” Hartwell continued. “They would be undetectable until then.”
“Is that what’s making me so hungry?” Lucas asked, spearing four sausages with his fork and shaking them onto his plate.
“Exactly,” Hartwell confirmed. “The nanites need fuel. If you didn’t eat, they would be forced to consume muscle and body mass while trying to fix you.”
Lucas gazed again at himself, at his new body. “They did this?”
“They did,” Hartwell answered. “They were fully activated during the attack at the trailer park and have made you stronger than you’ve ever been before. The nanites have brought you as close to physical perfection as possible.”
“I can’t believe this,” Lucas said. “It’s all completely crazy.” He was staring at his hands, imagining tiny machines flowing through his blood like trucks speeding down a highway. “Where did they come from?”
“Scientists employed by Hartwell Technologies,” his father explained. “I’ve utilized many aspects of their research in my war against crime. One of the earliest versions of their performance-enhancing drugs is even in my blood.”
“Then how can you be dying?” Lucas asked point-blank. “If these drugs made you perfect …?”
“The earliest versions of these drugs didn’t work as well,” the old man said. “My older system can’t handle the strain anymore and is breaking down.”
“Isn’t there anything you can do?”
The old man nodded. “Yes, and I did it,” he said. “I found you.”
Nightmarish images of the trailer park massacre flashed through Lucas’s mind, temporarily shutting down his appetite. “What about the park?” he asked.
“It’s been more than two weeks since it happened,” Hartwell said.
“Two weeks?” Lucas was shocked by the amount of time that had passed.
“While you were unconscious,” Hartwell continued, “the authorities investigated the incident at the trailer park and determined that it was just a horrible accident. A faulty propane tank exploded, setting off a chain reaction that destroyed the park.”
“An accident?” Lucas repeated in disbelief.
“Explanations like that help people hide from the reality of the world they actually live in,” Hartwell explained.
“Is anyone looking for me?” Lucas asked. “Or do they figure I burned up with everybody else?”
“Sorry to say, but you’re dead now,” the older man said with finality. “To the outside world, Lucas Moore died in a terrible fire caused by a freak accident.”
Lucas felt his eyes begin to well up with emotion. It wasn’t every day that you were told you had died.
His father reached over from his chair and placed a powerful hand on his shoulder.
“I know how this feels,” he said with a slight nod.
“What, did you die too?”
The man’s expression became very serious. “In a way I did,” he said. “It was very early in my career as the Raptor, and let’s just say it changed my view of the world, and of the evil in it.”
Now Lucas’s curiosity was piqued. “What happened?” he asked.
“People died because of my carelessness,” Hartwell said, pulling his hand from Lucas’s shoulder. “Taken away in the flash and roar of an explosion. And on that day, the Raptor the world knew died as well … and a new Raptor was born.”
Lucas could see that his father didn’t want to talk about it anymore, that the memory was too painful. He recalled his own horrors—images of his attackers riding on their hovering vehicles, death rays cutting through the darkness. He felt himself grow angry.
“So you’re saying that I died and have been reborn.”
Hartwell nodded. “Yes, you have.”
“That’s good,” Lucas said. “So when will I get a chance to go after the guys who killed my mother?”
Hartwell stood up from his chair, retrieving his cane. “You’re not there yet,” he said. “There’s still a great amount of training you will need to undergo to prove to me that you’re capable of taking on the mantle of the Raptor.”
He slid the chair into the table.
“There’s a chance you might never be ready,” he added grimly.
“I’ll be ready,” Lucas said with an assured nod. “I’ve been reborn.”
His father laughed as he turned.
“We’ll see,” he said, limping from the patio. “By the time I’m done with you, you’ll probably be wishing you’d stayed dead.”
The days became weeks, and the weeks flowed into months, but it seemed like years to Lucas as he came to truly understand his father’s cryptic words.
At least ten times a day, when his body was screaming from exertion and his muscles burned and trembled as he forced them to their limits and beyond, a small part of him did wish he had died that fateful night at the trailer park.
But then he would remember his mother, and Mrs. Taylor, and even Fluffles, and somehow he would find within himself the ability to push his body that much further.
Someone had to avenge them.
And that someone was going to be him … if Hartwell ever finished with his damn training.
His schooling was relentless—multiple forms of hand-to-hand combat, military history, weapons training, advanced first aid. It just went on and on, until his brain was so crammed with information that he was sure nothing else could possibly fit.
But there was always something more to learn, always some new way to disarm an opponent or defuse an explosive device, so his training continued.
Lucas actually started to believe that his father was some sort of machine. In a world where costumed heroes existed, why not? Here was a man, in his mid to late fifties at the least, who was dying from some mysterious illness, who often needed a cane to get around, teaching Lucas relentlessly without any signs of growing tired. He couldn’t possibly be human.
But a fire burned in the old man’s eyes, and Lucas hoped that fire would one day—one day—burn in his own eyes.
So he went on with it.
And he would hear his father’s oft-repeated words as he struggled to get through the latest lesson.
“You can have the most powerful weapon in the world at your disposal, but if you don’t know how to use it, it’s useless.”
Lucas’s body was that weapon, and this was how he was being trained to use it.
How he was being trained to become more than he was.
Trained to become the next Raptor.
The alarm clock began to chime, and Lucas let out a moan.
He felt as if he had just gone to bed, after a particularly grueling day that had dragged on into the early hours of morning.
Something has to be wrong, he thought, lifting his face from his pillow to squint at the clock across the room on his dresser.
5:00 a.m.
It couldn’t be. How could that even be possible? He’d just closed his eyes what felt like five minutes before.
But he knew it wasn’t wrong; the night had passed so quickly because he’d gone to bed only three hours earlier. Fearing his fate if he ignored the alarm, Lucas rolled onto his back and hauled his tired, aching carcass from the bed.
The one time he’d ignored the alarm and gone back to sleep had been a total nightmare. The training had been three times as grueling and had gone on through the night until the next morning, when it had started all over again.
He didn’t want to chance a repeat of that.
Throwing on some sweats and a T-shirt, he left his room, heading down in the elevator to the gymnasium, in one of Hartwell Manor’s many underground levels.
Lucas wondered what kind of abuse he was going to experience today. His entire body throbbed despite the body-repairing nanites running through his blood. He guessed there was only so much the tiny machines could do.
A growl like some kind of wild animal filled the elevator compartment, and he pressed a hand to his grumbling belly. He was starving again, as he always seemed to be these days, but he couldn’t eat until the first round of training was done.
He wondered what it would be today—something physical, like an aikido refresher, or maybe a quiz on Shakespeare’s sonnets? He had no idea what Shakespeare had to do with becoming a superhero, but knew it wasn’t wise to ask.
Roll with it had become his mantra these last few months.
Hartwell was the teacher, and Lucas was the student.
The elevator came to a stop, and the doors silently slid open on the gymnasium floor.
Usually his father would be there, impatiently waiting for him, but this morning only darkness greeted him. Lucas left the elevator, stepping out into the darkened gym, running his hand along the wall until he found the light switches. He flicked the switches up, only to find they didn’t work.
“Huh,” he said as he continued to stupidly push them up and down.
He heard a noise from somewhere across the gym, a door opening with a creak.
“Lights are busted,” Lucas called out, expecting some sort of response.
None came.
“Hello?” he called out. “Are you in here? I said there’s something wrong with the lights. Guess we’re not gonna get to work out today.”
He didn’t hear a verbal response, but he did pick up the sound of heavy breathing from somewhere up ahead.
Lucas squinted, trying to see through the darkness. “Is that you?” he asked, catching sight of a moving shadow. “What’s wrong? Is it silent-but-deadly day today or something?”
A roar like nothing he’d ever heard before filled the air and was followed by the sound of pounding footfalls heading directly toward him.
Whatever it was, it was big. Lucas could feel the vibrations through the floor, and it was on him before he even had a chance to react.
It was a man—at least he thought it was a man—a big man who moved like a freight train. The figure growled, driving him down with arms the size of steel girders. Lucas took the full brunt of the attack, lifted off his feet and landing in the middle of the gymnasium floor.
Who let a giant gorilla into the building? he thought as he scrambled to his feet.
The mysterious figure roared again, charging at him through the darkness.
Lucas felt the first waves of panic as his attacker burst out of the shadows with an ear-piercing shriek. The creature snatched him up by the front of his T-shirt and slammed him viciously to the floor. The air exploded from Lucas’s lungs in a wheezing blast, and colored lights blossomed in front of his eyes. He fought to keep from passing out.
As Lucas gasped for air the monster stood above him, lifting a bare foot with a grunt. Lucas knew he was preparing to bring it down and crush him.
He rolled out of the way just as the massive foot fell. The ground shook as it landed where his head had been.
His attacker roared in disapproval as Lucas sprang up.
A gigantic hand surged through the blackness and wrapped around his throat. Lucas gasped as the monster man began to squeeze.
He struggled uselessly to breathe. He felt his life start to slip away.
His attacker began to laugh, a horrible sound. Lucas didn’t want it to be the last thing he heard before he died.
The right fighting technique came to him in a flash; it was an aikido move.
Lucas brought his hands up, grabbing hold of his attacker’s wrist with one hand while applying just the right amount of pressure to the elbow with the other.
The monster man screamed out in pain as Lucas carried through, using his attacker’s weight and size against him to drive him to the floor. It was as if all he had been taught was lining up inside his head.
The monster didn’t stay down for long, rising to his feet with a growl.
But this time, Lucas was ready for him.
The key was to stay out of the monster’s reach. His opponent was a brute, relying almost totally on strength and savagery If he couldn’t get to Lucas, Lucas couldn’t be hurt.
Using speed and agility, Lucas kept away from the monster’s clutches, zipping in when an opening presented itself to strike at sensitive areas on the monster’s body.
It wasn’t long before the giant was lurching about, his body stiff from multiple blows, and he began to slow down as the fight slowly drained from him.
Lucas couldn’t have felt better.
This was where it all came together, all the long months and hours of training. This was what it was all for!
The monster was hurting, and his attacks became even more savage. Sloppy.
As Lucas circled him, keeping out of reach and deciding where to hit him next, the large man surprised him. Believing he was attacking to the right, Lucas dodged to the left, only to have the beast of a man change his direction suddenly and with a roar, snatch him up off the floor in a powerful bear hug.
The monster man roared with laughter, pleased by his cleverness, as he began to squeeze.
Lucas felt the first of his ribs snap. The pain was incredible. Even with the nanites inside him working overtime, he wasn’t sure how much more of a beating he could take.
Glancing down, he looked into the hate-filled eyes of his attacker, more beast than man. The monster was smiling, his razor-sharp teeth almost glowing in the darkness of the gym.
A rumbling laugh gurgled up as he began to squeeze even tighter.
Lucas squirmed in the monster’s clutches. Suddenly remembering something he’d learned, not from his father but from the occasional brawl at the Hog Trough, he drew back his head and brought it forward with as much force as possible.
The top of his forehead connected with the bridge of the beast man’s wide nose. There was a loud snap, and Lucas’s face was spattered with something warm that had the acrid smell of metal.
And as the monster man cried out in pain, Lucas was able to pull his arms free. Then he threw them back and brought his hands together to savagely box his attacker’s ears.
The monster bellowed, releasing Lucas to grab at the sides of his head.
Lucas delivered a snap kick to one of his enemy’s knees.
His attacker crashed to the gym floor, hands still clutching his large, square head. Now at his level, Lucas drew back his arm, bringing the palm of his hand forward in a snap to the monster’s lower jaw.
His attacker’s head was driven backward, and the momentum carried his entire body to the floor, where he lay unconscious.
Lucas stood still for a moment, attempting to regulate his breathing the way he’d been taught and waiting to see if his adversary would get up again. But the beast man just lay there in a broken heap.
Lucas was aware of his body. It seemed he could actually feel the nanites working inside to heal him, to take away his pain.
His thoughts were in a jumble. He wondered where his father was, and whether this was one of the Raptor’s enemies, who had somehow found his way to the manor to exact revenge. He decided he would find something to tie this monstrosity up, and then he would search for his father.
Starting toward one of the equipment closets, where he’d seen an old jump rope, Lucas suddenly found himself falling to the floor, a gigantic hand crushing his ankle.
The monster man was conscious again.
“Kill you,” he growled, crawling atop Lucas.
Lucas tried to squirm away, but the monster grabbed hold, lifting him up off the floor and slamming him down.
This he repeated, again and again.
Each time Lucas hit the floor, the universe in all its glory appeared before his eyes, and he thought it would be the last thing he saw before it all went dark.
But Lucas decided he wasn’t too keen on dying, especially today.
He allowed his body to go deceptively limp, flopping like a broken doll in the monster’s clutches, and waited for his opportunity He hoped it would be soon, because he wasn’t sure how much more punishment his skull could take, repeatedly hitting the gym floor.
The monster had just pulled him close to see if he was still conscious when Lucas made his move.
He jammed a thumb into the monstrosity’s eye, raking it from left to right.
His attacker cried out, releasing Lucas as he groped at his injured face.
Lucas didn’t waste any time, climbing to his feet and quickly positioning himself behind his foe. He wrapped his arm around the beast’s neck and started to pull back. The monster thrashed, attempting to get to his feet, but Lucas exerted every iota of his strength, forcing the monster to remain on his knees, while closing the grip on his throat.
Everything, no matter how big and strong, needed to breathe.
He felt his enemy’s struggle grow weaker and knew that victory was only moments away. Lucas had to last.
The monster man struggled and gasped, but Lucas held on, tightening his grip.
The lights of the gymnasium suddenly came on, startling him, and he saw his father standing a few feet away, watching.
“That’s it, Lucas,” his father said, cheering him on. “Use what I’ve taught you.”
His blood rushed in his ears, the thrumming of his heart like the roar of a powerful engine. The monster’s struggles became pathetic, dwindling to practically nothing, and he knew he had won.
“His fate is in your hands now, boy,” his father said to him. “It’s up to you. Let him live, and the chance that he’ll be back on the streets in no time, putting the lives of innocents at stake, is dropped squarely in your lap. Or you can tighten your grip for just a bit longer and …”
Lucas let the monster go, his large body dropping limply to the hardwood floor.
Breathing heavily, Lucas stared at his father. Hartwell was nodding, accepting his decision.
“The choice is yours,” Hartwell said.
But Lucas could tell by the expression on his father’s face that it wasn’t the choice he would have made.
“What’s going on?”
“You did quite well,” Hartwell praised him. “A little slow at first, but then you started to utilize what you’ve been taught.”
“That thing could have killed me,” Lucas said, pointing to the unconscious behemoth lying on the floor.
“You’re probably right,” Hartwell said. “Something you should always be aware of when going into battle.”
“Who the hell is he?”
“His name is Jackson Meeves. On the street they call him Bestial. He’s a low-level supervillain with more strength than brains. The Raptor captured him the other night as he tried to knock over an all-night convenience store.”
“You caught him and brought him here?” Lucas asked, confused.
Hartwell nodded. “I thought he’d be the perfect final exam.”
“This was a test?” Lucas cried, pointing at the beast man.
“A final test before your real education begins,” Hartwell replied. Lucas noticed that the older man had something slung over his shoulder. He tossed it to the boy.
“What do you mean by my ‘real education’?” Lucas asked, catching what was thrown at him. It was a piece of clothing of some kind, and he held it up by the shoulders.
“It’s time you understood what you’re going to be fighting for,” his father said.
It took a moment for Lucas to realize what he was looking at.
A costume.