by Peter Hartog
Crain stood, but Besim was unmoved. Deacon stormed from his chair, placing himself in front of her. He brandished his truncheon, his mouth set in a grim line.
My own eyes blazed from the Insight’s fury as I reached for the SMART gun. Leyla snarled something, her hands rimed with frost. The air surrounding her crackled like ice shattering on a frozen pond.
“You asked Detective Holliday why he was here,” Besim declared in a strident voice, back straight and chin held high. “Instead, I shall ask you. Why did you murder Vanessa Mallery?”
And before I could say anything, all hell broke loose.
Chapter 23
As I pulled the gun, Crain sucker-punched me in the jaw.
Stars exploded in my vision. The weapon fell from my nerveless hand while the rest of me met the floor, momentarily stunned. Crain followed that with a sharp kick to my side, below the ribs. And then another, for good measure. I jerked into a fetal position, breathless and wheezing.
“That blonde bitch!” Crain bellowed, eyes blazing with mad realization. “We’ve been set up!”
For a skinny guy in a turtleneck, he packed one helluva punch. A quick inventory of my injuries revealed nothing broken.
“Surprise,” I quipped, relieved I could speak.
At least, that’s what I think I said. It probably sounded like a mumbled groan followed by short gasps for breath, and a sob for good measure. I hurt like hell. My head rang like a church bell, but at least I was still in one piece.
“No wonder she wanted to meet tonight,” Crain said, ignoring me for the moment.
He was lost to a volcanic anger. Behind him, two of Crain’s goons menaced Deacon and Besim.
“How could I have been so blind?” Crain ran a hand across his pale face, quivering with rage. “All their talk of partnership. It was all bullshit!”
I refrained from another of my patented pithy rejoinders, deciding that literally armed was more important right now than figuratively. The gun lay a few feet away. Besides, if the bad guy wanted to monologue, who was I to argue? Those extra seconds of pontification would mean the difference between my life and my death.
“‘Orpheus wants to discuss our options,’” Crain ground on, mimicking Julie’s nasally voice while laughing in derision. “What ‘options?’ We said we’d take care of it, and we did. We paid those goddamn mercenaries a bloody fortune! If they’d done their jobs right, there would have been nothing left for the police to find.”
I stored that nugget away, inching my way over to the SMART gun. I had no idea who or what Orpheus was, but they were climbing up my public enemy number one list faster than you could say “Straight outta Hades.”
“We still don’t know who killed the girl, but—" Crain paused, then smacked his fist into his open palm. “But now we know who took the body from the morgue. That goddamn, fucking bitch!”
Appreciate you clearing that up, Crain.
Presuming he wasn’t lying—and I didn’t think he was at this point—Crain and company weren’t our killers. Now if I could just get up and arrest them. Unfortunately, my body struggled to move, sluggish from the pain and the last vestiges of goldjoy in my system.
Then another thought hit me.
If Crain knew about the body’s theft from the morgue already, whatever intelligence network he possessed was downright scary. Only authorized access to EVI could provide such information about an active case file. The short list included ECPD officer-level, and certain high-ranking enclave officials. And with her functionality at an all-time low due to the explosion…
The enormity of that thought ballooned in my mind, sending a cold sliver down my spine.
“None of that matters now,” he stated. “We still have the other one. She’s not going anywhere.”
Just a few more inches. My trembling fingers reached for the gun.
“DeGrassi and Orpheus can go fuck themselves,” Crain laughed again, more maniacal than before. “We don’t need their support anymore. We don’t need anyone!”
Keep flapping your gums a little bit longer, jerk-wad.
“As for that double-crossing bitch bringing the police to my place?” Crain paused, glancing in my direction, hungry blue eyes focused and full of bloody murder.
That was my cue. I took hold of the weapon, drew it close, and aimed it at Crain’s ridiculous turtleneck.
“Doc, stay down!” Leyla shouted from a million miles away.
Pure instinct forced me to duck, although I moved more like a pregnant yak than a trained police detective. As I did so, the temperature plunged, nearly stealing all the warmth from my body. I almost blacked out from the sudden shock to my system.
A wave of writhing, black shadow engulfed Crain, knocking him off his feet. It buffeted him against the banister. I lurched away from Crain, staring without really looking at Leyla, caught between the strong desire to see her through the Insight and the need to avert my eyes. Despite my better judgment, I caught glimpses of midnight-blue and black ripples of dark energy rolling from her extended right arm through her upraised, open palm and splayed fingers. Leyla’s lips moved, uttering words I couldn’t understand, but whose power I felt with my own senses charged by the Insight. Her young face was tight with concentration as she maintained the stream of undulating darkness and cold.
I sucked in a breath. Leyla’s eyes were pure white, the sclera devouring both iris and pupil.
Something enormous with wings stretched above and around her, enfolding her within its dark embrace. It was vast, its mere presence a crushing weight against my psyche. My eyes were forced toward the shadowy expanse. As I focused on whatever this thing was, more of its outline became apparent to me. Because of the Insight, I knew I was the only one who could see it. My thumbs pricked, while the hair on the back of my neck stood. My skin buzzed with both excitement and dread. I licked my dry lips in uneasy anticipation. Heart racing out of control, my blood pounded like kettle drums in my ears with each passing beat.
I was about to look on it fully, when that voice echoed in my mind again, breaking the spell.
Away! Look away! Now is not the time!
I crushed my eyes shut, blindly obeying the voice. My beleaguered brain needed time to process what was happening, but things moved around me too quickly. Again, instinct made me act. I centered myself, forcing the images I witnessed into a compartment deep inside my mind, to review another time.
“You are idle, shallow things,” I whispered, offering the Bard’s quote up like a prayer. “I am not of your element.”
Somehow, that worked.
I opened my eyes and willed my heart rate to steady itself. Strangely emboldened, I gave the SMART gun a mirthless smile.
Deacon had engaged the two long-haired goons, his truncheon an extension of his arm. He battered one to the floor, but the other closed in quickly, hoping to take advantage of Deacon’s inattention, and swung at the back of his head. Quick as thought, Deacon spun on the balls of his feet like a dancer, sidestepping and evading the attack while smashing the second man in the back, shoving him roughly away.
As soon as he was clear, Deacon yanked Besim from her chair and placed her behind him. However, the two men recovered quickly, much to Deacon’s surprise. They exchanged a glance, then rushed him together. They tried to tackle him, but Deacon lashed out low at one, cracking the truncheon against his leg, then pivoting to bring its tip into the stomach of the other.
“Leyla, behind you!” Besim warned, but she was too late.
Marko grabbed Leyla by both shoulders and threw her two tables down the row, as if she were a rag doll. She crashed into another table, sending glass, people, and drinks flying. Leyla didn’t move, but the other partygoers screamed and rushed toward the stairs, fleeing the scene. As soon as Leyla struck the table, the silhouette of darkness surrounding her along with the bitter cold vanished. The oppressive weight dissipated as if it had never been.
“You son of a bitch!” I snarled, aiming at Marko.
&nbs
p; Before I could pull the trigger, the gun was kicked from my hand by Crain, no longer immobilized by Leyla’s power. It landed near the railing behind me. I made a mental note to apply some adhesive or Protoglue or something on my hand to prevent that from happening in the future, presuming I lived through this. Losing my gun during a fight was getting damn inconvenient.
I stole a glance toward Leyla. Seeing her crumpled beneath the table filled me with rage, but before I could act, Crain channeled his own fury to give me a good ole-fashioned ass-kicking. He’d recovered quickly from whatever hex Leyla had hurled at him. Shards of ice crystals crackled over his clothing. His pale skin was tinged blue. Despite the caked frost on his arms, he drove a fist into my stomach with such staggering impact, I doubled over. Crain followed that with a knee to my face, then an uppercut to the jaw. Blood gushed from my mouth as I crashed against one of the chairs and onto the floor.
I gasped for air, the wind knocked out of me again. The Insight seethed around my eyes, intent on revealing to me something about Crain and his motley crew of rejects. My face throbbed as blood flowed freely from multiple cuts. I wiped some away with a shaky sleeve, unable to focus on the Insight.
Damn, I hurt like hell.
“You’re…under…arrest,” I managed from the floor, trying to get back up.
“Contrary to what you may think, we don’t possess the girl’s blood.” He was composed, the raw fury replaced by an icy malice. “But we’ll discover who does soon enough, after we’re finished with you.”
I didn’t doubt him. Crain’s apparent infiltration of EVI and ECPD’s information highway would see to that. Between the surveillance tech, the stolen corpse, the hired cleaners, presumed genetic tampering of Vanessa’s blood, and now, unauthorized access to EVI, that reeked of Big Money.
However, something didn’t fit. David Crain acted the part. Hell, he even looked the part, right down to the holo-B-movie repertoire. It was like something straight out of an old crime serial. But the clues we’d uncovered spoke of a diabolical subtlety and methodical cunning that Crain lacked. No, Crain had to be a middle man, and the nightclub was a staging area for something else. But what? Yet, Crain’s over-the-top reaction following Besim’s question was the kind you saw when the cat’s out of the bag, and he had nothing to lose. Threatening me was one thing but having the stones to assault a police officer in public was something else.
Crain either didn’t fear the police, or he didn’t care.
“The Master needs to know,” Crain muttered almost to himself. “We have to tell him. He needs to know!”
I crawled toward the gun, but my movements were too slow. Crain grabbed me by the lapels and lifted me off the floor. He jerked me toward him until I was up close and personal. As my head snapped forward, the petty kid in me hoped some of my blood spattered all over his stupid turtleneck.
The sight of my blood excited Crain. His eyes bored into mine as he licked his pale lips, nostrils flaring.
“You should never have come here,” he hissed with cold hatred.
Crain’s fetid graveyard breath filled my nostrils.
“And you should brush more often,” I replied with a sickly grin, hoping to stall him with my witty repartee.
“Is that right?” he smiled. I noticed he had perfectly even white teeth. Or at least I thought so at first, but now it looked like two of them had grown longer.
What the fuck? C’mon, Tommy boy, get your shit together!
“Soon this will all be over.” His blue eyes glittered with hungry anticipation. “I will make certain your body will never be found. And then we’ll take care of that conniving bitch and her employer.”
My innards went cold. Despite Crain’s pulpy dialogue, I believed him.
“You have…the right,” I continued through clenched teeth, blood streaming over my lips, “to remain…silent.”
“How charming,” Crain sneered, holding me easily, his strength belied by his slim size.
He laughed disdainfully as he battered me against the banister a few times. I toppled to the floor.
“Anything…you say,” I mumbled, head bowed, eyes unfocused, “may be used…against you…in a court…of law.”
The SMART gun lay next to me, and I reached for it with a shaking hand.
I became dimly aware of Deacon slugging it out with Crain’s men. Besim rushed to Leyla’s side, where Marko was hovering over her like an angel of death. My heart wrenched in fear, but a sudden blast of cold and darkness smashed into the curly-haired freak, knocking him away from her. Leyla shrieked something incomprehensible. My skin crawled again from the otherworldly sound.
Marko staggered forward, holding one arm in front of his face to shield himself. Leyla raised her voice, the sound setting my teeth on edge. She redoubled her efforts, but Marko slid to the side and away from the girls. Once outside the radius of Leyla’s power, Marko bolted for the stairs.
Adrenaline surged through me, generated by my fear for my adoptive little sister. I struggled to my feet. Crain stalked toward me, slow and seductive, as if everything around him was reduced to a crawl and he had all the time in the world to murder me. His features blurred and shifted as he moved, stretching over his flesh. The bones of his stark face grew sharper and more pronounced. Something moved beneath the surface of his skin.
I concentrated, and the Insight roared in my ears while my eyes filled with silver fire. A calm detachment filled me, as if my entire body had been dipped in a vat of anesthetic. The air shimmered around Crain, and I saw the veil masking him. The Insight tore it away to reveal a vile, ravenous creature fashioned from things foul and unclean. A sickly aura of gold and verdigris hung on the creature like a mantle of despair, smelling of corruption and desiccated flesh. It still owned Crain’s blue eyes, though, although no humanity remained. What I saw instead was an overwhelming need to feed on the living.
It leered at me. Two long fangs sprouted from its mouth.
My brain reeled at the sight.
“You are one ugly sonofabitch,” I whispered in awe and fear. “What the hell are you?”
“The next phase in human evolution,” the Crain-thing purred, its sibilant voice intermingled with that of its host. “Thanks to Vanessa Mallery, and the poor fools before her. Their sacrifice has changed the world.”
With one hand on the railing to steady me, I brought the SMART gun to bear. But I was woefully slow, my arm moving through mud. The creature stepped with preternatural speed, slapping my arm away like an afterthought. It held me with an unnatural strength, and try as I might, I couldn’t escape.
“And now little man, I shall drink from you, and end your pathetic life, so it may sustain my own.”
It lowered its head slowly, almost lovingly, to sink its fangs into my exposed neck.
“Then I hope you like coffee, Crain,” I blustered in a trembling voice, pushing against its hold on me with every fiber of my being. “’Cause it ain’t decaf running through these veins.”
I knew I wouldn’t be able to stop it from tearing out my throat, but I struggled anyway, refusing to give in to the inevitable.
“Oratio ad Sanctum Michael Sancte Michael Archangele!”
And then Deacon was there, the former Protector’s truncheon aflame with a pure white fire. Brandishing the weapon before him, Deacon’s face was aglow with holy zeal.
“Defende nos in proelio, contra nequitiam et insidias diaboli esto praesidium!”
He lay into Crain, and the creature’s grip on me vanished. I slipped to the side as Deacon slammed Crain against the railing with his shoulder. The former Protector was limned in holy glory, his face triumphant and true. I shaded my eyes from the brilliance surrounding him, but watched the fight, captivated all the same. Where Deacon struck Crain, the truncheon’s purifying fire charred both the man and the creature wearing his skin. They both shrieked in dark agony. The creature was no match against the truncheon, its body now wreathed in white flame. It clawed at the air, its flesh and bone eaten
away by the fire, and fell to its knees. With a mighty heave, Deacon lifted Crain and threw him over the banister.
Crain’s body made a sickening impact as it struck the floor below. The crowd erupted in shrieks and screams. The music screeched to a halt. The main lights flashed on, momentarily blinding me. A sea of Halloween costumes rushed toward the exit as if expelled by a giant vacuum cleaner that had gone from suck to blow.
“I’d say they waived their fuckin’ rights, wouldn’t you, Holliday?”
Deacon strode up, clapping me on the shoulder as a triumphant grin spread across his face. Behind him lay Crain’s two other goons, both consumed by white flame.
It hurt to laugh, but I did it anyway.
The Insight departed the moment Deacon threw the creature overboard, but it didn’t leave behind the wasted lethargy I normally felt.
So too was the glorious light encompassing Deacon.
I felt invigorated despite the pounding I’d taken. The golden muck inside my head was gone. This was something new, a facet to the Insight I hadn’t experienced before. I felt protected, insulated, and surrounded by an invisible suit of armor I somehow knew, without knowing how or why, the Crain-thing could never have penetrated.
“The girls—" I began.
“We are unharmed,” Besim announced from several tables down the row.
The consultant held Leyla around the shoulder in a protective embrace.
She exchanged a knowing look with Deacon, who nodded, and headed toward the stairs. I hesitated, staring at the wreckage that were once creatures like Crain, then followed Deacon down. Moments later, in the glare of the main lights, we stood over what was left of David Crain.
“Don’t fuck with a Protector of the Tribulation, asshole,” Deacon pronounced, his voice full of satisfaction and disdain.
“Former Protector,” I corrected, breathing heavily.
Ignoring me, he spat on Crain’s corpse.
“Still don’t believe in vampires, Holliday?” he asked, then walked away to leave me with my troubled thoughts.
