Missing: A Mason Gray Case

by William Markham

Eli stood halfway between Frank and the east wall, facing away from me, hands clasped behind his back. His blond, spiky hair was unmistakable. He turned at the sound of my voice, and a depraved smile tugged at the corners of his mouth.

  I blinked, and suddenly he was standing directly behind Frank. I froze. I hadn’t even seen him move. Holy shit.

  He grabbed Frank by the hair and tilted his head up.

  “See,” he said, “I told you he would come. Friendship above all ties does bind the heart.”

  “Go to hell,” Frank croaked. He sounded awful. Now that my eyes had adjusted, I saw the bruises on his face, his bloodied nose.

  Eli laughed, and I started forward again. I’d gone five steps when the laughter stopped abruptly, and he glared at me. “That’s far enough Mr. Gray.”

  A voice crackled in my ear, “The exits are sealed.” A minion reporting over the comm.

  I glanced over my shoulder and saw a silhouette in the archway behind me. When I looked back to Eli, there was another man standing beside him. I use the term “man” loosely—he looked more like a punk teenager—but I recognized him too. It was the maniac who had attacked me, the one I’d emptied an entire clip into. This just kept getting better.

  The skeptical part of my brain let out a death rattle as the credulous part jumped up and down screaming, See! See! Vampires are real! It must have been written all over my face.

  “I see you remember Ryley,” Eli commented. “My associate has found himself in a bit of a pickle. You see, I am not fond of failure, and it is his failure that has brought us to this unfortunate crossroad. However, he devised this scheme to draw you out in an attempt to redeem himself. Full redemption, of course, can only be earned once he completes his original assignment.” He turned to Ryley and gestured at me. “If you will.”

  Ryley smiled evilly and answered, “Of course.”

  It was all the warning I got. I’d tangled with this punk already, and I knew how fast he was. His speed paled in comparison to Eli’s, as I’d just witnessed, but he was far faster than any normal human. Of course, he had a much greater distance to travel than my arm did.

  I swung the .45 up as he came across the floor. I’d never have time to track him, so I aimed for the point where he and the bullet would meet, about three feet in front of me. As soon as my arm completed its arc, I pulled the trigger. The explosion echoed off the domed ceiling in a deafening roar, and I stepped to the side.

  The vampire’s momentum carried him right through the space I had previously occupied. He crumpled to the floor and slid across the tile. My aim had been true, and the bullet had buried itself in his brain. He didn’t even twitch. I guess the silver worked.

  I turned back to Eli, who appeared confused, and leveled the gun at him.

  “Silver,” I said, “Who knew?”

  Eli recovered quickly and spouted another quote. “For he, indeed, who looks into the face of a friend beholds, as it were, a copy of himself.” Quick as a thought, he grabbed Frank’s head in both hands and twisted, vertebrae popping, severing his spinal cord.

  A bestial roar erupted from my chest. “No!” I screamed as I fired again and again. But Eli was much faster than Ryley, and I missed every shot. By the time I had emptied the clip, hot tears of hatred and anguish were streaming down my face.

  Eli appeared at Frank’s side and looked at me with irritation. “Your turn,” he spat.

  I released the spent clip and slammed the spare in.

  The comm crackled again, and I heard, “Take him.”

  I had just enough presence of mind to drop to the floor as the muffled cracks of silenced gunfire broke out behind me. I scrambled backward, hoping to put my back to the stage and frustrate the minions in the doorways with an impossible angle to hit me. Amazingly, I made it. Glass shattered above me. I looked up to see movement in the balcony above. More minions. I threw my hands over my head—I don’t know why; they wouldn’t stop bullets. It was pure instinct. A couple of rounds thunkd into the tile around me. More glass broke. What a crappy way to go out. Oh well, at least I’d taken one of them with me.

  The comm crackled again, and there was some confused shouting, but I was so scared I couldn’t make sense of it. A second or two passed, and I wasn’t dead. Weird. In fact, I hadn’t heard any more gunshots. I lowered my hands and saw Eli in the same spot, glaring at me. His eyes were burning: seriously, they were glowing red. That couldn’t be good.

  I glanced at the balcony, but didn’t see anything. Maybe they had repositioned? I didn’t have time to dwell on it, though, because Eli’s voice cut through my surprise. “Fine, I’ll do it myself.”

  He blurred, closing the distance between us in half a heartbeat, and reached for me with those well-manicured hands. The next thing I knew, I was flying through the air. I hit the floor hard and slid into something. Frank. He was still strapped to the chair, his body hanging limp like a rag doll. Seeing him like that, the man who had saved me from myself, the man who I had been unable to save from this savage, tore at my very soul. Anger welled up deep inside me, and I felt something break. I don’t know what; my sanity, maybe.

  Rivers of red sprang into existence around me: not blood, but the pulsing energy I’d seen in my dreams. I placed my hands into the stream swirling beside me and felt my anger double. I pushed myself off the floor and turned to face Eli, who was rushing me again.

  My eyes told me he was still moving with the same speed, but my brain said, So what? You know where he’ll be. With that thought, he seemed to slow to almost normal. When he lunged for me again, I lashed out, throwing all my weight into a right hook. My fist met his nose with a meaty crunch, and his head snapped back. He didn’t fall, but spun around and stopped, blood pouring from his nose. His eyes went wide, and his mouth opened as if to say something, but I didn’t let him. I followed up with a left cross that staggered him. A tooth skittered across the floor.

  He jumped out of reach, narrowed his eyes, and squared off.

  Somewhere in the far reaches of my brain, common sense was trying to tell me that going head to head with this monster was a bad idea, that there were still goons with automatic weapons somewhere on the periphery, that none of what was happening made any sense. It didn’t matter. The pissed-off monster inside me was in control, and when did he ever listen to common sense?

  Eli rushed me yet again, hissing between pointy teeth. He reached for me, and I batted his hand away, but he spun with the redirection and threw an elbow at my face. I barely got my hand up in time to block it, but it still knocked me off balance. He took the opportunity to land a solid kick on my outer thigh. The power behind that kick was immense. It should have snapped my femur in half, but it didn’t, though it hurt like hell.

  He tackled me then, and we both hit the floor, grappling for the upper hand. He bared his teeth and lunged for my throat. I threw an arm up, and he latched onto it instead, biting down hard. I screamed and punched him in the side of the head with my free hand.

  I couldn’t keep this up. Even with the boost of strength I’d somehow managed, he was still winning. I needed my gun if I was going to put him down for good, but it was still lying over by the stage, where I’d dropped it when he’d flung me across the room.

  Another punch to the head, and his teeth ripped free of my flesh. I gouged him in the eye and pushed him off to the side, then scrambled to my feet. He did the same. We were back to square one, except now blood was streaming from my arm, and it looked like his broken nose was healing already.

  Fight smart and fight dirty, I told myself. Don’t play by his rules.

  We circled each other. I tried to position myself in line with the gun, but with him in between. Once I was where I needed to be, I presented an opening. A trained fighter would have recognized it for what it was and ignored it or feigned an attack to make an actual opening.

  Eli wasn’t a trained fighter. He took the bait and lunged.

  Rather than bat him aside like I’d done before, I stepped into th
e attack, grabbed his arm, and executed a flawless jiu-jitsu hip throw. Once he was on the ground, I put him in a shoulder arm-lock, pinning his head to the floor with my knee. Then came the dirty part. I used the leverage to yank his arm straight up, popping his shoulder out of socket. He yelped in pain. Good. I hopped to my feet and kicked him in the back of the head as hard as I could, for good measure, then sprinted for the gun.

  I almost made it.

  I was only a few feet away when Eli hit me from behind. His high tackle knocked me down and put him in an excellent position to mount an offensive. I twisted around so I could get my arms up to defend myself, but he had my hips pinned. No matter how hard I struggled, I couldn’t get free. He rained down blows hard and fast, one after another. I felt like Scott Farkus from A Christmas Story as Ralphie beat the snot out of him.

  I fended off the worst of the blows, but my strength was waning; I had lost a lot of blood from the gash on my arm and I was fading fast. I kept my good arm up and flailed with my wounded arm trying to reach the gun, but it was a few inches beyond my fingertips. I guess it was meat paste time for me. Well, I’d made a good show of things at least.

  A shadow fell across me, looming over us. Eli didn’t notice, so I assumed it was Death here to take me away. He looked strange, dressed in black fatigues and ski mask, sporting a rifle with a giant scope instead of a scythe. A heavy blow landed, and I felt my jaw break.

  Death moved his foot, like he was kicking something.

  Cold iron touched my fingers. My pistol? Yes.

  I closed my hand around the grip and, with the last of my strength, pointed it at Eli and pulled the trigger.

  The silver slug ripped through his face and out the back of his skull, sending a spray of blood, bone fragments, and gray matter into the air. He slumped forward on top of me.

  I looked up, but Death wasn’t there, so I stared at the ceiling until everything went black.

  28

  When I woke up, I was in the hospital. Again. I tried to open my eyes, but couldn’t; they were swollen shut. Not surprising, considering the beating I’d taken. At least I was alive—that was good.

  Then I remembered Frank. He was dead, and it was my fault. I hadn’t been fast enough or smart enough to save him. I was the one who had gotten involved in this nightmare, not him. I didn’t deserve to be alive. My thoughts spiraled into a dark whirlpool of depression. I lay there with them for a while before drifting back into oblivion.

  ***

  I played with the pretty blue lights for a time. They made me happy, helped me forget the darkness for a while. The red ones were there too, but I wanted no part of them.

  ***

  The next time I woke up, I could see. Sunlight beamed through the window beside the hospital bed. I wanted it to go away. I wanted it to be dark again. I lay there for a while, watching the dust motes dance in the beams of light.

  Finally, I heard rustling on my other side, so I turned to the nurse who was changing my IV bag. She was pretty. She glanced at me and gave a little start, like she was surprised to find me watching her.

  “Oh! You’re awake!”

  “Nope. I’m sleeping with my eyes open,” was what I tried to say. Except my jaw wouldn’t move; all that I got out was, “Nmph.”

  Oh right. Broken jaw. Probably wired shut. Funny, it didn’t hurt that much.

  The pretty nurse rushed off to get a doctor. What followed was a long line of specialists parading through my room to marvel at my recovery. Apparently, it was a miracle that I’d survived at all, given the injuries I had sustained, but even more miraculous was how fast I was healing. I’d been out for two days, but most of the doctors hadn’t been sure I’d ever wake up. I’d suffered a pretty bad concussion—I guess getting your head pounded repeatedly by a hacked-off vampire will do that to a guy.

  New X-rays showed that my jaw was mending extraordinarily fast, so fast they worried I might heal over the wire, so they took it out. The swelling had all but disappeared, and the gash on my arm was already scabbing over.

  The doctors were full of questions about my diet and what supplements I was taking. All I said was, “I drink a lot of gin.” I didn’t have a good answer for them, anyway. Not one they would believe. “Yeah, I play with these strange blue lights when I’m dreaming, and presto, I heal faster.” That would probably get me committed.

  Even though I was healing quickly, the doctors wanted to keep me for observation for a couple of days.

  Once I could talk, Detective Rowe came by with a bunch of questions. Mac had turned over all the data from Brenda’s computer, and the forensic guys had found all kinds of evidence of real estate fraud. It wasn’t my area of expertise, so I glazed over at all the details.

  This time I told him everything. Well, not everything, but about the McCarthy case and the human trafficking ring and how that had led me to Brenda and the warehouse and finding Ellie. I told him about the phone call and Frank’s kidnapping and my desperate attempt to save him. I might have broken down a bit when I got to that part.

  Rowe told me that nothing had been found at the warehouse, but Ellie had woken up and reported that she had, in fact, been kidnapped, though she had no idea where she was held. Due to the sedation, she couldn’t remember anything about her captivity. He still seemed a little miffed about being kept in the dark for so long, but Alderman Juarez had come to my defense, telling him that he had requested complete confidentiality while I was working the case. Rowe didn’t say much about the fiasco at the pier, but I could tell he was somewhat sympathetic concerning Frank. After everything came out, the pieces fit together so nicely that no charges were filed against me. I guess it was good having friends in high places.

  Not that I really cared. I was still in a pretty bad headspace.

  Mac came by as well. He didn’t ask as many questions, but he talked nonstop for an hour. The incident at the pier had made the papers, he said. The cab driver had indeed found my note and called 911. By the time the responders arrived, no one was moving inside. They had found eight bodies, including mine. Six of them had been shot. That was strange: I could account for two of them, Ryley and Eli, but who had killed the other four? Had they shot each other by mistake?

  When I told Mac my phone had been smashed to smithereens, he went right out and bought me a brand new one, despite my protests. He said it was my “I’m glad you’re not dead” present. At least that made one of us.

  He showed me all the new features, downloaded some of his favorite apps, and even put a couple of personalized ringtones on it for me. He thought the Law and Order “thunk thunk” was particularly clever; he said it was ironic that it had taken someone who had been kicked off the force to actually bring some law and order back to this town. Is that what I had done? I wasn’t so sure.

  “Oh, yeah, in case you were wondering,” he said, “I found the source of the spyware that infected your computer. It came from that real estate place. I figured since it was in the vicinity of the IP address, I'd take a look.”

  “Brenda's computer?” I asked.

  “No, a different terminal.”

  That made sense. The owners of the warehouse were clearly in league with the kidnappers, if not one and the same. Deleting the files from my computer would have kept anyone investigating my murder from looking into Ellie’s disappearance and dragging them out from the shadows. Guess that hadn’t worked out for them.

  I wondered how Brenda was doing and thought about calling her, but I fell asleep before I got around to it.

  ***

  Later that night there was a soft knock on the door. My breath caught. I could tell exactly who was here. The almost non-existent shooshing sound a coat makes when rubbing against a super-soft sweater and the faint whiff of fabric softener and jasmine that wafted into the room gave her away. I wasn’t ready for this. Not yet. I closed my eyes and pretended to be asleep.

  She sat down next to me and placed her hand ever so gently on my arm.

  “I know
you’re awake, Gray,” she said quietly.

  I opened my eyes and looked at her graying hair, at the small wrinkles around her eyes that spoke of a lifetime of joy. It was too much. Tears leaked from my eyes and rolled down my cheeks.

  “I’m sorry, Nancy. I’m so sorry.”

  She patted my arm tenderly. “It wasn’t your fault.”

  “I failed him. When he needed me most, I failed.” I choked back a sob.

  “No,” she said. “When he needed you most, you were there. You showed up. You fought for him.” Now she was crying too. “Good Lord, look at you. Look at how hard you fought. That’s more than anyone could hope for.”

  “It wasn’t enough.”

  “What would have happened if you hadn’t shown up?”

  “They would have killed him and then come after you and the kids,” I whispered.

  “But you stopped them. We’re safe because of you.” She took a deep, shuddering breath. “This is a terrible loss, and our lives will never be the same, but you didn’t fail us.”

  I sighed. “What will you do?”

  “We’ll give him a proper funeral soon. Beyond that, I don’t know.”

  We sat in silence for a few minutes.

  “Don’t let them win,” she whispered.

  “What do you mean?”

  “They wanted to destroy you, didn’t they?” I nodded. “Don’t let them. We’re going to need you, the girls and I. I know where you’ve been Gray, that place of despair. We pulled you out of it once. I don’t know if I can do it again.”

  She was partly right. She didn’t need me. Nancy was the strongest woman I knew. But looking into her eyes, I saw not a shred of blame, only love and compassion. We were family, that much I knew. And family didn’t give up on each other.

  “Okay,” I said, and drifted into a peaceful, dreamless sleep.

  29

  I was out of the hospital by the end of the week, full of piss and vinegar. Frank’s funeral was on Saturday, and I’d told the doctors in no uncertain terms that they’d have to kill me to keep me from going. Begrudgingly, they’d discharged me, still not knowing what to make of my recovery.