Blood Conspiracy (Brooklyn Shadows Book 2)

by Brock Deskins

  Blood Conspiracy

  By

  Brock E. Deskins

  Copyright ©2014 by Brock E. Deskins

  Dingo Dog Publishing

  Cover Illustration Copyright © 2014

  Copyright, Legal Notice and Disclaimer:

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.

  Books by Brock E. Deskins

  The Sorcerer’s Path

  The Sorcerer’s Ascension

  The Sorcerer’s Torment

  The Sorcerer’s Legacy

  The Sorcerer’s Vengeance

  The Sorcerer’s Scourge

  The Sorcerer’s Abyss

  The Sorcerer’s Return

  The Sorcerer’s Destiny

  Brooklyn Shadows

  Shrouds of Darkness

  Blood Conspiracy

  OTHER BOOKS BY BROCK E. DESKINS

  The Portal

  CONTENTS

  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

  EPILOGUE

  A WORD FROM THE AUTHOR

  CHAPTER 1

  I hate jogging. I think it’s the stupidest damn thing ever invented and belongs in the lineup of useless shit the loudmouths hawk on TV. If man were meant to run, he wouldn’t have invented the cab. When I was turned into a vampire the night they recalled prohibition, no one ran unless they were chasing someone or someone was chasing them. Either way, you were pissed off when it was happening.

  Why am I pissed? Other than being my default mood, it’s because I’m running. Why am I running? Because I’ve been dogging this asshole across rooftops and through parks for the last half an hour, a Groundhog Day-type reoccurring event that has taken place four times in the past two weeks with the same guy.

  You might not know me, so let me fill you in. My name is Leo Malone, and I’m a vampire. I’m also a private detective, amongst other less reputable part-time professions, and a warder of my district. What’s a warder? Good question. Call it middle management. I’m in charge of Brooklyn. If a vampire gets out of line in my ward, it’s my job to fire them, and by fire, I mean cut off their fucking head. Their termination notice is written on the edge of my sword. You might be wondering what this guy did. Victim of circumstance.

  Way back, one of the few real friends I ever had tried to create a cure for our condition and it worked. The only problem was that it turned our insides into something resembling Coney Island mustard. Considering it a colossal failure and unable to deal with having to feed on people, he went all Thich Quang Duc and lit himself up like a Boy Scout bonfire. No one had heard a peep about the Cure ever since—until last year.

  Another friend of mine, who I had to fire, managed to steal the Cure from a super-secure bio lab and figured out how to change it from a vampire poison into a vampire fertility drug. Creating vampires is not as easy as the movies make it look. Even when you are trying, there’s something like a ninety percent mortality rate. My buddy Percy managed to alter the Cure and knocked the odds down to something closer to fifty.

  Not only was he able to create a little personal army, but those created using the Cure are total assholes. They tend to be more aggressive and driven to feed more than necessary. We vampires have tight rules governing our feeding habits. Paramount amongst those is discretion. These guys and gals Percy turned were never brought into the enclave and explained the rules, so I have been chasing these dickheads and others like them all over the Brooklyn skyline and beyond for the past year. They get one chance to join the fold and act right. So far, I’ve reined in three and put down eleven. Like I said, they’re assholes.

  Normally, this work would go to the Sheriff’s—the law enforcement branch of the enclave. That became a problem when Percy managed to subvert or replace most of New York’s Sheriffs and made them part of his schemes. Now we have a bunch of temps and loaners who are about as useful as a rowboat in the Sahara Desert. It’s not that they’re incapable, and they are out there bringing some of these guys in, but there’s a political goat-screw still going on, and they’re a big part of it. Percy’s failed coup resulted in what could best be described as UN intervention, and we all know how smoothly those operations go.

  Vincent, our local enclave head, tried to draft me back into the Sheriffs after I ended Percy’s little terrorist movement. Given that he had fired me years ago due to a difference in opinion (he didn’t think I should have filled a member of the German enclave council’s town car with explosives and blown him into a few thousand bite-sized pieces), I told him to go fuck himself. As a warder, I have to deal with violations occurring within my ward, but I am paid to take down anyone outside of my territory as an independent contractor, so I don’t bitch too much—unless they make me chase them.

  My target leaps and vanishes over the side of the building. I hear him hit the roof of another edifice just as I gain the ledge and make the jump after him. It’s a fifty-foot span and a ten-foot drop, but it is an easy hop until the guy rips the top off a roof vent and launches it at me like a Nolan Ryan fastball.

  With no way to avoid the impromptu projectile, I point Shalonda, my .500 magnum revolver aptly named after an irate DMV employee, and squeeze off a round. The sound of the slug striking the roof vent is lost amidst the thunderous discharge, but I know my reactive shot strikes true. I manage to alter the projectile’s course, but not enough to keep it from hitting me in the shoulder and throwing off my trajectory. Thanks a lot, Newton.

  I strike the far roof and go into a tumble. It almost looks planned as I use my heightened reflexes to roll to my feet. I barely get my sword in line to intercept the pipe aimed for my head. The two lengths of steel clash with a resounding clink, and I say a silent word of thanks to the guy who made my blade when it accepts the impact without complaint. I have less appreciation for the boot to my chest. I roll with the impact; there isn’t a whole lot of choice in the matter, and take a hasty shot when I come to a kneeling stop near the edge of the building. I curse at Francis’ back when he bolts, and my round takes off the corner of the roof access instead of his head.

  “Come on, Francis, sack up so we can end this!”

  Francis ignores my challenge, and the pursuit resumes. The fire escape shakes so hard when I land I’m sure it’s going to tear away from the wall. I drop over the side and hit the filth-strewn alley thirty feet below at a run. Francis kicks a dumpster into my path, which I easily high jump.

  For a minute, I think he’s going to run out into the streets. We’re in a decrepit part of the borough with little to no traffic, but all it takes is a bum with a cellphone to shoot a video of two guys racing down the street at thirty miles an hour on foot with yours truly wielding a sword, pistol, and a murderous look to create all kinds of unwanted attention.

  I almost breathe a sigh of relief, ironically of course, when Francis makes a fifteen-foot vertical leap an
d bounds up another fire escape. The steel framework shakes under our pounding footsteps until we reach the top and resume our rooftop chase scene. I snap off a shot at a dead run and curse again when the round catches the flapping tail of his jacket instead of his spine.

  Francis leaps over the side of the building, arms and legs windmilling for balance. I mimic his form and make the long jump after him. Francis strikes the next building hard and rolls. He must have hit the central support beam, because I land right after him and break through the fucking roof of the abandoned loft. There’s a resounding crash of wood and metal, and I feel myself falling once again until I hit the upper-level floor. I crash through and barely manage to stop my plummet with an outstretched arm. My sword flies from my grasp and skitters across the floor. My legs kick at empty air, and my left arm is pinned to my side.

  “Fuck me.” I slap at my blade lying well beyond my reach.

  “Gladly.”

  Francis walks out of the darkness with an enormous grin plastered on his face, casually bends down, and picks up my sword.

  “Well this is just perfect,” I mutter.

  “It certainly is for me.” Francis kneels in front of me and gloats. “Well, well, well, if it isn’t the famous Leo Malone.”

  “I like to think I’m more notorious than famous.”

  “The difference being…?”

  “Chicks. The ladies love a bad boy.”

  Francis stands. “I’ll be sure they get it right on your headstone.”

  “Hey, Francis, what has three strikes and no balls?” I ask as he raises my blade to take off my head.

  “What?” he asks without losing his self-satisfied smirk.

  “You.”

  The 440-grain slug tears through the half-rotted floorboards without slowing. The crotch of Francis’ pants explodes in a spray of cotton and gory bits of his junk. He releases the most horrible, ear-piercing shriek I’ve ever heard come from a human being, and let me tell you, I’ve been witness to some really fucked up shit.

  Francis drops my sword and rolls around on the floor holding his ruined groin and screeching. Still unleashing his hellish caterwaul, he sprints across the large, open room and jumps out the window. Vampires have an amazing healing ability and even possess some limited regeneration, but there has to be something left to grow back. I don’t know how much damage I did, but I’m pretty sure that even if it does grow back, it won’t ever look right.

  I hear multiple footsteps pounding up the stairs, and the powerful beam of a Maglite plays over me just before a woman’s voice shouts, “Freeze, NYPD!”

  Just when my night was starting to look up.

  “I got you now, Malone!” Castillo shouts.

  Anna Castillo is a homicide detective with a real hard-on for yours truly. She’s Captain Ahab to my Moby Dick, pun intended, and a huge pain in my ass. She’s at my back, and the hood of my jacket is pulled over my head, so I know she doesn’t have a positive ID on me. I grab my sword, lift my arm straight above my head, and fall the rest of the way through the floor amidst the sharp cracks of several gunshots.

  It’s a good twenty feet to the ground floor. Normally, I would have been able to take the fall with the agility of a cat. Unfortunately, my trench coat catches a nail or something and spins me off balance enough that I hit with all the grace of a two-hundred-pound bag of shit.

  Despite my less than Olympic-quality landing, I quickly gain my feet and run like a scolded dog out of the building and into the night. Other than blowing a guy’s genitals out through his ass, this night really sucked.

  ***

  (Castillo)

  “Look for the vic,” I order the uniformed officers backing me up. “Angel, follow me before the prick can crawl away!”

  “Aw crap, we just ran up the stairs,” Angel complains as he tries to catch his breath.

  “Move your fat ass, Lopez!”

  “Hey, I have feelings you know!” Angel snaps back as he hastens to keep up with me.

  “You and your feelings need to go on a diet.”

  Angel reaches the ground floor seconds after I do, and we play our flashlights all around the empty, cavernous chamber. Locating nothing other than scattered bits of trash, a filthy mattress, and a burn barrel, Angel shines his light onto the ceiling and through the hole.

  “Where the hell did he go? No way he didn’t break a leg from that height.”

  “Fuck, fuck, fuck!” I rail and stomp around in a circle in what I like to call a micro tantrum and destroy the darkened corners of the room with my flashlight. “Come on; let’s get back upstairs before those uniforms fuck up my crime scene.”

  “You are just making friends all over tonight,” Angel replies as he tramps up the stairs behind me. He’s breathing so hard I think I can feel his breath on the back of my neck despite being several steps below.

  “I don’t need friends. All I need is Malone’s balls hanging from my rear view mirror.”

  “Have you ever thought about just getting a cat?”

  “I have a fucking cat!”

  “Maybe you need two cats.”

  That’s Angel’s nice way of telling me I’m being a bitch. I know I am, and I don’t need anyone else to tell me. Angel is like a brother, real family and not just my partner, and he knows when I get like this I’m railing against that murdering sonofabitch Malone and not him or my fellow officers.

  I pause at the top of the stairs and sigh loudly. “I’m sorry, Angel. It’s just that I was this close to having his ass this time. Anyone find our vic?”

  “No one here, but there’s some blood,” one of the uniforms answers.

  “Keep away from it. I don’t want anyone contaminating the scene. I can still get this sonofabitch if any of it is his. Someone get on the horn and get CSI down here ASAP.”

  I creep toward the hole in the floor, taking great care to avoid touching any of the blood spatters. I train my light around the jagged edge of the void and study the darkened, glistening point of a protruding nail.

  “I got you now, you bastard.” I examine the smaller hole and shine my light along the far wall and ceiling. “I’m thinking this is the shot we heard. See if you can find the bullet, and watch your damn feet.”

  The uniforms begin searching the area for the bullet, carefully avoiding the blood spatters while I hover near the bloodstained nail like a mother eagle watching over her egg. I refuse to move, let anyone else near it, or take my eyes off it for the entire half hour it takes the CSI unit to arrive on scene. Even then, I only back away far enough to let the forensic team capture the sample, which they do only under my close supervision.

  “I’ll transport those to the lab myself,” I insist and take the two different samples in hand. “Let’s go, Angel.”

  We leave the scene for the uniforms to secure and CSI to continue processing. I prefer to drive, so I take the wheel of our unmarked car and race across town to the New York medical examiner’s office.

  “Sergeant, just because we’re cops doesn’t mean we’re allowed to do eighty down the BQE.”

  I curl my lip in a silent snarl of determination and turn on the car’s flashers. “I need you to start an arrest warrant for Malone the instant we get back to the station. I want him in a cell when I get the DNA match back. There is no way I am letting the little prick slip through my fingers this time.”

  “Two things: first, phrasing. Second, on what grounds am I supposed to get this warrant issued?”

  “We saw him!”

  “We saw the back of a hooded head in a black jacket in the dark.”

  “I know it was him, Angel, and so do you. He had a fucking sword! What other lunatic do you know carries a goddam sword?”

  Angel shrugs. “I don’t know; a yakuza ninja?”

  I love Angel, but sometimes he can be a bit thick, and I’m not just talking about his waistline. “I swear to God, I am going to reach across the seat and dick punch you.”

  “You know what? Forget about the cat. You n
eed to get laid. I don’t care if it’s by man-flesh, woman-flesh, or robotic, but you need it bad.” Angel takes several blows to his thigh and forearms as he tries to protect himself from my wrath. “You feel better now, beating on your partner?”

  “A little.”

  “Seriously though, when’s the last time you went out?”

  This is a real touchy subject for me. I used to go out all the time. I used to have a social life. I used to have friends and even an occasional lover. Yeah, working homicide exposed me to some gruesome stuff, and the hours could be brutal, but it wasn’t until my job dropped me into Leonard Malone’s shadow that my world went truly dark. It eclipsed any source of light or joy from my life.

  It began nearly ten years ago. At the time, I thought he was just a thug or maybe a mob hit man. Death and mayhem seemed to orbit him like a celestial body collecting meteors, pulling them into his gravitational field. On the occasion that I could place Malone in the area, often only peripherally, people vanished with barely a trace. Most of them were homeless and had criminal records. Suspected crime scenes appeared to be scrubbed free, my only proof of something happening coming from an occasional witness who saw or heard something. Then last year, he was right in the middle of several gruesome murders, and I tried to get something, anything, I could pin on him, but nothing ever stuck. I could never get anything more than circumstantial evidence, but tonight is going to be different. I can feel it.

  “I don’t know. I haven’t had the time or the patience to put up with that kind of bullshit.”

  “I’m just saying maybe you should take some time to chase a dick other than Malone.”

  “Not gonna happen. I’m going to chase it, cut it off, and feed it to my cat.”

  “At least leave mine alone, I still use it.”

  I quirk an eyebrow and tease Angel to break my pissy mood. “Really? I thought that ended after fifteen years or so of marriage?”