Hunting Mink

by Niall Teasdale

  ‘We’ve moved all the kids out onto the roof,’ Cygnus said over the radio. ‘We’re moving them across now.’

  ‘I mean,’ Twilight went on, ‘kidnapping schoolchildren? What’s with that?’

  Tolnikov smiled and shifted the MP5 he was holding: he was getting ready to end things. ‘A misdirection. The police have fallen for it too. They are preparing to assault the last of my competition. And you will not live to inform them of their mistake.’

  ‘Really? Okay, well, two things before you start shooting. First, the cops already know about your “misdirection,” so there won’t be an assault. Second, your data on me? You need to update it. I don’t work alone.’

  ‘Cygnus cannot save–’

  ‘Not Cygnus.’

  There was a sound from the back of the room, something like a low growl, but it seemed to come from something huge. Men said things in Russian which Twilight imagined was probably ‘What was that?’ or something similar.

  ‘Shouldn’t have taken those kids, Yanesh,’ Twilight said, and then she dropped behind the crate beside her.

  ‘Fire!’ Tolnikov ordered, but what he got in reply was a lot of screaming. He let off one volley of shots which thudded into Twilight’s cover, and then he made the mistake of turning around.

  There were four of them: big, maybe eight or nine feet at the shoulder, each one a little different, but all of them looking like misshapen, demonic, ape-things with heads out of a Lovecraftian monster movie. Bulging, overlong arms ended in ten-inch talons, and they had mouths filled with far too many teeth. And while they were visible, and terrifying just to look at, they somehow seemed to be unreal, not quite solid, as though they had been constructed out of shifting shadows.

  Gangsters collapsed at the sight of them, falling to the concrete and gibbering like mad men. Others fired their guns only to see the bullets pass through with little effect. Those who fired were hit with the talons, an experience not unlike having all your energy pulled out of you in an instant.

  Bulbs exploded as the dark-loving monsters sought to eliminate what light there was in the room. The spotlight moved as its operator swung it toward the back of the room and Twilight risked poking her head out to throw a stream of shadow darts at the man on the scaffolding. There was a roar of pain as the searchlight’s beam hit one of the demons for an instant and then swung up to point at the ceiling. And Twilight dropped back behind the crate and waited for it to be over. She was their mistress, the Avatar of Shadow and the leader of the Shadow Court, but even she did not want to look at four shadow demons at work.

  Silence fell, aside from a few groans coming from the back of the room, but Twilight remained where she was for a little while longer. Cygnus’s voice stirred her. ‘We’ve evacuated all the kids. Are you okay?’

  ‘Situation’s under control,’ Twilight said. ‘Stay out there until I tell you it’s clear.’ Then she got to her feet and, slowly, turned around.

  The demons had done as they had been told. How many of Tolnikov’s men had survived Twilight was not sure, but they had all been incapacitated, and then the demons had gone back to wherever it was they came from. Twilight was still not clear on what spawned the monsters now that the Darkness was gone. Andrea had considered the fact that the Darkness was not exactly gone, but seemed to live in the back of their combined minds, and had decided that she really did not want to know where they came from.

  Slipping her sword from its scabbard on her back, Twilight walked over to Tolnikov. He was still breathing. His eyes were open and he seemed to be conscious, but while there was not a mark on him, he looked like he was struggling to keep from going under.

  ‘What were… those things? What are you?’

  Twilight gave him a bleak smile. ‘That’s easy. I’m your worst nightmare. And those things? They were my worst nightmare. Don’t worry. I’m sure that if you tell the Feds everything you know, they’ll let you sleep in a cell with the light on.’

  ~~~

  ‘And so the Red Weekend comes to an end.’ The speaker was one of ACPN’s main anchors, and she seemed to be reporting the facts. With the arrest of Lennie Belissa and his crew, the city had gone quiet, almost unnaturally so. ‘It appears that organised crime in New Millennium City has been almost entirely wiped out, largely thanks to the actions of those very criminals.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Penny said to the screen, ‘but at what cost?’

  ‘The cost?’ the announcer said, almost as though she had heard the question. ‘One hundred and seventeen people dead, another two hundred injured, nineteen of those on the critical list awaiting surgery or Ultrahuman aid. Nineteen buildings destroyed, twenty-two damaged, and the clean-up of wrecks on the streets continues. And we have twelve traumatised nine- and ten-year-olds, rescued this afternoon by the combined efforts of Cygnus, Twilight, Svetilo, and new heroine Skadi. This will be a weekend New Millennium residents remember for a long time.’

  ‘Good,’ Penny said, and clicked the mute button. ‘I am so glad I don’t have a job to go back to tomorrow.’

  ‘But what happens next?’ June asked. ‘Like she said, there are basically no organised gangs left in the city, but that can’t last, right? And now we won’t know who anyone is.’

  Penny grinned at her. ‘I like the way you include yourself there.’

  ‘It was more of a’ – June waved a hand as though trying to pull meaning from the air – ‘societal “we.” No one’s going to know who the new players are until they show their hand.’

  ‘Please don’t make card analogies. We had enough of that when Diamond was here.’

  ‘But you’re right, June,’ Andrea said. ‘We get a rest, probably, while someone works out how to handle this, and then we’re going to get groups moving in from outside the city. And we won’t know who until they do.’

  June looked across to where Andrea was sitting on the sofa, dressed in a robe, with her knees pulled up to her chin. ‘You… weren’t entirely comfortable about letting your demons loose on Tolnikov, were you?’

  ‘Those things scare me. Seven dead, one critical, the rest of them severely exhausted and a whole lot more traumatised than the kids they grabbed, no matter what they say on TV. The little ones aren’t so bad, but the big ones…’ Andrea gave a shudder. ‘As long as I’m ready for them I can usually shake off the effects, but I don’t like looking at them.’

  ‘I remember what it felt like being hit by one,’ Penny said. ‘Not nice. They just kind of… suck the life out of you. I mean, Cygnus is like that rabbit from the battery commercials and one of them dropped her like a brick. A really tired brick.’

  ‘Just be happy it was invisible.’

  ‘Do you think Diamond would come back?’ June asked. ‘There’s a power vacuum…’

  ‘I think she wanted a ready-made organisation she could just assume control of. Wherever she is, I doubt she wants to come back and put effort into building a crime syndicate from scratch.’

  New Orleans, LA.

  ‘Have you seen the reports coming out of New Millennium City?’

  Diamond made a final swipe at one of her long, carefully manicured nails and then looked up to favour Rex with a smile. ‘I’ve seen them. Looks like some of the boys up there have really had themselves a fun ol’ time.’

  ‘And left a big hole where the Tonaldo family used to be.’

  Her big lieutenant’s meaning was fairly clear, but Diamond was not biting. ‘And we’re up to strength, a full suit of Knaves and enough chips to do as we wish, but we’re not going back to that city, hun. Not any time soon.’

  ‘Why not? Cygnus and Twilight won’t expect–’

  ‘First, we’d need to build from the ground up and I can think of better things to do with our money than that. And second, I think Twilight’s got herself some hole cards that’ll trump just about anything.’ When Rex frowned, Diamond smiled again and went on. ‘Did you see the coverage of the men being carried out of that warehouse they found those children in?’

/>   ‘Yeah, I saw it.’

  ‘Did you hear the guy on the stretcher screaming about demons attacking them?’

  ‘I… oh.’

  ‘And it was Twilight that went into that warehouse, hun. I think she killed Durant and took his monsters from him. And I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be anywhere where someone is going to use those things against us.’

  Rex was a big, strong man. He feared little, especially when he had Diamond beside him with her careful plans and vicious nature, but he nodded. ‘So, what’s next?’

  ‘We head west. I want to be as far away from New Millennium City as possible. There’s no Plain Jane pestering them in L.A. now. I think we should make sure they don’t forget the fairer sex can be just as dangerous as the men, don’t you?’

  New Millennium City, MD, 28th July.

  ‘You were busy this weekend,’ Roger said as Andrea walked through from the back of the shop. ‘You sure you don’t need a day off? I wouldn’t complain. I doubt there’s going to be much happening today.’

  Andrea flashed her boss a smile. ‘That means I get the chance to work through that huge pile of new purchases you brought in without getting disturbed. Believe me, mundanity is something I crave after a weekend like that.’

  ‘I locked myself in my apartment and watched ACPN the whole time,’ Zoe stated flatly. ‘I considered ringing and asking whether I was needed, because I didn’t want to go outside. But the O was running and they were saying it was all done with, so…’

  ‘It is,’ Andrea told her. ‘All done with, that is. We basically have no organised crime in New Millennium City. Still plenty of disorganised crime, of course. And the local addicts are going to be going nuts for a couple of weeks. That might cause some problems.’

  ‘They’ll just go to DC, or Baltimore.’

  ‘That’ll cost them. That means they’ll be working harder for their cash. That means more burglary, so make sure you lock your doors. And keep your eyes open on the streets if you go out at night. Muggings will be up.’

  ‘That’s a nice thought,’ Roger said, ‘but it won’t be for long. Someone will move in to take over things here soon enough. Wherever there is a demand, someone will be there to handle the supply.’

  San Francisco, CA.

  Kam Chao’s anger gave way to nervousness as he passed through the doors of Zhu Lei’s apartment. Kam was what the Nine Kings called a Business Manager, a Yewu Jingli, and that made him a very important man. On his word, men died, or became rich. His own worth had grown considerably on the back of his supervision of the opium trade in the Nine Kings’ regions outside of San Francisco.

  But Zhu Lei was the Lingdao, the leader of the Nine Kings, and having to make this report was something Kam would have preferred to have avoided. The situation was not his fault, but Zhu had been known to not so much shoot the messenger as pound him into a smear on the carpet and set light to the remains. Zhu was not known as Jade Flame for nothing.

  To make matters worse, Zhu was eating breakfast. No one who wanted their lives to be longer than the next few seconds ever called Zhu fat, but he was. It was not that there was not muscle there, there was a lot of muscle on Zhu’s six-foot frame, but his belly was bloated and his jowls were starting to sag noticeably. He had never been especially attractive, but even the best tailoring did little to disguise his shape. When he wanted women, he had them, but not due to his looks. His hair was thinning and grey at barely forty-two, so he kept it shaved to near-baldness. His nose was bulbous, but his face was quite thin and he had a small mouth with almost feminine lips. His only redeeming features were his eyes, which were a bright, emerald green, and those likely had more to do with his powers than anything else.

  ‘Kam,’ Zhu said as the man walked into his dining room, ‘I assume that this interruption will be explained to my satisfaction.’

  ‘Lingdao… The San Diego and Los Angeles police executed several raids in the early hours of this morning. They dismantled our entire distribution chain.’

  Zhu laid down his knife and fork, and rested his palms flat on the table. He took a deep breath, in through the nose, hold, out through the mouth, and repeated the action four times. ‘Mink,’ Zhu said, and Kam knew that he had survived. ‘She must have copied the data from the computers in the lab she burned. I suggest you begin rebuilding your network immediately, Kam. Do not disappoint me a second time.’

  ‘Yes, Lingdao. It will be easier with the new–’

  ‘No. The new drug attracted Mink’s attention. It will not be supplied again until she has been taken care of.’

  ‘Taken care of, Lingdao?’ The Nine Kings had been trying to eliminate Mink for several years. Kam had to wonder what made Zhu think they were going to succeed any time soon.

  ‘We provoked her wrath with this new form of opium, but she has provoked mine with these actions. I am convening a meeting of the Council of Eight to allocate resource for her demise. Specialists are required. It may take several months, but the Nine Kings will be victorious. We are declaring war upon the troublesome Mink.’

  Part Two: Another Year Older

  San Francisco, CA, 8th August, 2014.

  Working nights had disadvantages. It was Hell on your social life, but Damian Inman had never been much of a social animal. It tended to throw your body clock out, especially in winter when you rarely saw daylight, but humans were adaptable creatures. And it had a few compensations, like running in Golden Gate Park when the majority of wage slaves were at their desks.

  Sometimes, out in the fresh air in the summer sun, Damian found he could forget the job, the night shifts, the tide of drugs he tried to hold back, and the victims of the trafficking he could never promise justice to. Today was not one of those days. The birds were singing, the temperature was up around seventy, and the sun was bright in the sky, but Damian could not pull his thoughts away from the seventeen women Vice had found in a brothel’s basement right on the edge of Nob Hill. They had been Asian, primarily Chinese, trafficked in and chained up in a cellar. The TAATF had swept in to take over as soon as the women were moved out and Damian was quite sure that no one would be brought to any kind of justice for the women’s treatment.

  It was maybe the heat, or maybe his mind was not on what he was doing, but he pulled up at the halfway point of his run, right where he turned onto John F Kennedy Drive to head back, feeling more than usually tired. It always took him a bit more than an hour to run what he thought should be an hour’s run. He was a fit man, but his route was a bit over six miles and he had found that a short break at the midpoint stopped him from really regretting it when he got to the end.

  So he paused, took deep breaths, and looked back to where he had come from, and that was when he saw the blonde. She was running up from behind him, and she was not pacing herself at all. Shoulder-length hair shone in the sunlight and bounced as her long legs powered her down the path. She was tanned and lithe, and had to be wearing an industrial-strength sports bra under her low-cut, cropped shirt. As she got closer, Damian could see the muscles flexing in her calves and thighs: she had fairly slim legs, but the definition on them was amazing. Her abs were just as toned. She ran past, flashing Damian a quick grin, and he got the impression of a pretty face with sharp, blue eyes, and then she was past him and he turned to watch her retreating back as she made the turn he was about to and accelerated away.

  ‘Wow,’ Damian said to no one in particular. ‘Girl’s going to be flaked out on the path in another hundred yards.’ Shaking his head, he set off to continue his run.

  Things were going better for the return leg. There was no sign of the woman he had seen, but the image of her retreating behind clad in tiny athletics briefs kept his mind off the women from the night before, mostly anyway. However, Damian still found himself flagging, and pushing to keep going, as he entered the final stage of his run. Only a few hundred yards, and then he would…

  ‘Coming through on the right!’

  The voice came from
behind him, and Damian shifted to the left as far as he could. The blonde ran past him, still at the same sprint. Holy Hell, Damian thought, because saying it was out of the question. The urge to try to keep up was fairly strong, but he doubted he would have been able to even if he was not struggling to maintain his current pace. A minute or so later, when he pulled to a stop and bent over to rest his hands on his knees, the woman was there, sitting on a bench with her long legs stretched out and a plastic bottle lifted to her pursed lips.

  Multicoloured running shoes appeared in Damian’s vision field a second or two later, followed by a red-and-black bottle. ‘Here, try some of this.’

  Damian hauled himself upright, despite the pain in his guts, dragged his eyes away from the deep valley of cleavage her top showed off, and looked at her face. She was beautiful, no two ways about it. The blue eyes were crystal clear, set under dark, arched eyebrows and thick lashes. Her nose was straight and a little flat, and she had full lips which had a bit of a pout to them. Then there were the high cheekbones, firm jawline, and hollowed cheeks. The woman looked like she should be gracing catwalks… and there was something familiar about her.

  ‘Thanks,’ Damian managed, taking the bottle and pulling down a few gulps of the contents. It tasted of tropical fruit, guava and passion fruit maybe. He handed the bottle back. ‘I don’t… generally take drinks… from strange women.’

  She laughed. ‘I’m not that strange.’ Then she shrugged. ‘Well, maybe I am, but this is just an energy drink.’

  ‘Did you really… just sprint twelve miles?’

  ‘Little over.’ She took another swig from her bottle. Nonchalant, like it was nothing. She was barely even breathing hard.

  ‘You training for something?’

  ‘Nothing specific. I did Ultraman last year, but I’m not bothering this.’

  ‘The triathlon?’ That explained the fitness… Despite its name, the Ultraman trial was quite clear on not accepting Ultras, and with modern testing they were fairly assured of keeping them out.