She bit her lip in thought. Why would Angel be mixed up in this? She couldn’t think of any profit for her or her gang in stealing a body out of the morgue, and she couldn’t think of any other reason she would want to do it. Body snatching was so... outdated now. Magic traditions had moved on a lot and most didn’t go in for the truly black arts anymore; the cost was too high, and besides, Angel wasn’t gifted in necromancy as far as she knew. Her magic was a form of compulsion that she used to employ on marks in her petty street cons.
“Did DD do anything with the disk? Any enhancements?”
“No, it was all I could do to get her to hack the servers in the first place. The feds have everyone feeling a little spooked. She did the printouts, took her fee, and threw me out of her cubicle. She was kinda scared, Chris, so I left it at that. I think Barrows has been at her.”
“Bastard,” she snarled. DD was harmless, a really quiet and nice analyst sort. She wasn’t tough or able to fight back if the feds got nasty. “What was he after, do you know?”
“Same as us I bet.”
“Probably.”
She glared at the photos again and sighed. “These are nothing, Dave. I know you think they are, and maybe they even are something, but Cappy won’t move on this. The case is closed... it is still closed?”
“It’s closed,” he agreed.
“Getting it reopened will take more than this, more than we can possibly get. I don’t see it happening at all. The Mayor must have sighed in relief when the Chief told him we got the Ghost.”
“Oh yeah, he was real happy to go to the media with the good news.”
“He’ll want this to stay dead and buried then.”
“But we don’t... or do we?”
She grimaced. “I don’t mind if it stays buried as such, but for my own information I would like to know what in the nine hells is going on! I admit it, this entire thing smells.”
“Yeah, it does. It stinks of federal cover-up on massive scale to me, and I would love to stick it to Barrows.”
“Hmmm. As long as we’re the stickers and not the stickees. Okay, leave this with me. You can’t do much more. I’m grounded for another six weeks. I’m working to halve that time, but anyway, I need something to do. I’ll see if I can coax DD into a little work for hire on the side, and I’ll look into Angel and her gang.”
Baxter looked doubtful, his eyes resting on the bandaging wrapping her throat. “You be careful. Call for backup, do not apprehend, yada yada.”
She grinned and saluted. “Scouts honour.”
He rolled his eyes and pushed to his feet. “Seriously, Chris. Something is whacked about all this. Barrows was seriously freaked that night when he lost the body, and he said something to me while you were in the emergency room that’s had me thinking.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. I dismissed it then as threats, but now I’m not so sure. He warned me not to dig. He said there were some people who wouldn’t care who I was or that I was a cop, and that they would take steps to maintain secrecy. Like I said, I shrugged it off back then, but then I got to thinking about the other day when Barrows followed us. He said the guy they were after had a body count of over eighty, remember?”
“Yeah so?”
“So how come no one heard about that? Eighty kills and no bulletins, no news media—how does that happen without serious pull high up? Like higher than FBI high, more like military.”
“Acronyms,” she sighed. “I hate those acronym guys.”
“I didn’t say CIA... oops, I just did. Could be homeland too I guess, or something even darker. You know the Council has more than enough pull for this without the need for acronyms. You know that, right?”
She shivered; she knew all right. If the White Council was involved they were seriously screwed, but she wouldn’t assume it. There were many reasons not to; one of which was the futility of trying to fight against anything the Council chose to do. If it was involved and wanted this mess to go away, it would go away along with anyone connected to it with no evidence left behind. The fact there was evidence lying around to be found was the greatest indication that this wasn’t connected to the Council. She saw nothing that pointed to anyone but her department and Barrows being involved as yet. She would keep assuming and preserve her peace of mind.
“Leave it with me,” she said. “I’m the only one with time on my hands anyway.” She followed Baxter toward the door. “What’s Cappy got John working on now?”
“Stanton.”
“Oh really? Damn, I’d like to take a shot at him myself.”
“Wouldn’t we all?” Baxter said stepping out into the hall. He turned back as if to say something more, but then shook his head leaving it unsaid. “See you around.”
“See you,” Chris closed the door and hurried to fetch the disk. She wanted to watch the full video before deciding how much to let DD extort from her.
Chris arrived at Central the next morning determined to enlist DD’s aid, and she wasn’t above guilt tripping her friend to get what she wanted. Baxter had succeeded in planting seeds of doubt about Angel and the possibility that she was in some kind of trouble. Angel didn’t consider herself a friend of hers anymore, but Chris still thought of the girl as one of her kids. The gangly kid she’d known was older now, and had her own gang, but she remembered her as just another of the unwanted kids running wild in the district she had patrolled in her uniform days.
Angel had left the Tiny Rascals behind, but the gang was still active in Monster Central and Chris kept in touch with some of its members. They gave her information sometimes, and she tried to keep them out of trouble. She helped out with a little cash now and then too, and had given each of them a second-hand link so they could keep in touch with her. They were a good investment, but that wasn’t why she kept an eye on them. They weren’t just weasels to her. They were her kids, hers to protect, even from themselves. It didn’t matter if Angel blamed her for things or hated her for what had happened years ago. If the girl was mixed up in vamp business, she needed help. Chris would get her out of whatever it was.
She headed up to the Cyber Analysis Division on the second floor of Central where all the geeks hung out. DD was one of the Cads, one type of techno geek that inhabited the place. Cads, named after their division, spent all their time taking computers and robots apart to analyse their guts and memories for evidence. There were other kinds of geek on the same floor, like the Cats (Cyber Action Teams) who investigated comp fraud and Infonet security breaches. They were DD’s suppliers in a way. They collected the evidence in the first place and once analysed, acted upon the results.
She stepped out of the elevator but didn’t head for DD’s cubicle right away. She knew her friend would not be happy to see her, especially when she heard why. A small gratuity was in order to soften her up. Normally coffee would do, but this might take a high calorie injection of chocolaty goodness. She needed to disguise the taste of helping her out this time around because DD wasn’t an Angel fan. In fact, DD wasn’t a fan of much outside of baseball and ice hockey, but she had a serious crush on the LA King’s current star player. Jarret Fraser played centre position and wouldn’t know DD if he tripped over her, but that didn’t quiet her enthusiasm. Such a rabid sports fan had weaknesses and might be persuaded to overlook her dislike of Angel this once if certain things were offered to her. What worried Chris wasn’t giving her friend a couple of tickets for a bribe. They often went to games together anyway. She considered such things a gift not bribery. It was Barrows scaring her. If DD was still freaked out about the feds, she might refuse to help at all.
She checked out the selection at vending and chose DD’s favourites. If two bars of instant diabetic coma didn’t work, she didn’t know what would. She bought a coffee for herself while she had the chance, and then headed for DD’s cubicle.
Donna Delgado was a trim young woman of twenty-five and was pretty in a geeky sort of way despite having the dress sense of a demented elf.
She was wearing a bright orange shirt with leafy patterns worked into it. The colour was vomit inducing. She wore it untucked, but then she had to. It was so short it left her midriff bare and revealed her piercing. The white belt with its chrome buckle did more than hold her pants up. It drew attention to her ultra flat belly and sharp hipbones. It made Chris want to suck in her gut.
She watched DD bop and boogie her way around her cubicle, tapping commands into the various computers she had crammed into every available space. It was normal for her to be working on three or four things at once She was wearing earphones, big suckers not the tiny ear buds most used these days—DD was an aficionado of quality sound, or so she said—and wouldn’t be seen dead using anything but her own creation. She wasn’t just a wiz with software; she was into hardware in a big way. She often built her own gadgets and computers. She was a geek’s geek.
Chris stepped into the cubicle and DD stopped dancing. She smiled automatically in greeting, but a moment later the expression fled as she realised who had come calling. Chris cursed silently. Goddess damn Barrows to the ninth hell! It was obvious DD wasn’t happy to see her.
“Hey DD, how goes it?”
DD removed her earphones and switched off her music. “I can’t help you.”
“Sure you can.”
“No, I really can’t.”
“Yes, you really can. Look here,” she said and waved the ticket in the air. “Baxter says I owe you.”
DD shuffled her feet. “Sorta.”
“I always pay my debts, DD, and besides, we’re buds. Here, take it.”
DD stepped forward and took the ticket, barely glancing at it in her misery. “Thanks. Sorry, but I have work. I don’t have time to chat right now.”
Chris ignored her and took a seat on the edge of DD’s desk. “I heard that bastard Barrows came by. He can’t mess with you, DD. Just tell your Guild rep he’s hassling you and he’ll stop. He only gets away with it if people don’t push back. So push.”
“I’m not you, Chris, I can’t.”
“Sure you can, you’re stronger than you think, but if you don’t want to that’s okay. He doesn’t bother me, DD. I’ll fix him for you.”
“Really?” she said hopefully. “You’d do that for me?”
“Absolutely. Here, I got these for you.” She passed the candy over and DD’s eyes lit. She unwrapped one of the treats and bit in. “Good?”
“Hmmm,” DD said.
Chris grinned, she was getting somewhere. “So, I guess you know why I’m here. Baxter showed me your stuff, but I need some Delgado magic worked on it.”
DD swallowed and started on the second candy bar.
She would never understand how her friend could maintain her pixy-like stature with all the sugar she consumed. She must have the metabolism of a humming bird on crack.
“What do you need?” DD said after she finished eating.
“The stills you worked up? Can you enhance them?”
“Can I enhance them? Of course I can enhance them! Aren’t I the best miracle worker in the department?”
“You’re the best, DD.”
“Damn straight. Of course I can enhance them, but I told Dave that day it wouldn’t do you any good.”
“He never said. Why won’t it do any good?”
“Because the perps are wearing masks. I can enhance the imagery and bring out the individual threads in the masks if you want, but if I remember right they were just off the rack ski masks. That won’t get you anywhere.”
She scowled. “Will you do it anyway?”
DD shrugged. “Sure. You got the disk with you?”
She handed it over and DD got to work.
Chris supplied coffee and moral support as DD worked her magic. They chose the same scenes as Dave had asked for, but added a few more that Chris thought promising. She liked the gassing of the fed especially, and had DD spend some extra attention on it. A couple of hours later and they were done.
“You’re right,” Chris said. “This is bullshit. Cappy won’t move on this.”
DD shrugged. “I warned you.”
Baxter had been so sure, but there wasn’t anything here to prove it one way or the other. If it weren’t for his certainty she would never have brought this to DD; she didn’t believe in it herself, but there was one way to be certain. She could track Angel down and ask her straight out. Yeah right! Angel would laugh in her face unless she had some kind of leverage... she frowned as a glimmer of an idea came to her.
“I’m going to tell you something in confidence, DD. Baxter thinks these two,” she pointed to two of the perps in the photos. “Are Angel and Flex.”
“Flex?”
“Angel’s lieutenant.”
DD frowned at the pictures. “Right build for her, but I don’t know him.”
“It could be them, but it could be me and Baxter too.”
“Yeah.”
“How good are you really, DD?”
“You need to ask?”
Chris grinned. In her area, DD didn’t lack confidence. She explained her idea. DD’s eyes widened and she slowly began to smile.
* * *
26 ~ Angel
Chris found Angel as expected hanging out at Zero Gee with Flex. It was safest to hang with backup in Monster Central. Chris was feeling her own lack of that right about now, but John was busy working the Stanton thing, and besides, she didn’t want to bring anyone from the department into this. She didn’t want to burn Angel; she just wanted to get the girl out of the trouble she was obviously in and learn what in the nine hells was going on in her city. No way was O’Neal the be all and end all of this, not with Barrows still sniffing about. Besides, she hadn’t forgotten the sword-wielding whack-job from that night. She wanted to know how he connected to it all. She was leaning toward him being O’Neal’s maker. Maybe he had lost him somehow, forcing the need for a clean up on aisle four—the alley where they met. Shame it took so many dead women to make him take action.
She didn’t consider him to be one of the good guys in this despite his actions that night. He was directly responsible for making O’Neal into the Ghost in the first place. To her mind that made him the murderer and O’Neal his weapon. The law wouldn’t describe it in precisely those terms, but the results would be the same. It called for termination. Besides, vamps couldn’t stand trial as they were already dead. Dead, undead... what was the difference? She didn’t care to find out.
The club was really hopping when she arrived. It usually was, but it was barely afternoon yet. Unlike Area 51, Zero Gee opened twenty-four hours and took full advantage of its position in the centre of the Waterfront District. There were plenty of desperate thrill seekers hanging about willing to risk their lives and souls mingling with the monsters. They tended to pay well and not care too much about the quality of what they were drinking.
Upon entering, her eyes darted to the corner where she’d last seen Angel, but there was a different group hanging there. They had the tell-tale glowing eyes of shifters. She shivered. The feel of her backup weapon in its holster tucked into the waistband of her jeans was a comfort. Not that she planned to use it on anyone, not even Angel, but only a fool went unarmed in Monster Central. She wasn’t a fool, or she hoped not to be at least. She had sort of promised Baxter that she wouldn’t pursue or apprehend anyone, but this was a special case. Angel might hate her guts, but she was still one of her kids. No, it was for the best that she handle this quietly with none the wiser at Central. She would take out the vamp and free the girl from his influence.
She wandered the club, slipping between gyrating bodies and drunken ones. Her glare was enough to fend off the occasional attempted grope, and for those too drunk to take no for an answer, she had boots on with a hard heel. It was amazing how painful a stomped instep was or kicked shinbone. She hardly had to stop, just left them shrieking behind her as she made her way through the club. The mood enhancers had been dialled way up already, and were affecting her. She had just begu
n to enjoy the buzz of the last smack down when she caught sight of Flex. He was carrying a couple of drinks somewhere. She let him lead her to Angel. She was guessing, but hoped the second drink was for her and not a squeeze he was renting for the afternoon.
It was.
She smiled down at Angel where she sat glaring up at her from her place in the booth. She would wipe that look off her face in short order. When the girl saw what DD had produced, shock alone would do it. What Angel would do then was anyone’s guess, but it should prove interesting. Chris’ head turned like a turret and her eyes narrowed when Flex made to stand. Angel’s hand darted out and grabbed his arm, pulling him back down.
“Yes, that’s right, be a good boy and sit,” she said still enjoying the artificial buzz produced by the tech overhead. She forced the feeling back. This was no time to get sloppy. “We three have business to discuss.”
Angel flicked a look at Flex who settled back into the shadows. He raised his glass and drank. Chris could read the hate on his face despite the shadows. She was glad not to find the same in Angel’s assessing eyes. The girl had speculation and the usual disdain there. She was quite good at the superior attitude, needing it to keep her crew in line. Well, it wouldn’t do her any good this time.
She took the seat opposite Flex, which put Angel closer on the left. “Not going to ask?”
Angel shrugged, dragging her eyes away from the bandaging wrapping Chris’ throat. “Not interested. The days when I had business with cops are over. You’ve got nothing to do with me.”
“Wrong again. Oh dear, oh dear... I warned you about getting that tat. Do you remember, Angel? Do you remember when I said it would cause you problems later in life?”
Angel scowled. “I remember. I remember getting it done the day you told me not to. No one tells me what to do.”
“You should have listened to meeee,” Chris said in a sing-song voice. “You’re in the database, Angel. Gang signs and affiliations all nicely detailed and labelled along with your homies.” She smiled at Flex. “You too, big guy. You’re all in there. I have some really nice shots of that tat. I recognised it right off.”
Way of the Wolf: Shifter Legacies 1 Page 34
