by Declan Finn
Alex frowned. “Okay, fine, let’s do this.”
The song continued. We were in a guitar solo near the end. The drone closed in so much that the “Objects in the mirror may be closer than they appear” warning was less and less a comfort.
The song stopped.
Then so did I. “Now!” I barked, stomping on the brakes, pulling the emergency and sharply turning the wheel, putting the car into a fishtail.
The drone shot past us, unable to stop fast enough.
Alex threw his second to last grenade.
He missed.
The grenade sailed off as the drone looped back, twisting around to fly level in a perfect Immelman loop. It came back. Only this time it was at cruising speed. We were stopped, facing the wrong way on the highway, blocked off by a truck at one end and the drone on the other. The drone sprouted legs and touched down. The feet burned holes in the tarmac. Its entire mouth turned white-hot.
“Screw this,” Alex muttered, and hurled another grenade without even pulling the pin. It went right for the dragon head.
The dragon cocked its head to one side, and the grenade went right past. The head reared back, ready to strike.
“This is gonna hurt,” Alex muttered.
The fiery dragon head shot forward, mouth open wide.
The grenade completed its arc, falling straight down onto the drone.
The white hot jaws closed on us.
The flaming construct around the drone set off the grenade. The point-blank fragments and the concussion ripped the drone to pieces, scattering it all over the road.
The jaws, the dragon, the wings, everything, blinked out of existence.
Six feet away from the car, there were scorch marks from where the dragon’s mouth had been a split second before.
“Cut it closer next time, why don’t you?” I asked.
Alex fell back in his seat. “I freaking hate New Jersey.”
Chapter 13
Drag Me to … New Jersey?
Monmouth Beach was the nice part of New Jersey. Driving along the road nearby was an ocean view and the open air. Call it the land of small business owners or the moderately wealthy. There was a yacht club. If you couldn’t find the neighborhood, then they didn’t want you. But despite that, the security boiled down to the local cops. There were no fences, just really aggressive bushes. The houses were large but stopped short of mansions.
Monmouth Beach was a borough of Monmouth County. It only had over 3,200 people living there. It was basically a small beach community on the Jersey Shore. Victorian houses and multimillion-dollar homes filled it. Unlike Staten Island, when Hurricane Sandy ripped through, these homes were repaired. The entire borough was only a square mile. It also had two lovely little beach clubs and docks and yachts.
However, our barely functioning car would stand out anywhere short of a junkyard.
So instead of taking a direct route down 36, which would have taken us around the shoreline (and bottle-necked us on a series of bridges) we went down the Garden State Parkway and hung a left. That brought us up the other side of 36, through a lesser neighborhood called Long Branch. We parked around the back of a Home Depot, out of sight and behind crates of potting soil.
“Now what?” Alex asked.
“Now, recon. We walk.”
We each took our turn in the back of the car. We pulled the back seat down to access our trunk of weapons. One grabbed a backpack and loaded up while the other stood watch. I went for the MP5, sound suppressor and plenty of rounds. Most importantly, I grabbed a knife. I didn’t want to make a lot of noise. The sound suppressors were nice, but if I needed to open fire, they weren’t going to help much. Not only would other people be shooting back at me who would have an advantage of having loud guns, but sound suppressors didn’t silence anything. “Silencer” was a terrible misnomer. A sound suppressor merely reduced a gunshot from an explosion a foot or so away from your head to the noise level of a jackhammer … only a foot or so away from your head.
We were able to get there within an hour on foot. We didn’t run, but took our time. The ties were left in the car. We would have left our jackets behind as well, but we didn’t want our guns hanging out.
The home of Bokor Baracus was a nice piece of real estate, with about an acre of property. The narrow side of the house faced the road, while the actual front of the building faced a long driveway. The backyard was on the other side of the house, where most of the property was. It was only a two- story house, but long enough for two houses. The doors were all French, which seemed insecure … but then, he had people for that.
Alex and I casually walked by twice, with fifteen minutes in between. There were three guards in front, another three at the opposite side, and we estimated that there were probably another four in the backyard. For a house that big, there would be at least an additional five inside, maybe as many as ten.
There were also no security cameras around the house. Probably for the very good reason that they didn’t want a visual record of what went on in the house. Lord knows that if I practiced what Baracus did, I’d want a jammer for all things video and audio.
As for the smell…
I had never been to a body farm. My father’s father had both been to the first body farm and was old enough to remember when Secaucus NJ was the home of area pig farms; he said they smelled like body farms. They were places where forensic experiments happened all the time. Corpses would be left in multiple different environments with endless variations in their situation. Does the body decompose differently in fertilizer or potting soil? Sand or mud? Freezing temperatures? Boiling temperatures? Which insects will get to the body first in this or that environment?
To me, the house smelled like death itself. The smell of evil was what I suspected a body farm would be like if all the corpses were left outside in the worst heat and humidity.
“Dinner?” Alex asked as we passed.
I sniffed the air again. I was able to breathe. “Amen to that.”
“Pun intended?”
“Shut up, Alex.”
We stopped in at a local Chinese takeout place near our car. We sat in a corner while we chowed down. Since we hadn’t stopped to eat all day, we were both starved. Though we had been running on adrenaline so long, we hadn’t noticed.
Alex waited until we were fully served before he asked, “So, what do you think is the point of all this?”
“How so?”
His voice dropped to a harsh whisper. “I like you Tommy, but you’re not worth ten million dollars.”
I shrugged. “I am to somebody.”
“But if MS-13 isn’t behind this warlock, and this warlock is the one putting up the cash, then what does this guy do that he can burn the cash? What does he get out of you being dead?”
I frowned. “When the cult came after me, it was simple revenge. They didn’t like that a Catholic had thwarted their plans.”
Alex shook his head. “Doesn’t work. What exactly was their plan, man? Seriously, they released a demonic outbreak in Rikers Island. Two thousand demonic inmates let loose in the city. What happens when they hit the street? Riots and blood. Yeah. Sure. But how does that benefit anyone? Cui bono?”
Who benefits? “I have no idea. There wouldn’t be a private security company who could take on all of New York. Maybe someone calls in the National Guard? Then what? Why bother?”
He jabbed his plastic fork in my direction. “Exactly. Ten million. Think about it. What ties everything together? Demonic infestation of a city? Maybe a lot of people start going to church again.”
I snorted. “You think that the Cardinal started his fund drive to up attendance in church with a plague of demons upon the city? Seriously?”
Alex shrugged. “I’ve heard dumber ideas. Not sure from who but someone, I’m sure.”
Considering our target was a deputy mayor, I had to ask. “What about the mayor? Any way to guarantee that he’d profit?”
“Only if he really wan
ted to see the city half destroyed. Normally, I’d say money but how? Real estate will drop like a stone, and the property values would be dramatically lower. But what happens after that? There’s no way in Hell anyone would move into the city. Thanks to the internet, whole companies could afford to relocate out of the northeast to where everything was cheaper. Real estate would become worthless. Besides, if his concern were money, he could get a thousand guys on your ass for a six-figure bounty. Why ten million?”
I nodded. “And if he’s really a warlock, would money be his primary goal? Magical abilities aren’t something you associate with someone working from a Lex Luthor playbook. And vice versa.” I leaned forward. “So we have two problems. First: what was the original plan? What do you get with a death cult and a demonic outbreak in New York City? Second: how could anyone benefit from my death? It has to be more than revenge. As you said, revenge can be had for cheaper than this. After we have a chat with Mister Baracus, we should ask Father Freeman. He should know if there’s some sort of supernatural benefit or side effect of killing off someone like me.”
Alex nodded as he dug into his food. He chewed thoughtfully for a long moment. “Did you ever get around to asking him about warlocks in general?”
“No. Why should I? It’s not exactly like he can add anything. Warlock. Bad guy. Evil wizard. What more do we need to know? Any abilities he might have, we’ll probably have to discover when we engage him. Which will suck, but still, we can’t know until we engage him. Her. It. We’re going to have to do what we usually do. Ask questions.”
Alex sighed. “Yeah. Sure, Tommy. Because he’ll answer if we ask nicely.”
I frowned. “He’s a bokor. I’m not even certain cutting off body parts would help. This also assumes that the Baracus we’re looking at is going to be the Baracus we need. It could be another double.”
Alex shrugged. “So? We’ll get something out of it. Even if we just toss the place. There should be something in the house. Even if he just has a complete set of corpses in the basement.”
I rolled my eyes. “Don’t even joke.”
“Who’s joking? For all we know, the guards on patrol are zombies with good makeup jobs. Speaking of which …” Alex drifted off.
I leaned forward. “Yes?”
He leaned over to meet me halfway. “Lethal force?”
I frowned. I wasn’t adverse to it. But there were problems.
On the one hand, these could just be simple paid security. They could be cops in plain clothes, sent to protect the deputy mayor.
On the other hand, if they were minions of the warlock, or the walking dead, they were going to be a pain in the ass. Stealth and lethal force would be the best way to tackle them. Sneaking up behind one of them and running a knife into the brain would be the best way to handle them.
“I think I have a plan.”
Both Alex and I slept in the car. I had barely caught my breath since the crooked SWAT team broke into my house that morning, a mere 18 hours ago, and I needed to catch up on my sleep.
Unfortunately, I had problems sleeping. Not surprising. But the more I tried to calm my mind, the more I had to dwell on the mystery of who the warlock was. It had to be Baracus or Hoynes. But because they worked so closely together, it was impossible to get a definitive conclusion. And yes, everything that Hoynes did felt like enemy action, but that was politics. I agreed with him and his part on nothing. Ever. At all. Yes, Hoynes released Ormeno from jail, but that could have been motivated by a hatred of me and a love of criminals. Yes, Hoynes accepted money from the Women’s Health Corps, but he ran on the Democrat ticket, and they were abortionists, so they were inseparable. In fact, there was nothing about the evidence that made Hoynes any more or less a suspect than any other Democrat in New York City politics…
Except for Bokor Baracus working with Hoynes on a daily basis. But if Baracus was the warlock and not just a bokor, would he lower himself to working for a mere politician? Would he tie himself down like that? Or was Hoynes merely a puppet that Baracus used while following his own agenda? If Baracus was the real power behind the throne, then Hoynes was a patsy. Maybe not an innocent patsy, but a patsy.
As I went around and around in my mind, along the line, I eventually fell asleep.
The alarm I had set on my phone woke us after midnight. It was a deliberate choice. It meant that fewer people would be on the street, and most people would at least try to be going to sleep.
We walked back to Baracus’ house.
Alex was the first to approach the home. He had his badge out and held up as he approached, waiting for the guards to see what he was holding.
One guard reached for his radio after seeing the badge, but Alex shook his finger at him to wave him off. He crooked his finger, beckoning the guard toward him.
The other two guards came along, flanking the first.
The lead guard stopped within six feet of Alex. “What do you want…” he looked at Alex’s badge. “Detective?”
“I want to talk with the Deputy Mayor.”
The guard didn’t so much as blink. “No.”
Alex tapped his badge. “This says that—”
“That you can go back to New York.”
The guard reached behind him for a gun.
I darted out from the bushes behind the three guards. I had knives drawn. I swung the knives together like I was trying to bear hug the two gunmen. The knives drove in the temple of each of them. They fell over like I had hit their off button.
Alex, on the other hand, jabbed up with his knife, which he had opened while talking to the guard. He jammed it underneath the guard’s chin.
My plan was easy. If they tried to kill cops who openly identified themselves, the guards were probably evil. I would have sniffed them out, but the entire area around the house smelled like evil.
I pulled my knives away from the dead guards, then wiped the blades off on their clothing.
I pulled away one of the knives, and skulked to the left side out the house, the end that faced the street. I slipped into the bushes that acted as a gate between one house and the other.
I came to the end of the flora as I neared the back of the home. A guard stood there, submachinegun armed and ready.
He had his back to the bushes.
This time, I didn’t hesitate. I clamped my hand over his mouth and stabbed him in the kidney. Before he could die, I reached around his front and slashed his throat. It was overkill, but if that didn’t kill him, I’d have to worry. I spun the corpse around to prevent the arterial spray from covering me, dropping the body back in the bushes I came from.
The back of the house had a nice little open patio with overhang, for people who liked having tea during a rainstorm or something. The remaining two guards stood a few dozen feet away from the deck. The lights were on under the patio, which provided them with a little light. Both of them seemed bored. They didn’t even bother to keep actively surveying. They just stood there. They weren’t even patrolling. It was like they thought they were backup for the guards in front.
I walked along in a crouch. I closed in on the nearest guard while keeping my eye on the guard farthest away.
Without warning, the guard I closed in on looked at his watch. He turned to his right, walking over to the other guard. I dropped flat, hoping that the dark of the night would camouflage my gray suit.
The two guards talked to each other for a moment. Then the first guard went into the house, leaving the second one alone, which would have been perfect, except he decided to patrol now, covering both positions. He kept his eyes up and level and steady, fully alert.
But most importantly, his eyes were on the property line, not on the ground.
He stopped three feet away from me, eyes ahead of him.
Three slashes of my knife to his femoral artery, jugular vein and kidney made short work of him.
I dragged the guard along the grass, bringing him closer to the house, keeping him in the well of darkness created
by the nearby porch light.
“Yo. Morgan. Where the hell are you?”
I froze. The other guard had come back.
He was looking away from me, and I took a chance, charging right for him.
Unfortunately, I’m not a sprinter. I’m taller than average and had eaten up a lot of my running time going after Ormeno. The guard heard me clomping towards him and whipped around to see the charging rhino coming right at him. He didn’t waste a breath calling for help, but he made the mistake of reaching for his gun.
The Tueller test is a training exercise to prepare against a short-range knife attack when armed only with a holstered handgun. It was named after Sergeant Dennis Tueller of the Salt Lake City Police Department who wondered how quickly an attacker with a knife could cover 21 feet. He timed it as 1.5 seconds. With training, the armed gunman could draw down on the knifeman.
The guard obviously had never done a Tueller drill. I crashed into him. My left hand clamped down on his gun hand as he reached the pistol. I body-checked him, bringing him crashing down to the patio. All the air in his body was forced out as I landed on him.
My knife arced and drove into his temple. I twisted it in a little, and his eyes went wide and still.
I grabbed the body and rolled off the patio with it, into the dark.
I waited for nearly a minute before I texted Alex to come and meet me in the backyard.
Alex showed up another two minutes later. He looked at the corpse next to me, and his eyes widened. “Geez, Tommy. For a saint, you’ve got a heck of a body count.”
I tried to shrug, but the adrenaline was kicking in. “Xavier Loyola was a soldier. Granted, that was before his life-changing conversation. Come on, let’s get inside before someone figures out the door was open too long.”
Chapter 14
Sympathy for the Bokor
Alex and I quietly swept through the house. It was a nice house. At one end was a connected pool house. The kitchen was all marble with an island counter in the center. The living room was more like a lounge. The dining room was big enough to comfortably host twenty.
