by C. Gockel
Anger sparked in his eyes. “Blaming the victims?”
“No! That isn’t what I meant at all. Lost Souls is a monster club. Humans don’t come here.”
“Some do, you did after all, but I know what you’re thinking. Our people do need places like this where they can be themselves.”
“But you didn’t ban humans.”
“That would be illegal,” Stephen said wryly. “I have people on the door whose judgement I trust to weed out troublemakers of the human variety. They only let in those we can trust.”
She made a face. It wasn’t fair, but no one said it would be. In the Republic, non-humans were barred from many venues and businesses by law, but that same law protected human rights. It was literally illegal to discriminate against humans based upon their sex, or race, or age. Such hypocrisy was breath-taking.
“It’s not fair,” she said. “But I was thinking how your club must look to AML. It’s a slap in their faces. You painted a huge target on it. They could bomb the place without fear of killing too many humans.”
Stephen snorted as they followed the corridor to the end and called the elevator. “They have tried various things, not bombs yet, but they wouldn’t care about killing a few collaborators and thrill seekers. That’s what they call humans who associate with us. To them, such people are collateral damage at worst, not even worth a second thought.”
Marie knew he was right. The story about AML killing a shifter and his family wasn’t the first of its kind she had read about, it wasn’t even that unusual. His completely human children hadn’t warranted more than a brief mention by the media. A day or so later they were forgotten.
The elevator doors slid aside, and she joined Stephen inside. He entered a code into a keypad and then selected four. The elevator dropped smoothly and opened less than half a minute later to reveal a corridor with a few doors set in the walls. The floor was carpeted with a silvery grey carpet and the lighting in the ceiling was subdued. The walls were white, while the doors were varnished wood. Stephen ignored the rooms each side, leading her toward the double doors at the far end of the hall, but as they neared the last door, it opened to reveal Terry.
Marie stopped, startled. “What are you doing here?”
Terry closed the door. “I live here,” he said and a strange light flashed in his eyes.
She stepped back giving him some room, feeling a wave of dizziness and nausea pass over her. Stephen was suddenly there. His hand flashed, once then twice, so fast she barely saw it move, but suddenly Terry reeled back from the backhand slap to his face. Blood trickled from split lips.
Stephen moved forward into the vacated space making him back away. The look of hatred on Terry’s face was terrifying, and Marie wanted to shout for help, but then she saw his eyes burn red and his fangs descend. The realisation that he was a vampire shocked her into a horrified silence. Had he been attacked? Was Stephen looking after him? She didn’t understand any of this.
“You dare!” Stephen hissed angrily. “You dare to insult my guest and compound it by trying in front of me? Never try that on her again. I swear you are one breath from the final death at this moment.”
“I’m sorry, Stephen! I swear I didn’t mean—”
Another slap. “Don’t lie to me!” Stephen roared. “I made you, I can unmake you!”
Marie covered her ears and screamed; Stephen’s roar had power, not just volume. Terry cringed, turning his face away from Stephen’s wrath. It was wrath, not anger. She screamed again as Stephen’s rage poured over her.
“Marie?” Stephen said softly an age later. “Open your eyes love, it’s all right now. He’s gone. I won’t let him hurt you.”
She shook her head.
“Please.”
She shook her head again, and tried to speak. It wasn’t Terry that had scared her.
“I should have thought. It’s my fault. I knew he was down here, but I would never have believed him stupid enough to try that on you with me right there. I’m twice the fool now.”
She didn’t think he was a fool at all. He was as sexy as anything on two legs that she could imagine, as scary as ten demons appearing in her bedroom naked and ready for action, as powerful as... as powerful as a very powerful thing with no safety catch! He was all that and more, but she didn’t take him for a fool.
“Tw... tw... twice?” she stuttered.
“For honouring my word and giving him the reward he sought, and then allowing you to meet him this way. It won’t happen again. I will ensure he is elsewhere during your visits. Will you still have dinner with me?”
She opened her eyes and looked beyond him at the empty corridor. There was no sign of Terry. “It wasn’t him. I mean he surprised me, but it was your reaction that scared me half to death.”
Stephen’s face fell. “Ah.”
She felt his self-disgust clearly. “What did he try to do to me?”
“He tried to glamour you.”
“But all it did was make me feel dizzy. Was he trying to do that, why?”
“No, you misunderstand me. He’s too new; his power is weak. He tried to take control of your mind and make you his toy.”
Marie paled.
“It’s all right. I have impressed upon him the consequences of repeating his error.”
She could guess what Terry’s punishment would be if he angered Stephen that way again. She nodded, only then realising she was still kneeling on the carpet, and Stephen was crouching at eye level to talk to her. She gave him her hand.
“Help me up?”
Stephen’s relief was obvious. He pulled her up, and steadied her. “Dinner?” he asked hopefully.
Why was he so interested in her, why so intent upon dinner? It wasn’t as if he could eat. All he could do was watch her. It was flattering that he wanted to do that, but she was no child to believe an immortal saw merit in her. She was nothing special. The more she thought about it, the clearer it became that the only thing special about her was her father.
11
Tea and Cookies
“I don’t know, man. It just seems a little…”
“What?” Slick Willie said as he drove. “You ain’t pulling out on me are you?”
“It just seems a little off you know? I mean, she’s just an old lady, right? How much we gonna get from someone like that?”
“If you don’t want to come in with me, Lenny, just say it straight. Are you pulling out? I can drop you right here.”
“No man, I’m with you,” Lenny said hastily.
Right here was a particularly nasty neighbourhood; not a good place to be alone and he knew that. Willie smiled into the dark. He didn’t need Lenny for this little job. Hell, he didn’t need anyone’s help to relieve an old biddy of her savings, but she was expecting him to bring his brother with him this time. The stupid bitch thought he was her friend. She thought him a nice boy for helping her carry packages up to her apartment and gave him tea and cookies like he was a damn kid. She had some nice stuff. Some of the china dolls she had collected must be worth a few bucks, and the picture frames were silver. He didn’t know much, but he knew quality stuff when he saw it. Sal the shark would take them off his hands no problem at all.
Willie parked the car outside the old biddy’s building and locked the door. He wanted the car to be still here when he came back. With luck it would be, though it wasn’t his. He’d stolen it just an hour ago especially for this job.
He led Lenny into the lobby. The building used to be a good hotel back in the day. The floors, though worn, still had a look of elegance. They were clean and the marble tiles shone dully. The entire building was like that. It had once been something special but had declined slowly into just another apartment building with a history. Unlike some, the owner of this one had taken care not to let age turn it into a derelict. Yes, its splendour had faded with age, but its quality was still obvious. If he ever had the money, he would buy something just like it for himself.
They walked by the
desk being held down by the so-called building supervisor. Willie nodded to Frank, but the old sot didn’t even notice. Just as well. They didn’t need the old fart getting involved and maybe getting hurt. Not that he was averse to hurting him if he had to, but it would be a hassle he didn’t need. He wanted money not a fight.
The elevator dropped them on the fifth floor and Willie led Lenny to the old lady’s door, but something wasn’t right. The door was slightly ajar. His sense of danger was highly tuned and it kicked into high gear on seeing the door unlocked. Lenny, the dope, wouldn’t sense danger if a guy stuck a stunner in his ear—he pushed the door open and grinned as if it meant their luck was in. Willie hesitated to follow as Lenny entered, but this was his job. He had to follow through. He pushed into the darkened apartment then on into the sitting room. He fumbled for the light switch, but couldn’t find it. He stepped further into the room and his footsteps rustled. He looked down to find himself standing on a plastic drop cloth. The kind you used when painting the ceiling or something. Was the old biddy having some work done, was she even here?
“Mrs Marchant? Its Willie and Len… you invited us for tea. Are you there?” He peered into the darkness and his eyes slowly adjusted. The shadow sitting upon the settee didn’t respond. “Mrs Marchant?”
“Ellen is sleeping,” a voice out of the darkness hissed.
Willie gasped and spun to his left. A pair of eyes were revealed by a ray of light leaking into the room through the part drawn drapes. The voice was definitely that of a man, but the eyes reflected the light oddly. They almost seemed to burn red.
Lenny fumbled in his jacket pocket for his boomer. Willie cursed himself for a fool, but before he could pull his own weapon, Lenny collapsed bonelessly to the floor, hit from behind. Before Willie could react, powerful arms encircled him. With one hand trapped in his jacket pocket and the other down by his side, he could do nothing but curse and struggle.
“Thank you, Frank,” the voice said again.
“You want me to take care of him for you, Mister Lochlin? I can’t leave the desk too long.”
“No, we can’t have the lobby unattended at night. Hold him for just a moment.”
“Yes sir.”
Willie shook with fear. “Let me go man. I won’t say nothing about Lenny. You can have him; you can do what you want to him. He’s nothing to me. I swear I’ll go and you’ll never see me again. I swear it!”
“I’ll not be seeing you again in any case,” Lochlin said as he stepped closer. “You really shouldn’t have come here. Ellen likes you, and that means I had to do something I would rather not have done. I broke a promise to myself and violated her trust because of you. You have no idea how angry that makes me.”
“But he will,” Frank said.
“Oh yes, yes indeed,” Lochlin said and came forward in a rush, fangs already out and his eyes blazing red with his fury.
Willie began screaming.
12
Slick Willie
It was a cool but bright morning in the city. The sidewalks were busy with shoppers and people hurrying to work, but traffic had yet to reach its peak. Chris smiled her approval and drove fast.
She beat a tattoo on the steering wheel and sang along happily to a song she’d heard that morning on the radio. “Hmmm, Hmmm…”
Her partner of four years, John Warner, was quiet but that was okay. They had been together long enough to be comfortable with each other’s silences—
“Why don’t you put a sock in it?” John growled irritably.
—and bad moods, she grinned and drove faster. She swerved around a car pulling out of a side turning, and with tyres squealing, she floored it. The car surged ahead.
“And slow down for the goddess’ sake!” John yelled clutching the oh-shit handle on his side of the roof. “They can’t get away, Chris, they’re already dead. Remember?”
“Yeah, but it’s so much fun. I love this job!” she said and laughed at his growls. When John drove, he almost always put the car on autopilot, but she rarely did. She was a control freak and knew that about herself. It was one of her best qualities. “I have a need for speed!”
John grinned for a moment but then got serious. “Yeah, but you’re going to get that pretty butt of yours in a sling if Stokes hears.”
She sighed and slowed down. Stokes was her captain and he didn’t like her idea of fun. She got along with most people in her department, she even got along with Cappy most days, but he could be a pain about certain things. Things like speeding to a scene, or damaging public property, or pressuring a suspect. He was the perfect captain, always ready to protect his people against outsiders, but at the same time, he would be reaming her over the methods she used to take down the bad guys.
“I’ll be good.”
John looked at her sideways. “Really?”
“Yeah,” she said and grinned. “Scout’s honour!”
John sighed. “What’s with all the uniforms?” he said nodding at the street up ahead. The street was jammed with people. Cops and newsies didn’t mix well usually, but here they were, one big happy family.
Chris manoeuvred as far as she could into the chaos of cars and vans before parking. Hundreds of onlookers were trying to see the poor devils that had been stupid enough to walk through an alley in Monster Central without a stunner in each fist. They climbed out of the car and looked around.
“It’s a real zoo down here,” she said looking at all the reporters clamouring for a look-see at the city’s latest morbid offering. “They make me want to hit something.”
“You told Cappy you’d cut down on that sort of thing,” John warned.
She shrugged checking that her badge was in place on her belt. Her police issue stunner in its holster rode the opposite hip, while her backup pressed into the small of her back; it was reassuring but illegal as hell. “I did and I am, but I haven’t hit anything for over a week now. It’s getting to me.”
The uniforms were holding the line against the media, but unfortunately keeping the reporters back from the alley didn’t stop them from reporting their bullshit. Their remote cameras, rotors buzzing like dentist drills were in the air over the scene recording everything in its gory detail. She heard the same old recycled and generic news spewing from the reporter’s lips as she swept by. Channel 5 was doing its worst to trash the department as usual. How many times had she heard the like? Hundreds. Of course, they had no choice as yet. Later the stories would flesh out with names of the victims, and speculation on how, why, and when the murders had occurred as the department slowly released details. It was always the same.
She ignored the shouted questions just as she ignored the cameras overhead, hovering on their blurring rotors. Why ask her what was going on anyway, she thought grumpily. Couldn’t they see that she had just arrived? Of course they could, the cameras were capturing video of her arrival right now and feeding it to the editors in the vans. No doubt, she would catch sight of herself on screen later.
John put on the headset they shared—it was his turn—but he didn’t activate it. “What about the coffee machine you killed the other day?”
“That doesn’t count, it had it coming trying to stiff me like that,” she said absently as she flashed her badge at the uniforms guarding the entrance to the alley. She ducked under the tape with John at her side and made her way to where the action was. The severed head was the first thing that caught her attention. She crouched down to examine it better. John indicated he was going to have a look at the other corpse, turning on the headset to record the scene as he walked.
“I’ll stay with this one,” she said to his back.
The head had a face she remembered. Four years ago, she had been in uniform assigned to twelfth precinct, which included 104th street and the scum who owned it.
“Well, well, well. Fancy meeting you here, Willie,” Chris said conversationally to the head. “How’s it going?”
Someone coughed nearby covering laughter. She looked up to
see a faintly sick looking young man in uniform, but behind him was another face she knew.
“I think ol’ Slick Willie slipped on the sidewalk de-tec-tive,” Sergeant Jacob Baines drawled.
Slick Willie was, or had been anyway, Willie Danvers’ nickname on the streets. Back in the day, she had known him as a small-time thief—picking pockets was his main gig, but even then he had diversified from time to time. She wondered what he had been into lately, and whether it was big enough to lose his head over.
She stood to confront the sergeant. “Well shit, Baines, why didn’t I think of that? Oh yeah! Now I remember, his head came off!”
Baines grinned. “I heard he was shaving at the time.”
She laughed and continued their game. “Yeah? Witnesses?”
“Give me a minute and I’ll find you a couple of dozen.”
She laughed again. He probably could too. Willie was scum, and like all scum, he had plenty of people who hated his guts. Or rather, he used to have. Now he was less than scum. He was dead scum.
She stepped over the head and shook hands with her old sergeant. “How are you Jacob?” she asked looking up at him where he towered over her and his huge gut.
“I’m doing real good,” he wheezed and shook her hand.
He was an enormous mountain of a man. He had been her trainer and inspiration at one time—her obsidian giant; not literally a giant. He was human enough and swore there were no giants in his ancestry. She still wasn’t sure about that.
“Glad to hear that, Jacob. Who is your friend?”
“Let me introduce a new soldier in our fight against the bad guys. Patrolman Kevin Goodchilde, this is one of my old apprentices, Detective Chris Humber.”
“Nice to meet you, ma’am,” the patrolman said and shook her hand.
Chris liked him straight away, the way you couldn’t help liking a puppy. “Same here,” she said and turned her attention back to Baines. “Who’s the other stiff?”
