by C. Gockel
Chris pulled her badge out and put it on the table between them in silence. Angel made a show of inspecting it closely. She shoved it this way and that with an extended finger before looking up and into Chris’ eyes.
“Shiny, can’t see the blood on it or anything.”
Chris flinched.
Baxter slammed his hand down on the table making Angel jump. “That’s enough,” he said in a hard voice.
Chris grabbed his arm. “Dave don’t, it’s okay.”
“To the hells with that that, it’s not okay. Where does this little whore—”
“Way to go sugar mouth,” Angel sneered.
“—get off talking to you that way?” Baxter turned and his hand shot out to grab Angel’s collar. He yanked her across the table and pressed her cheek into the wood. “Listen to me, and listen close,” he growled through his teeth. “For some reason Chris thinks she owes you something—”
“Dave don’t!” Chris said pulling on his arm but he didn’t let go.
“—but I don’t owe you a damn thing. If you ever, I mean EVER speak to her like that in front of me again, I’ll splash that arrogant shit-eating grin of yours over the nearest wall. Do you hear me? Well do you?”
“Yes,” Angel hissed. Baxter shoved her face hard into the table for a second then let her up. Angel’s eyes glittered at him for a long silent moment but then she raised her glass and drank a mouthful of beer as if nothing had happened. “Big bad cop.”
This time Chris caught Baxter’s hand before he could move. “Not this time, Dave. If you can’t control it you can wait outside in the car.”
Baxter shrugged her off. “Yeah, whatever,” he said but he didn’t get up. He sat back to listen.
Chris eyed him for a long moment then turned her attention to Angel. “I didn’t come here to fight. Danny was a long time ago. I’m sorry he’s dead, I’m sorry I killed him, but you of all people know why he was there. He was trying to be like you, but he wasn’t like you was he? He wasn’t tough enough to walk away from his friends when he knew they were getting in over their heads. I pulled the trigger, I had no choice, but we killed him. It took both of us screwing up to kill him.”
Angel shoved her glass away. “Tell me what you want or get out.”
Chris retrieved her badge and put it away. She opened the folder, pulled out the photograph of O’Neal, and slid it across the table. Angel glanced down at it and froze. She covered it by taking another drink, but Chris noticed all the same. She tapped a finger on the picture.
“I want him.”
“Yeah? What’s it got to do with me?”
“You know people.”
“I don’t know him.”
That was a lie. Chris pulled out the artist sketch and slid it beside the photograph in silence. She sat back to watch Angel’s reaction.
Angel’s eyes widened. “No fucking way!”
“It’s him, Angel.”
“It can’t be! He looks nothing like the Ghost; even you can see that. Look at these pictures. They’re nothing alike!”
“Look closer. Look at the eyes, the nose.”
“But I know this guy,” Angel protested pointing to the photo. “He’s just a bum. He’s a nice old man, a little soft in the head maybe, but he wouldn’t hurt a fly! Look, he pushes a cart up and down the alleys picking up crap looking for something worth trading. He owns nothing right? Nothing at all, but half the time he gives what he finds away! Does that sound like a crazy killer to you?”
“You would be surprised,” Baxter said.
“Yeah I would be, very surprised! Old John ain’t your Ghost. No way in hell!”
Chris faltered at Angel’s certainty, but Baxter was firm in his belief. He took the folder out of her hands and opened it to give Angel a page of notes. “Read it,” he said in a hard voice.
Angel scowled but she angled the page into the meagre light and read silently. When she was finished, she handed the page back to him. “So he tried to kill his kid, so what?”
“So she was only three years old at the time.”
Angel shrugged. “It don’t mean nothing, happens all the time.”
“Whether you believe it or not,” Chris said. “John O’Neal is more than capable of murder. He is the Ghost, but even that doesn’t matter. What does is that I want to find him and you are going to help.”
“Why should I?”
“I could say you’ll do it for old time’s sake, but I don’t think that will work. How about this: you’ll do it, or I’ll make your every waking moment a living hell—and all your friends’ lives hell—if you don’t. How’s that?”
Angel’s eyes were calculating and hard. “Still think you’re a bad arse I see.”
“You of all people know that when I say something I mean it.”
“Yeah, I remember that about you,” Angel looked at the pictures on the table for a long moment and her lips thinned into a grim line. She looked up into Chris’ eyes coldly. “You got a pen?”
Baxter rolled one across the table.
Angel turned the sketch over and wrote out three names and addresses. “I’m not sure about this last address. I haven’t seen Leila in a while. She usually works 104th Street like the others, but sometimes she goes to Vermont for variety. She might be hanging out over there.”
“What are these?” Chris said taking the sheet and reading the list.
“Whores. John is friends with nearly everyone around here. The crazy old geezer would give you the shirt off his back if you asked him, not that anyone would. He reeked to high heaven. I told you, he’s harmless.”
“Why these particular names?”
Angel shrugged. “Like I said, he was friendly with nearly everyone. Nearly, get it?”
Chris’s eyes brightened. “He didn’t get along with these three?”
“I don’t know why, but they didn’t hit it off.”
Baxter took the sheet from Chris. “Not blond are they?” he said offhandedly and Chris shot him a look.
Angel frowned. “Yeah they are, why?”
“O’Neal’s wife is blond and he tried to kill her. Maybe he started calling them Carol or something… what?”
Angel’s jaw was hanging open in surprise. “He used to call a lot of the hookers Carol. They used to laugh about it; he never could keep their names straight.”
“Listen, this is really important. Lives depend on it. Do you know if John got along well with Patsy Jordan?”
Angel snorted. “Crack House Patsy? Get real. She used to tease him so bad he would run away and hide.”
“And what about Sheryl Adams or Jenny Lovett?”
“I don’t know about Sheryl, but Jen set the cops on him once. She said he molested her. As if you can molest a hooker right?” Angel sneered at the thought. “That’s what they’re for.”
Baxter scowled and would have argued but Chris was putting two and two together and coming up with the mother lode.
“Calm down, we have to check out these names,” Baxter advised. “Don’t jump to conclusions.”
“Conclusions nothing! We were looking in the wrong damn place! From day one, we’ve been looking for something to link the victims together—a customer they all had in common, but it was never about sex. It was simply about revenge.”
“Revenge? You think old John killed them because they teased him?” Angel said in disbelief.
“There are stranger motives for murder than teasing, kid,” Baxter said grimly. “I had a guy once that killed a woman because she cut in front of him and stole his parking space.”
“Revenge,” Chris mused. “Revenge for teasing him, revenge against his wife for not having an abortion, revenge against an imperfect kid that he wanted to love but couldn’t. He chose the hookers because they teased and humiliated him. They only superficially looked like Carol, and he used to call them Carol right?”
“Yeah he did,” Angel said. “You think he’s going after Kim and the other two?”
“That’s ex
actly what I think and I hope he does because I’ll be there.” Chris shoved her seat back hard in her haste to rise. “We have to get these women into protective custody.”
“Can you think of any others John didn’t like?” Baxter said gathering up the papers from the table and slipping them into the file he still held.
“No, but it doesn’t mean there weren’t more. Unlike you, Baxter, I don’t spend all my time watching hookers.”
Baxter scowled.
“It doesn’t matter,” Chris said. “Now we know the right questions, we’ll ask Kim and her friends about it. Let’s go.”
They hurried out of the club and didn’t see Angel’s gleaming eyes. Nor did they see the cold hard smile that had turned her features into something ugly. Once outside, they hurried to the car. Chris accelerated away from the curb as if the car had booster rockets. Baxter pointed out the quickest route and she swerved into a turn cutting in front of a truck in her haste. Baxter said nothing. He might be new on the task force, but he was as excited by their discovery as she was.
Five-Alison-Twenty-Three, Five-Alison-Twenty-Three.
Baxter reached for the microphone. “Dispatch, Five-Alison-Twenty-Three receiving.”
Five-Alison-Twenty-Three, standby for a live patch to Five-Charlie-One-Niner.
“Standing by.”
“Chris?” Raz said.
“She’s listening, Raz,” Baxter said.
“Where the hell have you been? I’ve been trying to get in touch for almost twenty minutes.”
“Working. What’s up?”
“We’ve got another one. Definitely our guy.”
Chris hammered on the steering wheel. “Goddess no! Who is she?”
Baxter keyed the microphone. “Who is she Raz?”
“Another hooker. Her landlord says her name was Leila Newell. It’s bad here Raz, just like Jenny Lovett.”
Chris almost crashed the car when she heard the name. Leila Newell was on Angel’s list of possible targets. Leila was the one she hadn’t been certain of. Well it was more than certain now. She was dead. They hadn’t put it together fast enough! If only she had brought Baxter in sooner, Leila might still be alive.
Baxter could read her like a book. “It isn’t your fault.”
“Yeah.”
“I was just lucky with the razor,” Baxter pointed out.
“Yeah, I know.”
“Hey Baxter! You still there?” Raz said. “I don’t know Matt… they just dropped off the air. Hello, any one there?”
“We’re still here. Listen Raz, Leila Newell is one of three women we just identified as possible targets. We need to find the other two fast and put ’em away somewhere safe—”
“Get their location,” Chris said.
“Chris wants to come over there. Give us your location.”
Chris drove fast, thinking grimly about John O’Neal and what she was going to do to him when they met. She listened only absently to Baxter’s questioning of Raz and Matt. Her eyes narrowed as an idea came to her and she nodded to herself. It wouldn’t take much to convince Cappy, not after he heard about Leila. All she would need was the right clothes and a wig, maybe some makeup to go with it. She already had the authority to requisition anything else she needed. She smiled grimly. John O’Neal was one dead sonofabitch. He just didn’t know it yet.
15
The Ecstasy of Blood
Gavin snapped awake, and the dream faded. The bedroom was dark and silent as expected, but it hadn’t been a noise that woke him. The sun, the ever present guardian of the day, had slipped below the horizon releasing him and his kind from its tyranny. He sat up and his senses reached beyond the room, the corridor, the building and he was satisfied that all was well. His people, his neighbours in the other apartments, were safe and happy. They were watching the vid in most cases. He could feel the soporific effect the shows had on them in the slow pulsing of their heart’s blood.
He cocked his head and smiled as he felt the newlywed couple in the apartment at the end of the hall consummate their love once again. He breathed in the energy they exuded and felt revitalised—their love was strong. William was a lucky man. Marcia was very beautiful and very much in love with him. Marcia and William were friends as neighbours were, not close, but friendly. Marcia liked him. She smiled when she spoke with him, but that’s all it was. He knew the difference. He could feel it as he could feel the air on his skin. There was no one but William for her—as it should be.
He rose from his hard bed and padded into the bathroom for a shower. The cold water pummelled him and washed away the dreams that seemed increasingly to come upon him as the years rolled by.
Six hundred years and more. Where did the time go?
Garvan Lochlain had been his name once, but now he was Gavin Lochlin. Not much of an alias as such things go, but then no one still living knew his real name, so why worry? He smiled and shampooed his hair. When he was done with his ablutions, he dressed in good quality slacks and caramel coloured polo-neck sweater. He smoothed the wool over his chest. He liked the feel of it. A friend had told him long ago that the colour suited his complexion. Neckties were a bane to him as cravats had been before them. He much preferred casual dress. Though he did miss the courtesy of those long ago days, he would never miss their styles.
He snorted at his musings. This was what came of having nothing to do. Musing on the significance of no longer wearing neckties—by the Gods, how had he fallen so low?
“Stupid question,” he muttered in irritation.
He well knew why he was here, who had betrayed him to make it happen, and why he did it.
“For love of you...”
Gavin spun, but he knew there would be no one there. Charles was long gone to dust and cobwebs. He was alive now, only in his memories.
“For love of me, my old friend?” Gavin sighed as he opened the balcony windows and stepped out. “If he had truly loved me, he would have let me die.”
The air was foul with the pollution he had come to accept over the years, though the elves had considerably improved matters with the introduction of hydrox over gasoline, it would take many years yet for the atmosphere to recover fully. Pollution or not, it refreshed him. Air of any description was a luxury few corpses could indulge in, and he was, undeniably, a corpse. Six hundred years dead. Six hundred years of yearning for what was lost. How many more before the long sleep took him?
He stepped out upon the balcony to survey the city. The sound of sirens floated up to him as a patrol car sped to the scene of some crime. He sniffed the air. He smelled smoke on the wind. Perhaps it was speeding to join the fire truck that was even now making its way through traffic. A dog barked in the darkness, and another answered him. He smiled as a memory surfaced of a young carefree lord riding on the hunt with his faithful hounds. That was long ago—before the curse and before his exile to Earth.
A scream made him tense, but it was nothing—just a group of street toughs fooling around. His eyes narrowed as they came toward his building. They stopped opposite the lobby doors, and he wondered if they would dare enter his House, but no, they moved on. He watched them go feeling faintly disgusted but disappointed too. He would have enjoyed removing them from this life. He knew their kind well. Brigands were brigands no matter what world he found himself in. On Tahir—his birth world—such men as they appeared to be would be robbers lurking along the border. Perhaps if they were brave, they might haunt a lonely stretch of highroad. Whatever their choice, he would have dealt with them as they deserved, but not here where someone might see. Brigands had more rights than honest citizens here.
This world was heading into a new dark age, and no one cared. Everyone looked to his or her own gratification, and never looked to the wider world. Living so long showed him clearly how society had declined as its dependence upon magic and technology grew ever greater. He could see nothing good coming of the trend. Despite the miracles he witnessed daily, the people were not satisfied. They wanted mo
re, ever more.
He had lived in England just as that tiny island kingdom became the centre of the Old World. The War of Races had still been fresh in living memory when he stepped out of the portal onto this world. The European Empire of Great Britain and Germany had been so new back then, it had still been finding its feet and trying to integrate the elves into its royal houses and government. The chaos years they were called now. He was glad he had left. Though the journey had been the worst period in his long life, staying would have been worse. Sea travel… he shuddered at the memory. It was like drowning forever without getting wet. Without Charles, he would never have survived the trip. He would never go back, never.
Gavin surveyed his city letting the lives that populated it flow through him. The air was chill and damp on his skin. The rain had left the streets shiny and wet. It had been on a night just like this that he had met Angelina and her friends. He wondered what mischief she was getting into right now. There would be something he was sure.
He smiled as he remembered the tough little witch woman dressed in tight leather pants and worn jacket who had tried to rob him. It had been something of a surprise to both of them when instead of killing her he had spared her life. They had been friends ever since. Angelina reminded him of another woman he had known once in a better time and place. She had been betrothed to his brother and would have married him if not for the events that followed. If his memory was not lying to him, they looked alike as twins, but their manner was anything but alike. Angelina was a tough little street thief. Isabella had been a wallflower in comparison. Beautiful and charming though Isabella could be, he preferred Angelina’s directness. Less subtle though she was, the little witch was no less lovely in her way.
He leaned upon the iron railing listening to the traffic and sampling the pulse of the city as best he was able. He needed to feed and his senses were depressed. He sensed millions of people going about their lives. Some were working, some sleeping. Some were dancing in the clubs, while others made frenzied love trying to fill their humdrum lives with a little pleasure before the dawn came again. He sensed another revenant, and tensed, but the man was far away and receding from him faster now that he’d been detected. The interloper knew he was the weaker. Gavin stroked that presence with his power, caressing it like a jewel in his head, and estimated he was easily three hundred years stronger—at the least three hundred.
