by C. Gockel
“Did you get in touch with Doug about that matter we discussed?”
Nancy nodded. “No word back from him yet.”
“Okay. Is there any chance of getting to Humber tonight?”
“None. Not tonight and maybe never. She flat lined a couple of times already.”
He grimaced, another casualty in a never ending war. “Did she say anything when they brought her in?”
“Nothing that helps us. She was raving when they brought her in. You know the kind of thing. O’Neal bit her—almost ripped her throat beyond repair. Just a fraction deeper and she would have bled out at the scene. As it is, if she makes it out of surgery, she’ll have a scar on her neck to match yours.”
He winced and rubbed his shoulder in sympathetic pain. “They won’t believe anything she says while in that state. Believe me. I know what she’s going through.”
“You better hope they don’t,” Nancy warned. “We both know this isn’t just another vamp attack, Jack.”
“They won’t,” he said and frowned in thought. “Okay, there’s nothing we can do here right now. Tell Tuck to keep an eye on things here. Where is he anyway?”
“Having a smoke outside.”
“I didn’t see him. Tell him to watch and interview Humber if that becomes possible, and then you meet me at the car. I’m parked opposite the main entrance.”
“Where are we going?”
“The morgue.”
“You really know how to show a girl a good time.”
“So my ex-wives keep telling me. Five minutes,” he said and watched as she went to find her partner.
“Barrows,” Baxter growled as he left his post at the door. “I want to talk to you.”
Barrows began walking. “Sorry, no time to chat.”
Baxter’s hand shot out and grabbed his shoulder to spin him around. He went with the motion and turned it to his advantage. He grasped Baxter’s hand, twisted it into a wrist-lock, and then followed it by putting the arm into an elbow lock behind Baxter’s back before slamming him face first into the wall. It was instinctive on his part. He had been extensively trained in hand-to-hand combat when he joined OSI. The entire fight, if it could be called that, had taken a matter of seconds.
“Let go of me,” Baxter hissed in pain.
“Not until you calm down.”
“It’s your fault that Chris is lying in there dying.”
He let the arm go and shoved Baxter away. “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. My fault, how is it my fault?”
Baxter worked his arm free of pain and glared. “You know more than you’re saying about O’Neal, and you knew it before all this went down. There’s something weird about this whole thing. I told Chris back then that we were dealing with something stranger than a vamp serial killer.”
Barrows gave Baxter blank face and said, “I was told O’Neal is dead.”
“He is, but we didn’t kill him. Another guy chopped the evil bastard’s head off, and I bet you know who don’t you?”
He kept his silence on that one, and tried to keep all expression off his face, but polite interest wasn’t cutting it apparently. Baxter’s face darkened.
“Yeah, I figured as much.” Baxter said in disgust. “You’re as much responsible for Chris’ condition as O’Neal is. You knew what she was up against and you did nothing.”
“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”
“Don’t try shovelling your bullshit in my direction. I’ve dealt with your kind longer than you’ve been alive—”
Barrows grinned; that was a slight exaggeration. He would judge that they were of an age with each other.
“—damned feds think they’re better than the rest of us. You and your people should be locked up as accomplices to murder!”
“Are you finished? I have places to be and I don’t have time for your hysterics.”
“I want to know what the hell is going on. Who was the guy with the sword and why did he kill O’Neal?”
“I don’t know,” he said, but he did. Or he suspected he did at any rate. Offing O’Neal to cover his tracks was an obvious thing for Arcadian to do. Why he had left it so late though was a question. Arcadian had screwed up leaving the body behind. If he had acted sooner, he could have made him disappear with none the wiser, so why hadn’t he? “I really don’t know,” he said again, but the answer was to his own internal question not Baxter’s.
“You know,” Baxter growled. “I know you do. I don’t care why you’re hiding what you’re hiding, Barrows. I swear I’m going to find out what it is. The guys think we missed the other vamp, but I know we didn’t miss. I know it. We emptied our boomers into him—silver hollow points, Barrows, not stunners. We used enough silver to take down ten vamps not one, but he ignored us like we were nothing but an irritation. Just so you know what you’re dealing with I’ll tell you something: I never miss.”
He wasn’t oblivious to the veiled threat, but ignored it. “So you’re a good shot. So what?”
“So I hit O’Neal’s killer three of four times for sure. No ifs, buts, or maybes. Three silver rounds from my gun hit him square and he kept going. The others aren’t as good as I am, but they hit him as well. I’m sure of it.”
Barrows tried to school his expression but knew he had failed when Baxter’s eyes narrowed. He looked away, then at his wristband again, and then back to Baxter trying to think what to do. It had to have been Arcadian. That much silver? It had to have been him. Only a really old vamp could have kept going.
“You’re not surprised are you?” Baxter said.
“Listen to me. Don’t tell anyone what you think you know, don’t discuss it, don’t ask questions, don’t dig… for your own safety, don’t dig. You have no idea how dangerous these people are and it’s not just them. If certain powerful people were to find out—”
“Don’t threaten me,” Baxter growled.
“I’m not. I’m warning you. You don’t know how seriously these people take this. They won’t care who you are. They would kill me or anyone for breaking secrecy on this.”
Baxter dismissed him and walked away.
“Baxter… shit,” Barrows growled and stalked outside to find Nancy waiting by the car. “Get in, it’s not locked!”
Nancy climbed in. “What did I do?”
“Nothing,” he snarled and tramped his foot on the accelerator. The car burned rubber out of the parking lot and onto the road. Cars beeped horns and veered aside. “Sorry. I’m just in a bad mood.”
“I noticed that. Still nothing from Doug?”
“No.”
“Maybe he couldn’t get the authorisation.”
“No. If he hadn’t got it he would have called to tell me. Try him again.”
Nancy pulled out her link and used the autodial. She listed for a few minutes and shook her head. “No answer.”
“He switched it off?”
“No, it’s ringing. He just doesn’t answer.”
“I don’t like that.”
“He’s probably just busy. O’Neal is dead. His head was between his feet on the gurney when they took him away. He isn’t going anywhere. Doug will be okay.”
“That’s not what I’m worried about. Baxter told me what happened. They filled O’Neal’s killer with silver and it didn’t slow him down. I think it was Arcadian himself.”
Nancy was quiet for a moment. “Drive faster,” she said checking her weapon.
He floored it.
“How do you want to play it?” Nancy said. She had her back to the wall next to the main entrance of the morgue and was peeking around the corner and through the glass doors at the body of the security guard lying behind his desk.
Barrows crouched to make himself a smaller target and pushed the door. It opened easily. “Cover me. I’m going for the desk.”
“Whenever you’re ready.”
He slid forward between the doors. He stilled trying to listen. The foyer was silent and empty of peo
ple except for the possibly dead guard. He glanced up at Nancy and she nodded that she was ready. He took a deep breath and bolted at top speed for the security desk. He watched the corridor leading off the foyer for a moment then checked the guard for a pulse. He found one. It was strong and steady. There was a strong smell of ozone in the air. Someone had stunned him at close range and not long ago either. He waved and Nancy hurried to join him while he covered the corridor.
“He’s unconscious, stunner blast to the throat.”
“Could have killed him.”
He nodded. Stunners could kill even when not set for that if they hit the wrong spot.
Nancy scooted to the end of the desk and peered along the corridor toward the elevator. “Nothing. Doug must be downstairs. We should call the others in. We might need the help. If something happens and they don’t know where we are…”
“You’re right. Call Tuck. Tell him what’s going down.”
Nancy nodded and pulled out her link. While she was doing that, he decided to position himself nearer to the elevators. Nancy was probably right about Doug. The labs and operating theatres were below ground. If Doug had succeeded in getting the authorisation, he would be down there overseeing the removal of O’Neal’s body from storage.
He watched the indicator above the elevator carefully, but it was the stairway he was thinking about. There was no way he was getting into the tight confines of the elevator when there was a chance that Arcadian was in the building.
“They’re on the way.”
He nodded. “Screw the elevator. We’re going down the stairway.”
“Fuckin-A,” Nancy said with feeling.
He led the way. He felt an urgent need to find Doug, but he knew from hard experience that you don’t rush into danger. Getting shot or worse before he reached him wouldn’t help anyone. Two flights down a notice on the door proclaimed that they were in the right place. He opened the door just a crack. What he saw made him dive through without thought for the consequences, as if he hadn’t just been cautioning himself not do exactly that. Nancy’s gasp of surprise behind him made him check his steps abruptly, but he was already out in the open by then. If there had been someone with a weapon, he would have died right there in the morgue. Convenient. As it was, the only persons present were Doug and another guard lying upon the floor. Both were unconscious just like the guard upstairs. Good news, but odd. Arcadian invariably killed adversaries.
“Check the offices on the right. I’ll take left.”
Nancy nodded, but five minutes of checking proved the offices were vacant. Barrows went back to check on Doug. He was groaning and slowly coming around.
“What happened?”
Doug squinted and felt the back of his head. “Don’t know… there were two of them. EMTs. They had a body bag to log in. One of them sprayed me in the face with something.”
“They’ve got to be through there,” Nancy said nodding at the last door. It was the cadaver storage area.
He eased the door open in time to see someone leaving via the fire exit. “FBI! Stop where you are!”
“That never works,” Nancy muttered as they piled through the door and across the room in time to have the door slammed in their faces. “Damn! He jammed it shut with something!”
Barrows ran back the way they’d come shouting over his shoulder. “Look after Doug!”
He sped up the stairs and made his gasping way outside, but by the time he ran around the side of the building to the loading ramp, they were gone. Bent double gasping for breath, he wondered what the hell was going on in this city.
Angel pulled off her ski mask and shook out her hair. “Good job,” she said to her crew in the back. She grinned, coming down from her adrenaline high. “Damn, we’re good!”
“Where to?” Ash said, watching his mirrors for pursuit.
Flex moved forward from his position at the rear doors and poked his head over Ash’s shoulder. “Keep your speed down, man. I ain’t explaining to no damned traffic cop why I’ve got a headless corpse in the back.”
Ash slowed the van to just below the speed limit. “No tail,” he said as answer, but hung a left at the next intersection, and then a right a little further on. “Where are we going?”
“Hold on and I’ll tell you. Just chill and drive nice,” Angel said and used her link to call Spence. It rang three times before he picked up. “It’s done.”
“Any problems?”
“Nothing we couldn’t handle. Put him on?”
“He’s in the back covering the windows. I’ll get him,” Spence said and Angel listened as he took the link to Gavin.
“Angelina?”
“Mister Gavin, I have the corpse for you. Where do you want it delivered?”
“You have it?” Gavin said in disbelief, and Angel grinned imagining him counting to ten. “You risked yourself to get the body?”
“Not much of a risk, it was easy.”
Gavin snorted. “I’m sure. Take it to Stephen at Lost Souls, do you know it?”
“Sure I know it. I don’t think he’ll like me dragging a body bag through his doors though.”
“Don’t concern yourself with that. I’ll call him now and tell him to have someone meet you.”
Angel turned to Ash, “Lost Souls,” she said and Ash nodded already looking for the right road. “Okay Mister Gavin, we’re on the way there.”
“Good, and Angelina?”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you,” he said and broke the connection.
Angelina smiled and put away her link.
Part II
20
The Underground
David would never have believed that living among so many strangers, and underground at that, would feel comforting. Underground! But it did, it really did. His life had changed beyond all recognition and he regretted his losses—he still missed working in medicine, but the feeling of community here at Lost Souls was a compensation he had never expected to feel.
He inserted a finger in his book and glanced around the barracks, but didn’t rise. He had a few minutes yet before he needed to dress for work, and it was relaxing just lying on his bed reading an old leather bound text instead of paging through the electronic version. He thought of the dorm room as a barracks because what else were they really—all the shifters living here—than Stephen’s personal army? They certainly acted as if the vampire was their General. Even he said how high when the vampires said jump, but it was a little different for him, or he felt it was in any case. Maybe he was fooling himself. Who knew? Everyone working for Stephen might feel as he did and just be putting on a show of subservience, but he didn’t think so.
Since the night he first changed, his abilities and senses had grown in leaps and bounds. Mist was responsible for that. The wolf was very good at sensing things around them and articulating what it all meant to him. The more David read about shifters and non-humans, the longer he was exposed to them, the better he felt he understood and was better able to cope with his duality. Mist was like a real person to him, not just another facet of his own personality. Books he had read disputed that point of view, insisting that shifter madness was literally that—a form of mania. He was no psychologist, but he knew that he wasn’t mad. Shifter craziness wasn’t a medical condition; he was certain of it. They were just different, that was all. The authors failed to realise that their own bias, their own very understandable but wrong human point of view, was skewing their understanding. It was like a marine biologist insisting he knew what a jellyfish was thinking and feeling. Not possible; they were too different.
What humans failed to understand deep down was that shifters weren’t human. Oh, they professed to know that monsters were monsters, and they certainly discriminated against anyone not like themselves with gleeful abandon, but then they about-faced and were all indignant and horrified when elves, dwarves—and yes, shifters and vamps—acted like themselves and not like decent humans! Ridiculous double standard. Either they
were not human and shouldn’t be held to human standards of behaviour, or they should have the same rights as humans and then be expected to adhere to human obligations and standards. They couldn’t have it both ways.
He turned his attention back to his book. It was called Children of the Gods and attempted to explain how and why shifters were blessed with the ability to shift their shape. It went on to document each of the known types, which had been interesting, but for all of that it was the biggest load of hogwash he had ever read. It was full of mystical bullshit. The appendix was good, the types of shifter and their abilities also, but the explanation for those abilities? Laughable!
Why are you angry?
In his mind, David saw a wolf lying within the entrance of a cave—a cave that only existed in his mind. Mist’s golden eyes stared at him, and his tail beat an uneven and irritated tattoo on the ground.
“I’m not angry,” he said, trying to put his feelings into words for both of them. “I’m frustrated. It’s just people’s ignorance that makes me like this. They just don’t understand.”
Manthings have never understood us.
“By that you mean shifters,” he said but felt Mist’s rejection of that. “What then?”
Manthings do not like us; they hunt us for no reason.
“You mean wolves then. Do you have memories of a time before we were joined?”
I remember.
“What do you remember?”
Mist rolled onto his back kicking his legs playfully in the air. He smiled to see it. He could see him so clearly in his mind. The wolf was radiating happiness and his mood lightened under the influence.
I remember running across the snow. A storm is coming. The mountains call me home, but the pack is in need. I hunt to feed the pack and my cubs. I remember blood scent on the wind. There are manthings close and they have fire—fire is dangerous. They do not see me, but I see them clearly.
He saw it all as Mist spoke. The men wore furs and sat huddled around a small campfire. They were primitives. They had darkly bearded faces and carried bows not guns. To one side he could see shaggy ponies with their heads down trying to shield their eyes from the wind.
