by Declan Finn
Amanda pushed a strand of hair behind her ear. “Why did you ask if I was old?”
“I've killed my fair share of vampires. I can hear most of the less experienced ones. You have to be one of the older ones,” he muttered. “What are you doing here, anyway?”
Amanda looked over her shoulder, down at street level. “Same reason you are: Marco.”
“Hmm.” The ninja-sniper looked up from the scope so he could get a broader look at the street. “You know, for someone who's only a teenager, he's amazingly focused.”
“So, you followed him?”
“Rodgers heard about the death of someone named Lily Sparks. He was under the impression that Herr Catalano might do something…rash, I believe was the term So, what exactly does Marco think he's doing?”
“Did you ever see the movie M?”
The ninja swept the street once through his telescopic site. After a second sweep, he said, “A long time ago. German film, Fritz Lang, I think. Peter Lorre as a child molester and killer. To catch him, the police leaned on organized crime so that they, in essence, did most of the legwork, and hunted down the killer themselves.” The sniper drifted off, then looked up from the scope. “You're kidding? Please tell me you're kidding.”
She shook her head. “Nope. Marco believes that having the vampires not involved in the killing spree in Brooklyn do our work for us would be an asset. At least they would not consider giving shelter to the evil ones.”
“We hope.” He went back to his scope, and fell into silence.
After a few minutes, when Amanda heard his heartbeat slow down so much, she thought he might have been asleep, he asked, “So, what is it with you and Catalano?”
The vampire nearly fell off the roof. She caught herself so fast, the ninja-sniper didn't notice, but it was still a near thing. “What about us? We are just friends.”
The ninja-sniper stopped his sweep and spared her a long look. “He has more restraint that I thought he would.”
Amanda's eyes widened. “What do you mean? He told me that, before he even knew about my vampirism.”
“Is he gay?”
“No. You shouldn't automatically assume; sex does not need to come into it.”
“No, it doesn't. But you're saying he hasn’t even tried?” The ninja-sniper went back to his scope. “Either he knew what you were ahead of time, or he has a personal history I don't want to imagine.”
“What of you?” she asked. “How many non-Swiss are there in the Vatican ninjas?”
He didn't look up when he answered, “What makes you think I'm not Swiss?”
“Your eyes are brown,” she stated. “Your skin is naturally bronzed, not tanned. It is more Mediterranean or Middle Eastern than Swiss.”
The only response the ninja-sniper made at first was a small bit of his mask moving. He was smiling. “Persian, actually,” he corrected. “Still Catholic, but let us just say that the Middle East knows vampires well.”
She nodded. “Da. Ghuls.”
He chuckled. “If you're going to use a plural, and the original pronunciation, you should call them ghilan. You are, technically, a ghouleh–a female ghul.” He stopped to focus in on a target, considered it a moment, then moved on. “You've never turned into a hyena, have you?”
Amanda smiled, then shook her head. “No, I have not. By the way, I am Amanda Colt. You are?”
Not looking up from his scope, he said, “Ibrahim Javaherian. My friends call me Abe. My teammates call me Bram.” That’s your code name? As in Stoker? “Ah. How did you get into this sort of thing?”
“Family business. My brother's a lawyer, but my sister teaches close quarters combat. Trust me, when you're on the anti-Vampire team of the Swiss Guard, you take your job seriously.”
“Indeed.” She frowned a little, and leaned over to take a closer look at his weapon. “What are you using, anyway? I never heard of a bullet that can kill a vampire.”
“You haven't been living in the age of modern weaponry much, have you, Miss Amanda?” He chuckled, even as the muzzle panned around. “This is the Barrett M82, fifty-cal. It will shoot through engine blocks, walls, and will remove whole limbs. Including the head. Say goodbye to any vampire who gets on the wrong end of this. It would probably remove the heart, if I do it right.”
Amanda nodded, then hesitated. There was something approaching. “How do you feel about close-range weapons?”
“I have a few, though I prefer not to use them.”
“You are about to.”
Ibrahim chuckled, then reached down to his belt. He tapped something on the buckle. “We'll see.”
He turned around, leaving his rifle in position, propped up on its tripod.
By that time, not only was Amanda already on her feet and ready for battle, they had visitors.
Scattered around the roof were vampires, ten in all. Four had guns, three had swords, and the other three were unarmed. The leader placed himself in the middle of the roof, hands empty. He was rather well-dressed, in Joss Whedon Chic: long black leather duster, and everything else solid black. The leader of this particular pack was somewhat handsome; Amanda would have joked that he was tall dark and Hindu, but he could have been Sikh for all she knew. His looks were aristocratic, with a sharp nose, smooth features, and proper posture.
“I would sooner recommend Armani if you're going to hold yourself like a human being,” Ibrahim said to the newcomer.
The leader of the pack smiled. “This is Armani,” he said, his voice about as overdramatic as his features; as smooth as a well-oiled motor, and his accent was more British than American. “They do leather.”
“Kinky,” Ibrahim said, his delivery deadpan.
The male vampire looked from Amanda, to the Vatican ninja, to his sniper rifle. “My name is Mister Kalsey. May I help the two of you?”
“Kalsey?” Ibrahim asked. “That's Sikh, then?” He glanced to Amanda. “Sikh and ye shall find.”
Amanda cut in. “We are here to protect someone bearing messages to your employers.”
Kalsey smiled tolerantly. “I have no employers, Miss. I am the owner of The Platelet. Any and all messages can be delivered to me directly.”
“Mikhail,” the ninja Ibrahim said without hesitation. “We think he's in New York.”
Kalsey's smiled vanished. “If he is, then I have no knowledge of it. You have delivered your message, now go away.”
Amanda held up a hand. “That is not it. We want him. You can give him to us. Or find him for us. Or else.”
Kalsey sighed, his tolerance fading fast. “Or else what?”
Ibrahim took a step forward, more for cutting off Amanda than a tactical necessity. “Two things; one, you are all standing on bouncing Betties. Land mines.”
Amanda looked at the ninja. She thought back to when she warned him about the incoming vampires. He had tapped on his belt. Could he have just armed booby traps?
Kalsey laughed. “You are bluffing,” he announced confidently. “Any such mine, detonated at this range, would kill you before it would kill us.”
“Well, I’ve been killed before.” Amanda shrugged. “There is one other thing.”
Behind them, on the street, The Platelet exploded in a massive inferno. The door came off of its hinges and flew out into the street. The flames were so bright, Amanda could see white flashes against her hand. That was less from what Marco had done, and more from the intense heat given off by vampires on fire.
“Or else that,” she concluded.
Kalsey growled, then waved his men forward.
That was their mistake.
Ibrahim was as good as his word. The vampires without guns stepped off the mines covered by the roof gravel, and explosive devices leapt up into the air, around crotch height, and exploded, though not with shrapnel. With water. Holy water.
All of the vampires were splashed. The ones armed with guns were hit even worse. They had been standing on the wall around the roof so they could have the high ground, and the
best vantage for shooting. When they were first hit with the holy water, they winced and fell back, right off the roof.
When Kalsey raised his hands, Ibrahim drew his sidearm, a Desert Eagle semiautomatic handgun, loaded with .50 caliber bullets. Some were solid, “jacketed” bullets, and others had hollow points. The hollow points were sealed off with melted wax from church candles; the wax sealed in the holy water. The jacketed bullets could remove limbs just as efficiently as the Barrett sniper rifle.
The holy water from the bouncing Betties slowed the vampires enough that Ibrahim fired off eight of the nine rounds in the magazine – two for each of the sword-wielding vampires. He dropped it and drew an oak knife from his belt as the two unarmed henchmen closed.
The vampire went after Ibrahim with a quick but careless lunge. The Vatican ninja leapt for him, thrusting forward with the pommel of his dagger, which was in the shape of a cross. The vampire staggered back, stunned. Ibrahim recoiled, and thrust forward with the dagger, sliding it up, under the ribcage, and into the heart. The vampire dissolved into a pile of dusty and expensive clothes.
The other one went for Amanda at the same time. Amanda only sidestepped. She grabbed the vampire on his way past, and dragged him with her as she charged the edge of the roof. She let go of him, guiding him straight for the inferno pouring out of the bar's front door, going at the speed of a bullet.
The Vatican ninja and the vampire turned to Kalsey at the same time.
The dapper vampire smiled at them both, and leapt back, landing near one of the fallen swords. It was a long cavalry sword, the type one would have seen a British cavalry officer carry. “I hope you both aren't thinking of killing me. That would be a mistake of epic proportions.”
Amanda sighed, and shook her head. “That would be counterproductive.”
Kalsey smiled. “But if I kill you two, the little punk who destroyed my bar would be defenseless. No more threat, and I don't have to go against Mikhail the Bear.”
We never gave him the nickname.
Amanda snickered. “He destroyed your bar without effort. Without help from us. Totally on his own. We only watched. Do not think that he would not destroy you first.”
“Really? Let's see how cocky you are when I cut you both to pieces.”
Ibrahim wasn't Marco Catalano, but he apparently could also do math. Without even a look in Amanda's direction, he tossed her his dagger as he leapt for his Barrett.
Amanda caught the knife using solely her peripheral vision, then charged Kasley. His sword was longer, and sure to cut her before she could close. Her dagger was against the inside of her forearm, but at least it was made of wood.
Kalsey's first swing was a full baseball swing, meant to take Amanda's head clean off. In fact, had it connected the right way, he could have cut her in half at the waist.
Amanda instead dove into a roll, going under his swing. Her knife arced through the air, slashing across Kalsey's femoral artery, and she leapt away.
Kalsey let out a little gasp. He wasn't used to pain, and staggered slightly. It had only been a few seconds since the slash, but one leg of his expensive pants was already soaked with his own blood. He staggered a little, turning around slowly. Between the cross on the dagger, and the wooden blade, the wound wouldn't heal quickly. He tried slowing his heartbeat to cut down on the blood loss, but he had already lost too much.
He growled, and lunged for Amanda, who was on the other end of the roof. It took only a split second, but for a vampire, it was practically slow motion.
Amanda smiled at Kalsey's charge. It was standard fighting for soldiers forever. Most warriors didn't fence, they merely fought. In her case, she had been playing what Marco termed “three-dimensional chess” with fencers for the last fifty years. Kalsey broadcast his next move so far in advance, he might as well have sent it Western Union.
Amanda dashed directly at Kalsey. His sword was raised high, ready to cut her straight down the middle.
Kalsey swung down, as Amanda sidestepped out of the way, her dagger slashing through his clothes, and into his stomach, ripping apart the aorta, and most of the other arteries that made a stomach wound fatal. Kalsey doubled over, and Amanda slashed down for his exposed neck, cutting through the carotid artery.
Kalsey tried lifting up the sword to kill Amanda, and suck her companion dry, t
hen fell flat to the roof, unconscious.
Ibrahim approached slowly, looking at Kalsey through the scope of his rifle. “I think that did it.”
Amanda nodded. “Da. We need him alive to spread the word. Otherwise it would look strange that the bar merely exploded.”
Ibrahim smiled. “In which case, I think it's time that he takes his medicine.” He lowered the rifle and reached for another compartment.
“What are you doing?” Amanda asked, looking at the bottle of pills he came up with.
He tossed her the pills and said, “Have you ever heard of micropharmaceuticals? It uses nanotechnology as a delivery system for medication.”
“And?”
“Well, how else are you going to make holy water into a binary poison?” he asked. He reached down, grabbed Kalsey, and flipped him over. The vampire groaned as he fell on his back like a turtle. Amanda handed Ibrahim one pill, and the ninja knelt down next to him, and then dropped it into Kalsey's open mouth. Since Kalsey didn't need to breathe, the ninja couldn't merely hold his mouth shut and make him swallow.
Ibrahim frowned, took his dagger back from Amanda, and slit his own thumb open. A drop of blood made it into Kalsey's mouth, and the vampire reflexively swallowed, taking the pill into his body.
The ninja grinned, and stared just above the vampire's eyes, never into them. “Listen, friend. Do you know what we just did to you?”
“It's poison,” Amanda added. “If you come near me, or Marco, or if you fail to meet our demands, my friend here will slip you the other half of the poison.”
Ibrahim nodded. “That pill you swallowed? It's filled with holy water, encapsulated within nano-capsules. They'll float in your bloodstream, cling to arterial walls, you'll be stuck with it forever. We can get to you anytime we want. Do you know what would happen then? Your veins would be on fire. Your blood would boil. You would spend your nights, and even your days, screaming in agony, until, at long last, you simply die.”
The Vatican ninja, trained by Catholic priests, said, “Or you could go the redemption route. To do that would require that you do what we ask anyway.”
“Indeed.” She knelt on Kalsey's other side, across from Ibrahim. “We want you to refuse aid and comfort to Mikhail. We want you to spread the word throughout the community. Any death in Brooklyn will result in reprisals. There will be plenty of death. The kind you do not return from.”
Ibrahim patted him on the arm. “Have a good day, buddy.”
Chapter Twenty: Snack Food
March 14, 9:30 p.m.
When Amanda and Ibrahim walked down the fire stairs of the building, they moved slowly, in no rush. Amanda didn't want to leave the ninja behind.
“So, I have to ask,” he began, “What did Marco use to blow up the bar? That was white-hot fire in there. You don't just pick that stuff up on the street.”
Amanda smiled and shook her head. “Marco used a relatively simple explosive system. Do you know that you can make nitroglycerin at home?”
The ninja-sniper scoffed, only it sounded more like a laugh. “Yeah. Sure. If your home is a chem lab.”
“There are days he practically does live there,” Amanda told him. “In this case, he separated the chemicals with wax, and strapped the test tube to the package of gasoline and Styrofoam.”
Ibrahim reached out and grabbed Amanda's shoulder. “Wait, you're telling me that he used nitroglycerin as a detonator on homemade napalm?”
Amanda casually shrugged off his hand. “Given Marco, he most likely used two packages. One on the liquor supply, and another on whatever was the most crowded part of the vampire crowd. The vampires
were the white fire. They burn hot.”
“Heh. I thought that prick was dangerous when he took my rifle.” The ninja studied her for a moment. “Though you aren't a slouch either. Have you ever had much in the way of combat experience?”
Amanda merely turned and started walking. Ibrahim looked after her a moment, and started again. “You know, there are stories about a Vatican vampire. One who worked with the teams long ago. She was pretty. With reddish hair. She was Russian. Know anything about that?”
Amanda laughed, and gave him a glance over her shoulder. “Is that not like asking me my age?”
The ninja laughed. “More like carbon dating a corpse.”
Amanda's smile faded. “Come. Let us follow Marco to his next bar before someone does something else stupid tonight. After all, Marco wishes to burn down three vampire bars, not just one.”
* * * *
April 4th, 5 PM
Marco Catalano, Amanda Colt, and Father Rodgers sat around the small wooden table in the middle of the rectory dining room. The older, black gentleman leaned back in his chair, a glass of Johnny Walker Black in his hand.
“I am truly sorry to hear about Lily, Marco,” Rodgers told him, his voice just above conversational volume–he was old enough to have preached in churches that never had a microphone. “That they would make this personal is something new to me. This is more like organized crime than anything I've come to expect from vampires.”
Marco nodded thoughtfully. His brow furrowed with thought. “Ditto, especially considering I didn't see vampires as pack animals, or especially sociable. Should I just eject everything I learned about vampires from Bram Stoker, and start anew?”
Rodgers allowed himself one short, booming laugh. “Ah, Bram. Yes. Pity he fell to his prey.” He shook his head and paused before he took another sip. “Tuberculosis. Ha!”
Marco and Amanda shared a look. “Do we want to ask?”
Amanda shook her head. “I think we already have our answer.”
“Yeah, that's what I thought.” He looked back to Rodgers. “Does anything we discussed last time fit with any other data?”
