by L Ann
“If I didn’t, I do now.” Taz swallowed again. “They were like wolves. Jesus, even Lycans don’t kill like that.”
“No, I’Ane, it’s worse than that. Their minds can’t handle the change. In most cases, they shut down and become comatose. But then you get ones like… like those. They’re insane. They have no morals, no understanding of cause and effect or having responsibility for their actions. They act upon impulse.” She sucked in a breath, dragging a hand through her hair. “If they’re hungry, they feed. If they’re angry, they lash out and kill. They manipulate the people around them to get carers, handlers to look after them.”
“In short,” Taz said, “what we have on our hands is a pack of animals being protected by what? Relatives?”
“It’s possible, but it would be unusual for a pack of this size. Child turnbloods can’t turn others, so there has to be someone doing this, someone keeping the pack together.”
“We need you to deal with this,” Hamish cut in.
“Is this why you called me back to Seattle?” Morgan demanded.
Zuron shook his head. “Actually, no. But we would have once this came to light.”
Taz listened to the exchange, noting the expressions on the faces of his father and Hamish and detected a distinct glint in their aged ages. “This isn’t the first time, is it? This has happened before.”
“You haven’t told him?”
“Morganna.” There was a warning tone in Hamish’s voice.
“No! If you want us to handle this situation, he needs to know what we’re getting into. This is not one of the typical jobs you send his way.”
“And if he’s not up to it?” Zuron asked.
“Yo! Hey, I’m right here,” Taz called out, waving a hand to garner their attention. “Talk to me. Tell me what?”
“You don’t think he can do it, do you?” Morgan ignored Taz, her attention focused on the two older men. “That’s why you give him all the crap to do.”
“Morganna!” Hamish barked, his tone chastising. “You forget your place.”
“And what place is that, Hamish?” Taz swung around to stand beside her.
“My place would be taking the hits so you don’t have to.” She snorted at the angry look Hamish directed at her. “Fine! I need a drink anyway.” She threw her hands up and stalked out of the room.
“Is she right?” His attention turned to his father. “Have you been trying to spare me? Protect me? Because you don’t think I can cut the tough ones?”
“There’s something you have to understand,” Zuron, though he tracked Morgan’s departure, spoke to his son. Or, at least, attempted to.
“I understand perfectly, Father,” Taz cut in, putting icy emphasis on the end word. “Do us both a favour and save the yak-yak. Believe me, we’ll get into that later. Right now, you’ve got a brief to deliver. So, let’s do it.” He nodded to the controller. “Crank it up again.”
With a deep, resigned sigh the elder vampire nodded to Hamish, who keyed the remote’s On/Off switch.
As they watched the resumed recording, the man in the fur collared coat moved to within a foot of the frenzied, feeding child pack and raised a hand in a summoning gesture. He spoke, but the photographer was too far away to register the softly spoken words.
The pack ceased as one, rising to their feet – a scene so grotesque in its realism that Taz had to fight the impulse to look away. The kids were drenched in their prey’s blood and bits of torn and shredded flesh. Oddly enough, that was not the thing that stood out the most.
“The son of a bitch knows,” Taz said, pointing to the scene’s primary character, whose position never varied from a partial profile. “He knows he’s being filmed.”
“Very good,” Hamish responded. “We believe he did know.”
That, and more, was confirmed in the next few moments.
They watched Mr. Fur Collar – still keeping his back more or less to the camera – hold out one arm, beckoning as he moved a few paces to the side. To a spot where the light was better. One child, the male who’d used the baseball bat on the victim, followed.
“The Alpha,” Taz whispered. And the bastard was making dead certain the kid was in full frontal view of the camera. “The arrogant son of a bitch is throwing it in our faces. He knows someone’s gonna be sent. He wants it, in fact. He’s sacrificing his Alpha dog…
“And him! He’s hiding his face, but everything else is out there. Like he’s standing in a fucking police line-up.
“The hair – salon style. I bet he’s got his own on-call pro stylist. His bearing, the way he dresses. He’s a Pure. And look at all the jewellery. It’s like he washed his hands in a Cartier’s display case. That’s a Rroma trait. But not one of the local, or even American clans. He’s European – Slavic or Danish. And that coat – not just European. It’s personal. He’s old blood, it’s more than likely a style he adopted in the eighteenth or early twentieth century.
“Something smells off here.” He turned away from the screen, eyes on his father. “I mean, it’s just a hunch, but this thing doesn’t feel random. It’s like he’s sending a message. A personal message. Tell me I’m wrong.”
The two elders exchanged solemn glances, both reluctant to take things beyond what had already been revealed. The sudden clink of ice cubes on glass turned all eyes to the conference room door.
“No, I’Ane. You’re not wrong,” Morgan said, her searing gaze encompassing both her father and Zuron. “Are you going to tell him, or shall I?”
“You are right,” Hamish started after another long pause. “The Bennion incident. If you recall the condition of her body, as if she had been savaged by a pack of animals. Those who knew where she had been killed assumed Bianca Manx and her twisted inner circle were responsible. Our solution…” Hamish’s eyes briefly touched Zuron and his daughter. “Let’s say it was assumed that all those responsible were identified and sanctioned.”
“Herzarae,” Zuron took over. “Several high-ranking members of at least six houses – all of whom were longstanding Seattle residents, and the leader of the Purple Brotherhood’s North-Western families.”
“Flan Deevers? He slip by, too?” Taz queried.
“Not Deevers, Dion O’Dwyer. One of the Brotherhood’s founding fathers,” Zuron explained. “Besides the point, however.
“Bianca Manx vanished after the first few sanctions, and Shadow’s Fall was closed won. It allowed things to cool down. For a while. A year later Kane became the new owner and Teresa Bennion was all but forgotten.
“And then the first bodies showed up. Young women torn apart, apparently attacked by animals. Just like Teresa Bennion and all in and around Rroma territories, which – at the time, were the remote, rural areas: Renton, Belfair, Shelton, Allyn. Six months, twenty-seven victims. Twenty-six dead. The twenty-seventh survived, however. And her report, luckily told to one of our people in the SPD talked of, quote unquote, a horde of fierce children – baby vampires, as she called them.”
“I’m getting the picture, “ Taz angled a look at Morgan, who stood in the doorway with one arm holding up the door frame and her free hand swirling the ice in her glass, eyes still aglow with indignant fire. “You brought in your big gun. Only this time it was for clean-up duty, not a major hit.” He shook his head, smiling with something less than amusement. “If I recall that time, I was in Monterey. Just a phone call and an eight-hour drive away. And Morgan’s most recent hit back then, according to the grapevine anyway, put her in Sydney, Australia… half a world away.”
“Taz, it –“ Zuron attempted.
“… was nothing personal? Is that what you’re about to tell me?” Taz spoke over him. “Or maybe Morgan has more experience with this type of assignment? After all, what am I? Just a trigger-happy animal you send out when some dickhead thumbs his nose at the great House of Nikaris.”
“No, you are heir to the Nikaran House. I, on the other hand, am expendable,” Morgan replied before Zuron could. “And it wasn�
��t a standard clean-up operation. If you’d been caught doing what I had to do, Zuron couldn’t claim he had no part of it. Whereas, my part in it could be denied.” She sipped the drink she held and grimaced, discovering it was more water than ice. “Plausible deniability, I believe it’s called these days.” She held up her hand when Taz opened his mouth to speak. “Let me finish. You’re too close to see the bigger picture. The jobs you’ve been given, the clean-ups you handle? They’re both a salve to your ego and a way for your father to allow you some freedom. Your missions are most likely vetted for how much danger you would be in. But your actions have become more and more erratic of late and there were concerns about your mental state.”
“Morganna!” Hamish’s voice was a whip-crack.
Taz’s corresponding laugher was equally sharp. “I don’t believe this! So now I’m a trigger-happy basket case with a death wish?” He threw a glance toward Morgan, then winked. “Oh, I’m sorry. A suicidal adrenalin addict with an over-inflated ego, who is the heir to the most powerful House in the Vampire Nation.”
“As horrible as you make that sound, “said Zuron. “It is the reality of the situation. Like it or not.” The elder vampire’s tone and countenance softened. “But it was done with neither malice nor deliberate disrespect for your feelings or your abilities. If you believe nothing else –“
“Yeah, yeah,” Taz gave a derisive snort. “Business. Just business. Which we should get back to, okay?” He gave a dismissive wave of one hand. “Anything else we need to know before we get this thing on the road?”
“No.” Morgan overrode anything Hamish or Zuron had to say. “We need to go to ground zero – where the attack happened and see what we can find. I’m sure there’ll be very little left but we may pick up something that normal investigations would not show up.”
“Good idea,” Taz agreed. “Then we better get started. It’s –“ he checked his watch, “nine thirty. Most newborns need lots of sleep; children, probably more. And if he’s got them on some kind of timetable, I’d say they’ll gather to hunt after midnight. Gives us three hours… four tops.”
“They’re not children, I’Ane. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that because they have children’s bodies that they’re newborn,” Morgan told him.
Taz quirked an eyebrow, staring at her for a moment, then nodded and turned his attention back to the two elders. “You’ll excuse me, but us emotional defectives have an honest living to make.” He let Morgan precede him through the conference room door, flipping the middle finger salute over one shoulder as they departed.
“Classy,” was Morgan’s sole comment as the door closed behind them.
~*~
“This is it,” Morgan called out, showing that she had found the spot in which Malcolm Salman had crouched while filming the attack.
“Confirms two things, right off the bat,” said Taz, joining her. “Less than fifty yards away, very little cover. There’s no way the Rroma didn’t know he was being watched. Even if Salman had been behind one of these trees, his breathing and heartbeat would have made enough noise to alert a vampire a hell of a lot further away.”
“Not to mention his scent,” Morgan added, alluding to Salman’s excessive application of one of the market’s cheaper brands of aftershave. “You said two things?”
“For a human, the man’s got big hairy cojones,” Taz chuckled.
“I think we need to have a longer conversation with Mr. Salman. I’d like to know how he got here just in time to get the entire episode on tape.”
“Good thing I decided not to shoot the asshole.” Taz smiled and took out his cell, tapping the speed dial function for Nikaris’ office suits. It rang only once and the professionally monotonic voice of Zuron’s senior secretary’s voice answered.
“Eastern Mediterranean Imports. How may –“
“It’s okay, Siobhan, it’s me,” Taz interrupted. “Listen, that film student we signed a contract with – Malcolm Salman. I need his home address and cell number. Text it to my phone.”
“One second, Your Highness,” the secretary replied.
“Jesus, I wish she’d stop that,” Taz groaned. A moment later the requested information appeared on his cell phone’s screen. “Thank you, Siobhan.” Taz broke the connection and turned to Morgan. “Shall we?”
~*~
Belltown. A neighbourhood bounded on the north by Denny Way, beyond which lies Seattle Centre, Uptown and Queen Anne Hill; on the south west by Elliot Bay; on the south east by Virginia Street, further by the Pike Place Market and a substantial chunk of the Downtown area. It was also the preferred turf for members of the Vampire nation’s trendy, voguish House of Sybarite.
“Something you find amusing about this situation?” Morgan asked, responding to a soft chuckle from Taz.
“Think about it,” Taz answered, with a jerk of his head to indicate the towering collection of condo-apartments beyond the Aston’s windshield. “Salman. He had to go all the way across town to find out that my people exist.” He paused again, overcome by a wave of laughter. “And he doesn’t just live in the middle of Sybarite Central, his condo complex is probably better than eighty percent vampire.”
“People don’t see what they don’t believe in,” Morgan shrugged.
“Yeah,” Taz responded with a wry grin and a twitch of one eyebrow as they exited the car. “True enough.” The current state of affairs, for example. How many people would look at the woman beside him and believe that, for over ninety years, the mere mention of her infamous name – Morgan – could make even the best of the best in her profession, and vampires who made Stoker’s Vlad Tepes seem like a Blue Bird Scout den mother by comparison, shiver to the tips of their toes with terror? Even now, he himself wasn’t completely used to the fact that this was the pro assassin that had killed enough people to fill the seats of your average football stadium.
They say that seeing is believing. For Taz at least, the verdict was still out on both.
Salman occupied a corner condo on the building’s fourteenth floor, number 1423. And as they approached it, it became obvious that Malcolm was in seventh heaven over his recent financial windfall. The door stood wide open and the sounds of celebration from within would have bruised the eardrums, even for someone without their acute senses.
Inside, from doorway to the sitting room area, Malcolm’s guests were all but shoulder to shoulder. And not a single vampire among them. Meaning, in all probability, they were fellow students from the film institute. Taz laughed to himself, wondering what the starry-eyed would-be filmmaker would say if he knew his little gathering was comparative to herding a flock of sheep past a pack of wolves.
The party’s host – who looked more like a cross between Steve Buscemi and David Tenant on a bad hair day – stood centre stage, surrounded by a cluster of gabbing, fluttery young co-eds, and spanking new, very high dollar photography equipment. He glanced up as they approached, turned a sudden shade of bloodless chalky white and attempted to bolt – only to wind up suspended a few inches off the carpet. Taz and Morgan each claimed an arm and carted the scared speechless filmmaker toward the nearby bedroom.
“D-D-Don’t kill me!... Please don’t… Please! I never said a word!” He babbled, scrambling backwards across the bed the second he was deposited on it. “I-I-I-I kept my word, believe me I –“
“Jesus, will you chill out,” Taz interrupted. “We know you did, okay? You kept your part of the deal so far, and we will keep ours. We’re only here to talk.”
“Talk? About what?” Salman’s wide eyes jumped back and forth between the two, like a ping pong ball in heavy play. “All right. Okay, okay! Talk. Sure, we can talk! About anything you want. Just don’t kill… I mean, yeah, talk to me. About what you want. I –“
“Salman!” Taz’s raised voice caused the babbling filmmaker to tense up, silencing him.
“Relax. Give us a few minutes. We’ll ask you a few questions and we’ll leave. Okay?”
“Yeah… y
eah, okay.”
“Relax, Malcolm,” Morgan smiled, joining the conversation. “I can call you Malcolm, can’t I?” She waited for his jerky nod. “Can you tell us why you ended up in that location on that particular night?”
Taken aback, Salman looked back and forth between the two for a moment, then heaved a quick, nervous shrug. “That? That’s what you want to know? Why?”
“Something wrong with your ears, Malcolm?” Taz stepped in, his tone intimidating. “I said we ask, you answer.”
Salman tensed up again, his body leaning toward crabbing backwards. Morgan intervened, however. “It’s all right, Malcolm.” She threw a mocking smile at Taz. “He growls a lot, but he won’t bite unless I let him. Answer the question.”
“I’m in that area a lot,” Salman finally said, keeping a cautious eye on Taz as he spoke. “I’m… yeah, I’m collaborating on a piece. A docu-expose for the Discovery Channel. It’s on prostitution in the new generation. You see –“
“How about you edit out the promo-commentary and give us the raw, straightforward version, Malcolm?” Taz said.
Morgan sighed and leaned down to pat Salman’s arm. “Give me and my partner here a minute,” she told him before wrapping her hand around Taz’s forearm and dragging him back out of the room.
“Will you calm the hell down,” she snapped once they were out of hearing. “Bulldozing him will not get us any answers.”
“Can’t help it, the little asshole is irritating,” Taz groused.
“So are you,” Morgan replied. “If you can’t keep the attitude under wraps, keep your mouth shut and let me deal with this.” She sucked in a calming breath. “Let’s get the answers we need and get out of here.”
“Fine. All right,” Taz sighed. “Let’s get this over with.”
Salman was on his feet when they returned. He threw a bravado-filled look Taz’s way and waited until Morgan stood in front of him before he resumed talking.
