“It says somebody out there knows more about me than they should,” I said. “Strengths, weaknesses… everything except who wants me and why.”
“Oh. Has this ever happened before?”
“No. This is new.”
I popped open the black case.
“Oh my,” I said.
Brenda came around to the bed to take a look herself.
“Is that real?” she asked, looking at what appeared to be a disassembled sniper’s rifle.
I pulled out the barrel. “Looks to be. Can’t say I’m surprised.”
The gun only took up the top half of the suitcase, so I pulled on the little flap in the front and checked underneath. Cash. Lots of it.
“Can’t say I’m surprised at that either,” I added.
“How much is that?”
“About fifty grand. Bounty hunting wasn’t the only thing Stan was into.”
“What do you mean?”
“I think he did a little contract killing in his spare time. Looks like the FBI had a good reason to suspend him.”
Brenda cocked her head, much in the way a dog does when he hears a distant whistle. “Your pixie’s back.”
“Good timing.” I started pulling cash out of the suitcase and stuffing it into my own bag. “I’ve got to get going.”
“Go? Why?” she asked. “Where are you going?”
“What would you do if you just killed an FBI agent in broad daylight?” I asked. “I’m getting the hell out of town.”
Part Two
The Noose
Chapter 11
Viktor spent half the day today talking to me about how “exciting” my immune system is. Says he’s never seen anything like it before and that he would give anything to be able to present me to a few geneticist friends. He ran through a list of the things he’d exposed me to—his lab is evidently a bioterrorist’s wet dream—and could not stop raving about how well my body had handled it. All I could do was shrug. It’s not as if any of this is a huge surprise.
I think I’m starting to annoy him, having yet to come around to his way of thinking. On the other hand, he hasn’t come around to my way of thinking either, and I’ve got the weight of history on my side, because you don’t just introduce something like this to the world. It should be done much more gradually, and there are a few important steps along the way that will end up being skipped.
Viktor agrees that there will be issues but is so very convinced of the general goodness of mankind that he’s sure they will be overcome. Obviously he’s never witnessed a genocide up close before.
* * *
Ah, New York. Like Boston on steroids. Every other city in the world, with the possible exception of Tokyo, looks like a suburb compared to New York City. The sights, the smells, the unbelievable noise of a few million representatives of impolite humanity jammed together in all its glory. I hate the goddamn place.
Right off the train I had to defend myself against two guys who wanted to carry my bag for me, neither of whom were official representatives of the train station (as specifically outlined by the announcements made every ten seconds over the loudspeakers), and at least one of whom would probably take off with the bag the instant he reached the street. And once I fought past them I had to turn down a guy offering to sell me a half-price copy of the New York Times he’d stolen five hours earlier from a newsstand, two homeless people who just wanted my money and didn’t even bother with a preamble, and a man who desperately wanted Jesus to save me.
And this was just on the train platform.
New York is the one place in the world that actively encourages rudeness, because that’s the only way to get past the fake bag carriers, homeless people, newspaper thieves, Jesus freaks, and everyone else who wants something and isn’t afraid to ask for it, repeatedly, at close range. Try to ignore them and they’ll step in front of you. Tell them you’re not interested and you might as well be speaking Farsi. But tell them to fuck off and they get that just fine. It’s like a secret handshake.
I may be the only person on Earth who can state unequivocally that there has never been a city quite like New York before. Hopefully there never will be again.
* * *
A short trip on the marvelous subway system and I reached Forty-Fifth Street and a lovely little boutique—I’m being polite—called Ivan’s. Or that’s what everyone calls it. On the street sign it just says PAWN SHOP. And in case one needs services beyond pawning one’s ill-gotten goods, there are additional hand-lettered signs taped up all over the windows: check cashing, money transfer, loans, phone cards for sale, fortunes told. I didn’t need any of those things.
I pushed my way in, immediately greeted by the odor of illegally bought tax-free Russian cigarettes. A young fellow I’d never met before sat behind the counter (said counter being glass. A display case showing an extensive array of watches, some still engraved with the previous owner’s initials) chewing on a lollipop and reading the latest issue of something called Maxim.
“Hello,” I greeted.
“Hey,” he said, not looking up. Must have been an engaging article.
“I need to see Tchekhy.”
He looked away from the magazine, sized me up, looked back down. “Nobody here by that name.”
“I see. Do you smoke?”
“Hmm? No.”
“Then you can imagine my confusion, because I happen to know Tchekhy does smoke. I know what brand he smokes, and I can smell that brand right now. I can even see some smoke coming from behind that black curtain to your left.”
That got him to close the magazine. He slid off the stool, calmly put the magazine down, and pulled up the front of his shirt to reveal a snub-nosed revolver tucked into his pants. “There is nobody here named Tchekhy,” he repeated slowly, as I evidently had a learning deficiency.
“That is a stupid place to put a gun,” I said, in Russian. “You’ll shoot your dick off.”
Now he was confused. “Who are you?”
“Tell him Efgeniy is here. And be quick about it.”
“Fuck you,” he muttered, walking through the curtain. Kids these days.
A few seconds later Tchekhy poked his head out. “Efgeniy! Come!” he waved.
He led me through the curtain and down the unlit staircase. We passed the surly counter help on the way, and Tchekhy cuffed him on the side of the head, almost as an afterthought. I resisted the urge to do the same.
The basement of the pawnshop is geek paradise, and Tchekhy Ivanovich Gruschenko is its undisputed master. There are a half-dozen computers, printers, scanners, and things I have no name for, whose purpose I don’t understand. (What little I do know about computers I know thanks to Tchekhy, but there are a few things he won’t explain to me because doing so would make me “legally liable.” Which is just as well. I don’t think I would understand it anyway.) Cables run along almost every single portion of the floor to power all of the equipment.
A corner of the basement is devoted to portraiture, which comes in handy when manufacturing bogus IDs. Another corner holds a couch, which is about the only thing in the whole basement I know how to use. Keeping the place from overheating are two floor fans and a severely overworked air conditioner shoved in the only window. His power bill would be insane if he ever actually paid it, but I don’t think he does. I think he steals electricity directly from the city. When he turns everything on at once, the streetlights dim.
Tchekhy doesn’t fit the profile. He’s a tubby little second-generation ex-pat Russian with too much hair in too many of the wrong places. Back when the United States and the Soviet Union were playing nukes at twenty paces, he was a major dealer in espionage, but nowadays he gets most of his work from the Russian mafia and poor immortal bastards like me.
Tchekhy stepped into the nest of equipment in the center of the room to access a Styrofoam cooler nestled between two box computer thingies, extracting a Coke. I tiptoed my way after him—I’m always afraid I’m going to step on a live w
ire—and sat in a squeaky old office chair.
“So, my old friend,” he began, popping open his Coke and nestling into his own chair, “you need new passports already?” Behind him a large flat screen monitor was displaying what looked like live satellite images of South America. He hacks into government surveillance just for kicks sometimes.
“Not just yet,” I said. “I need a different sort of favor today. Two, actually.”
He perked up. “Really? Anything illegal?”
“Only marginally.”
He looked disappointed, as any good anarchist would. I reached into my bag and pulled out the miniature camera Iza had used. “There are photos of a police file in this. I need to read them.” I tossed him the device.
“Digital,” he said, examining it. “USB port. Very light. Very expensive?”
“Moderately.”
“Very sleek. Can I keep it?”
“When you’re done, sure.”
“You are too kind.”
“I know. It’s a failing.”
“And the second thing?” he asked.
“That’s a bit more complicated.”
I explained to him the matter of the bounty placed on me while he fiddled with the camera, plugging it into one of his stations and pulling up the digital photos. By the time I was finished, the printer was already running.
“And this man who had the papers?” he asked.
“He ran into a bullet. It was very sad.”
“Da,” he said simply. No wailing and gnashing of teeth from him on the subject of murder, nor did I expect any.
He pulled the sheets of paper from the printer and handed them to me without examination. “So, there is a wealthy person out there who knows a few more things than he or she ought to about your unusual nature. He or she is placing anonymous advertisements in newspapers and hiring armed men to hunt you down. And you wish for me to find out who.”
Needless to say, Tchekhy is aware of my immortality. If anybody were to notice I don’t age it would be the guy taking my photograph every seven years. (You have to take a new photo every time because of wear and tear on the old photo, but more importantly because clothing styles change.) You might be thinking his knowledge would make him a prime suspect, because after all, somebody had to cough up information, and for this particular someone, secrets are currency. But I’ve known Tchekhy since he was ten years old, which was when his father Ivan—who also did my passports for me—introduced us. I was also there fifteen years later when Ivan was dying prematurely of lung cancer, when Tchekhy took an oath in front of his father to keep my nature secret. Then we all got outrageously drunk. That’s the kind of loyalty you can’t buy.
“Let me see the contract.” I handed him the manila folder. He pulled the phone out first.
“This is very interesting,” he said.
“How interesting?”
“You say this is a scrambled phone?”
“That’s what I was told.”
“Satellite, no doubt. I wonder what manner of encryption it uses.”
“That’s your department. I’m no good at that stuff,” I admitted.
“Have you used it?”
“No. I think it’s only good for one phone call. I figured I’d wait until you’d seen it.”
“Very smart.”
“So I’ve been told.”
He put it on one of the nearly clean counters and waved a peculiar device—it looked like an old TV antenna, complete with tin foil—over it.
“That’s lucky,” he said.
“What is?”
You carry the electronic device of a man you killed. Did you consider that it might have a tracking mechanism in it?”
“Uh, no.”
“It does not. But it could have.”
So much for me being smart.
Tchekhy reached into the cooler and pulled out a bottle of authentic Russian (meaning cheap and crappy, much like their cigarettes) vodka. He took a long swig of it, then capped the bottle and tossed it to me.
“This will take some time,” he said. “I will order pizza.”
I took a swig of my own. It made my hair follicles tickle. Russian vodka does that to me. “Don’t let me get in the way,” I said, finding my way to the couch.
* * *
Two hours later, the vodka was gone and I wasn’t anywhere closer to any answers. I was half-drunk however, so at least I had that going for me.
Tchekhy was doing his mad hacker thing with at least four different computers, pausing occasionally to light another of his foul brand of cigarettes. I considered breaking into his reverie to see if he’d actually found anything yet, but I held off. Something I learned a very long time ago was to never interrupt a genius when he’s in the middle of something. Did that to Newton once. God that man had a temper.
The police report and I were getting along okay, but I was seriously contemplating calling lead detective Caldwell and asking him where he learned such abysmal penmanship. I mean just awful. Before the printing press people gave a damn about their handwriting, you know? Thank goodness there were lots of pictures of the crime scene to work with.
The door to Gary and Nate’s apartment had been kicked in rather efficiently, the impact removing a portion of the door jamb. Detective Caldwell called this “signs of forced entry.” (Or, “songs of foreign entree,” depending on one’s interpretation.) Gary and Nate were both found in the living room on the floor. Contrasting the way the room looked in the pictures with what I remembered, they’d put up a pretty decent fight. The futon was upside down and the coffee table had been broken in two by something large. A fist had gone through the TV screen. Above the wall near the upset futon was a bloody splatter. Detective Caldwell thought one of the “victims” (or “vicms”) had been thrown there, which was scary because the mark was more than halfway up the wall. It’s not easy to throw a guy that far with that much force, no matter what you may have learned from pro wrestling.
The autopsy photos left me seriously reconsidering my vodka-and-pizza dinner. Neither of the guys was recognizable. Frankly, if Nate hadn’t been black I would have been unable to distinguish between them. It was, as the good detective pointed out, a classic case of “overkill.” As in, the guy—or guys—who killed them kept hitting them after they were clearly no longer alive.
Caldwell ran through possible blunt objects (“blond opreds”) that could have served as a murder weapon, leaning toward an aluminum baseball bat. He also figured on at least two bad guys, just because no one person could have done so much damage to two healthy young men like Nate and Gary. The good news was this almost entirely ruled me out.
He was wrong about there being two guys. I thought again about calling him to tell him this, but that was just the vodka talking. He would never believe me.
Two things had caught my eye. One was the coffee table. It had been splintered by a strong horizontal blow across the middle. A baseball bat could maybe do this, but it would have taken a while, and I was pretty sure that Gary and Nate wouldn’t have waited around to watch. No, the blow to the table had to be collateral damage during the struggle. The weapon had been a very strong forearm.
The second thing was Gary’s face. It had been caved in by a powerful blow administered while he was either pressed up against the wall or on the floor. It was the kill shot and it hadn’t been done by any bat. I could clearly see the indent of three knuckles, the middle one raised slightly to a tapered point.
It was obvious what had done this. I didn’t blame the police for not recognizing it. They’d probably never seen a demon’s handiwork before.
Chapter 12
Demons are not—as has been so often assumed—supernatural minions of some higher (or lower) evil deity. They are not supernatural at all, any more than pixies, iffrits, or vampires. Or me. They’re just another race—or underspecies, as my unnamed nemesis called them.
This is not to say demons are in any way capable of being nice. Not at all. Demons are the wo
rst combination of big, strong, and nasty on the planet. Worse even than dragons, because dragons were just animals and animals don’t have enough self-awareness to be evil. Demons do. They understand money and they understand violence and they don’t care about much else. Also, unlike dragons, they managed to avoid extinction, possibly because something deep in the cavernous recesses of most demon brains is the understanding that survival and secretiveness go hand in hand.
But keeping a low profile is only one reason demons still walk the Earth. Another is usefulness. They’re the ultimate mercenaries and really come in handy during wartime. Alexander the Great had ten demons on retainer when he conquered most of the known world. Hammurabi had twenty-five. Genghis Khan had thirty, and rumor had it he was one himself. (I don’t believe the rumor—a demon would make a lousy general—but I never met Genghis Khan, so I could be wrong.) The biblical Goliath was also a demon, which should tell you plenty about the accuracy of that little story, because it’d take a hell of a lot more than a stupid slingshot to take out a demon. (David actually lured Goliath under a cliff face and had some friends drop a big rock on him.) I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if a few of today’s governments had one or two demons on the payroll, although with modern weaponry their talents are more useful to drug cartels and the like.
It is notoriously difficult to kill a demon. Their skin is much thicker than human skin (but not as hard as dragon hide), they don’t burn easily, and if they have a heart, nobody has been able to figure out exactly where it is. At the Battle of Troy, I saw a demon run through with a pike three times in three different places and keep on coming. It took twenty men to hold him down and two working with heavy battle axes to cleave his head from his shoulders.
You’ve probably seen one. I don’t know how they move about in today’s world because I haven’t laid eyes on one for over a century, but I know they usually favor baggy clothes and hats to obscure their obviously non-human features. You might be thinking professional American football would be a good place to find a few, but I don’t think it’s violent enough for them.
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