“My place. Besides which, I need to check in with my team, and report my progress in hunting the Opthoid.”
“We made progress?”
She laughed. “Yeah, we did. I know where it is, approximately.”
“Approximately is good enough for an Opthi-whatsis?”
“Yeah.
“Go figure. So, we’re going to capture it tonight?”
His question reminded her how deeply she was involving him, and how dangerous it was. How she was so breaking the rules.
“I can capture it alone,” she said.
“Not what I asked,” he said. “I’m offering to help. So, tonight, or should we wait till Saturday? After Halloween? When will you go for it?”
“I’d rather do it tonight for safety reasons, despite the Aurelian being in the mix.” She considered that, and the probabilities of the second Ty-Op.
She needed to ask the Kith, but Halloween, which she kept forgetting about, and the increased police presence could endanger the mission. “Problem is,” she said, including him in her thought process, “I forgot about Halloween. Going after dark covers me somewhat, but the cops will be out in force looking for people doing crazy stuff on Halloween, in the dark.” She mulled it over. “Dammit. I don’t want to delay, but I’d better wait until Saturday. The last thing I need is someone trying to arrest me when I do the capture.”
“They didn’t follow us to the canal today.”
“That we know of.”
“True. But I didn’t see them or feel them,” Aiden argued.
“Which would give us good reason to go tonight.” She paced, recognizing the urgency to get the Ty-Op and weighing it against how much more cop coverage there would be for pranking and vandalism on October 30 and 31. Saturday was November 1. Every cop who’d pulled extra shifts for Halloween would be off duty. It would probably work.
“Okay, Saturday. That’s a plan,” she said, making it a statement.
“Done,” Aiden agreed, and something snapped taut inside her, pointing her heart right at Aiden. She’d asked for his help last night, and he’d stepped in and hadn’t let go. She’d known a lot of good men in her life, but she’d never known a man like this.
“In the meantime,” he said, unaware, for once, of the depth and seriousness of her thoughts, “We can be figuring the rest of this mess out.”
They both rose, and he grabbed his keys so they could go to her place.
“You have any ideas about how to notify Senator Bartleby?” she asked, trying to get back to level, find something to distract her from her feelings.
“Actually, I do,” Aiden said. “I have a contact in the local police.”
She raised her eyebrows, and he nodded.
“Yeah, it’s one of the cops who was here the other night. He doesn’t like me much. He knows I don’t get my info through normal channels.”
“Which cop?”
“The big guy with the walrus mustache. Lt. Tyrone McNamera. They call him Tank, like the old cartoon.”
“I remember him.” She grinned. “He’s the one who knocked the stuffing out of Chavez’s arrogant bluster. The name fits.”
“Yes, he did, and yes, it does. Anyway. I’ll buy him a beer, tell him a tale, and hope he can pass it up the line and save a life. One thing I have to know, though. Is there a way to keep that thing from getting to the Senator? Or will it go through anything in between it and the target?”
“You know the thing about vampires? The garlic thing?”
“You’re shitting me, right?” he looked at her, incredulous.
Chapter Twenty-Five
“Yeah, I am,” Cait admitted.
Aiden howled with laughter. “Okay, suckered me. Seriously, is there anything that deters it?”
“Steel. Preferably stainless steel.”
“Joking again?”
“Nope. It’s a popular commodity out there for a lot of reasons, but keeping Aurelians away is one of them.”
Aiden had trouble believing that stainless steel would keep away a nasty piece of work like the Aurelian. Then again, simple salt would bar the windows to a Nightflyer or a goblin, so why not stainless steel?
“So we put him in an empty beer vat to keep him safe?”
“There’s an interesting idea. Or a cage of it. Maybe line the walls of a room. Or if you want to keep everyone in the house safe, hang it at the windows, like you would with garlic or holly.”
“You know odd bits of magic, don’t you?”
“No.” Cait shut that down like she’d flipped a light switch, and that made Aiden all the more curious. “It’s not magic. I don’t have any.”
Aiden started to shake his head, to disagree with her, but she said, “My granny had psi gifts. I didn’t know what it was called then, but she knew things. She told me I had power.” Cait smiled now. “She was a Seabee in World War II. She’s why I became a marine.”
“She sounds great.”
“I loved her like crazy, but she was just that…a little crazy. She used to tell us The Wives’ Tales, capital letters included. The war stories were true, but Mom made sure we understood that none of the other stuff was real”
Things started to click in Aiden’s mind. About Cait and her power, and why she didn’t believe in it. He prodded her.
“And?”
“She passed away when I was ten. Through the years, my hunches got stronger and I figured out I could trust them, but there was never anything else.”
“And now?”
“Thank them,” she said, pointing toward the sky, “for any hinky hunches I get being of any use.”
“Wow.” He recognized a block when he slammed up against it. “Okay, I hope we get the chance to tell each other more than just bits and pieces of our long stories.”
Her admission to full-on precognition was the strongest admission of power he’d gotten so far. He’d have to have faith that they’d get time to talk, especially about power.
He worked with her in her office, digging for more on Hathaway, O’Reilly, Swanson, and Bartleby. As it approached end of the afternoon police shift, he called Tank.
As he dialed the number to his sometime nemesis, he pondered how to word his request.
“McNamara.” The deep, curt voice came on the line.
“Tank, it’s Aiden Bayliss.”
“Awww, hell.”
“Yeah. Sorry to say it, but I need to meet. Soon. As corny as it sounds, it’s a matter of life and death.”
“Dammit all to hell.” Tank’s snarl was deep and serious. “I don’t need this, Bayliss.”
“Yeah, actually, you do. You know the incident here in my building?”
The silence from the other end of the phone was palpable.
“I have a source,” he said, wincing at the curse from the other end. “Yeah, exactly. Source says another important individual buys the farm. I can’t put out the warning.”
“Smitty’s, on Fourteenth.” Tank snapped the words as if they were poison in his mouth. “Six o’clock.”
“I’ll be there.” He realized as he said it that he was talking to dead air.
He gave Cait the gist of the call.
“A reluctant believer?”
“Yeah, you could say that. I’m hoping he’ll listen to another crazy story, and that he’ll be willing to pass it up the line, even if it sounds nuts.”
“Cops can say stuff to other cops, and it gets heard, even if it’s weird,” she said as she typed in key words for another search. “They see some strange shit all the time, even out of the quote-unquote normal population.”
Aiden’s skin prickled as Cait spoke. He knew she was exhausted and her walls were down, and maybe he shouldn’t use that, but damn, he wanted to know more about her. He put his hands on her shoulders and started a gentle massage.
“I have no doubt,” he said.
She moaned as his thumbs found the knots. She stopped typing and leaned her head to the right, giving him access to more of her neck on
that side.
“Did you work with the cops, before?” He already knew the answer, first because she’d been in the military, and that made it a natural fit, but also because she was a law and order kind of girl, even now. It was a good place to start.
“Yeah. I was private security, for a company in the Towers. I worked constantly with NYPD and Harbor Patrol.”
“And before, in New York? You said you were a Marine. What did you do?”
She was silent for a long time, and Aiden thought she wasn’t going to answer. But finally she said, “I flew an AV-8 Harrier Aircraft. I was a Marine Corps Close Air Support Strike Pilot.”
Holy effing shit.
Aiden sucked in a breath and let it out slow, but he managed to keep his hands moving, kneading Cait’s shoulders. In those two sentences, she’d told him volumes about her heart, her commitment.
What she’d told him in the cage he’d put her in didn’t count. That hadn’t been her choice.
This was priceless. He knew she was gifted, but holy gods, he hadn’t known how exceptional. Female marines were scarce. He’d lay odds female marine pilots were even rarer.
But when she died, she was working in a civilian security job. Not as a pilot. People didn’t just decide to leave a career flying fighter aircraft. That meant something had happened. Something bad.
Aiden considered what to say next and came up with only one thing he knew might be safe.
“Did you like the bagels?”
It took her a moment to answer, and he saw a series of emotions cross her face, all quickly subdued. “More than anything. And the lox was fabulous. You can’t get lox anywhere else like you can in New York.”
“Did you save me any?” he said with a grin.
“Nope. It was too good.”
He leaned over the back of her chair and hugged her. “Excellent. I’m glad.”
“There are still some bagels.”
“Really? How many did they send? I just said, ‘send a bunch’.” He grinned at her.
“More than a dozen. You want one?”
“Sure.”
She printed out a report. Then she took a break to toast them both a bagel.
“Looks like my team found more info on the Senatorial Quadruplets,” she said as she bit into her bagel. “That includes Bartleby. They all served on a committee when they were each governor of their states. Isn’t that a nice coincidence?” she asked sarcastically.
“Not.” He matched her tone.
“Exactly. It was a committee on freedom of the press regarding UFOs and sightings and many of the issues around that sort of thing. Each of their states has a SETI installation.”
“SETI, that’s the alien trackers, right? They’re ST wannabees, I guess.”
She laughed. “Well, sort of. They’re the kind of thing that often leads to the first step in being recognized by the Alliance, actually. They do good work. Who knows, in a few years, I could be doing this job more openly.”
“What about New Mexico?”
“Still haven’t fit him in. He may just be a red herring, like my teams thinks.”
“You don’t think so,” Aiden said calmly.
“Nope. As you’ve said several times, if it seems like coincidence…”
“It isn’t.”
She smiled up at him as she sat back down at the computer. With a few keystrokes, a copy of the StarreReport and the headlines from the London TattyTales both popped up on screen.
“What’s that? The tabloids?”
“Men in Black got that one right. I’m tracking to see if unusual activity has registered. I have a database that sorts printed news from all over and flags stories based on certain keywords. A lot of hits come from the tabs.”
“The tabloids. Amazing.”
“And the internet News of the Weird too,” she said, grinning. “Not all freaked out weirdos are making things up. Every now and then, it’s a genuine alien encounter.”
“And the world gets weirder and better every day.” Shaking his head, he dropped a kiss to the top of her head and massaged her shoulders again.
“That feels marvelous.”
“I’ve got good hands.”
“I can testify to that,” she raised her right hand.
“I’ve gotta go meet Tank,” he said, wishing he could stay. She’d said more in this one conversation than he’d gotten from her since he met her.
She looked at her watch. “Yeah, I guess you’d better go.” She leaned back in the chair, looking up at him. “Be careful, please. If the cop won’t believe you…” she let her voice trail away.
“He will,” Aiden said with confidence. “I only hope he can do something about it.”
* * *
Meeting Tank wasn’t what he wanted to do on a dark October night, and he was sure it wasn’t Tank’s idea of fun either, but that was the least of his worries.
How in hell he was going to explain this to the Council?
“Oh, the murder inside my building shields? Yeah, no big worry. Seriously. Just an alien.” The words echoed in the confines of the car. “Oh, yeah, aliens exist. No, not having a relapse from the Atlanta incident. I’m fine, thanks.” He answered the imaginary questions from the Council. With a wince, he visualized the pitying looks.
It made him angry.
So he had nightmares about Atlanta and the Nightflyer. Some Council members thought he was unstable. But no member of the Council had done magical combat with something that powerful. But, of course, they agreed that his fears, his nightmares were normal. Natural.
“Natural, like cowardice is natural,” he growled, parallel parking on Fourteenth. He knew the Council–at least most of them—were genuinely concerned. After all, they’d made a place for him to recover in DC.
Some, though, had gloated over his fall from grace. He was the most powerful adept in a generation and had become an Adept Enforcer in record time. Many were intimidated by his magical strength. Those were the ones who’d been happy to see him brought low.
“Oh, how the mighty have fallen.” He mocked himself as he checked the area before getting out of the car.
Inside Smitty’s he worked his way through the crowd of lawyers, Capitol Hill types, singles and locals out for a beer and a game of pool. There were groups of people in wildly colored costumes—presumably on the way to Halloween parties or coming from them. Six televisions broadcast different football and hockey games with the closed captioning engaged.
He’d been in, leaning on the bar, about five minutes when Tank walked in. He could tell that a number of people recognized the detective for what he was. Several edged to a different part of the bar. One, a greasy looking white guy, took one look at Tank, got up from a nearby table, and left. The bartender actually looked relieved when that happened.
Signaling the woman with two fingers, Aiden shouted “Draft, some chips and salsa,” over the noise of a touchdown celebration. The woman nodded, and he quickly snagged the abandoned table. Tank watched the greasy guy leave, a look of anger on his stern features. At Aiden’s wave, Tank joined him at the relatively clean two-top round.
Tank slid into a seat at the table. “I need a beer.”
Aiden sat in the greasy guy’s vacated chair, and immediately got three images. The greasy man with his hands on a knife. The knife covered with blood. And last, the weapon, lying by a guard rail, a signpost in the background.
He knew the location. In fact, he and Cait had been within a mile of it on their morning jaunt.
“And something to eat,” Tank continued as he stripped off his coat. When Aiden didn’t answer, he grunted. “What? You don’t like beer?”
“You know I do, and I already ordered,” Aiden managed, pulling himself together as the images faded. He cleared his throat. When he was sure he could speak clearly, he asked, “That guy, the one that was sitting here, you knew him?”
“Yeah, I know him. Bastard. Killed his girlfriend. She was nine months along. Docs saved the baby, somehow.”
“Nothing to tie him?” Aiden questioned, to give himself time to recover.
“Plenty. Motive, opportunity, but he’s alibied. We could break it if we had something, anything more,” Tank shrugged off the palpable anger. “You know how it is.”
“If I could take you to the murder weapon?”
Tank leaned over, faster than a snake, to grab Aiden’s shoulder. “What do you know? Dammit Bayliss, why didn’t you…”
Aiden tolerated the grip, but closed his eyes and hummed the theme to The Twilight Zone. It was his way of conveying that he’d gotten his information by other-than-normal means.
“Crap.” Tank lifted his wire rimmed glasses to rub his eyes. He let out a short, gruff burst of air. “Okay. After we’re done here, you take me to it. I’ll figure out a story.”
“Deal,” Aiden said. “It isn’t far.”
“Good. I’ve been on the job since eleven.”
“This morning?”
“Last night.”
“I’ll be quick as I can with the other stuff, then.” He waited while a waiter plopped down two foam topped draft beers and set a wicker basket of chips, salsa, guacamole and sour cream between them. He added a platter of mini-quesadillas.
“Extras are from Sara, at the bar,” the waiter said. “She, uh, said thanks for the run off? Mean anything to you?”
“Yep,” Aiden replied, lifting his glass to the woman. She nodded and got back to work.
The boy left, and he and Tank dug in.
Tank started in on Aiden. “What’s so all-fired fucking urgent? You said something about the thing in your building. How’s that get me a murder weapon in an unsolved?”
“Weapon’s a kitchen knife, blade’s about ten inches. Wooden handle’s got blood on it, prints in the blood,” Aiden offered the description softly, but with a matter-of-fact air. He knew what the knife was, what it had done.
Tank sighed. “If you can give that to me, I’ll owe you. There’s an empty slot in the knife block in the vic’s kitchen. I might even be able to get you the reward, anonymously, if we can nail the guy.”
“The money’s not a factor. Just keep my name out of it. The guy was sitting here. I got the info when I took his seat.”
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