Nocturnal

by Mark Allen

  “I heard it in a Randolph Scott movie once.”

  “Who’s Randolph Scott?”

  Shocked, the vampire wanted to explain, but thought better of it. “Prepare for battle.”

  Every cop in the room checked his weapon. Rudy Valdez looked around. He realized he was in direct line of sight to the barred front door. That meant he would be the first thing his colleagues would see as they stormed through the door, adrenaline pumping, weapons aiming, trigger fingers squeezing...

  “Guys?” Valdez spoke. “Can someone please move me out of the direct line of fire?”

  The vampire grabbed him and deftly lifted him out of the chair with one arm. “Where would you like me to put him?”

  Reggie motioned. “Just over there in the corner.”

  The vampire dropped Rudy to the floor, unmindful of the pain the short drop caused. He was listening to the men downstairs as they breached the iron security door.

  “They’re in the stairwell,” the vampire said. “Two by two. Steady. Very disciplined.”

  Horn stood beside the archway leading to the short hallway and the metal door. Firearm ready, he held a cellphone to his ear. He called for backup as Castle dropped to one knee in the shadows opposite the archway.

  “They’re right outside,” the vampire whispered.

  “You could take them all out,” Horn suggested.

  “And rob you of the pleasure of doing what deep down you want to do?” the vampire shook his head. “I think not, sir.”

  Reggie had moved quietly away to his bedroom. He entered back just as quietly. He held a second gun in his hand. The vampire approved. His great great grandson had made his decision: if he was going to die, he was going to die fighting, protecting his friends, protecting society from the scum of the Earth.

  The vampire’s chest swelled with pride.

  “We ain’t taking prisoners,” Horn instructed. “Got it?”

  “I’m good with that,” Castle growled, his blood up.

  Reggie moved like a cat, both pistols aimed at the hallway. “Let’s kill these fuckers,” he said. “We gotta get to Encanto, check on my Grandma.”

  A bright flame, burning quickly, accompanied by a foul odorous smoke and a hateful hiss, engulfed the metal door at the end of the hall.

  “Breach!” Horn barked.

  The door blew inward with enough force to swing open and slam against the wall. The door twisted and bent off its top hinge. The bottom hinge twisted as well, but held. The heavy door swung slightly at an absurd angle.

  An acrid aroma assailed the vampire’s nostrils. C4 mixed with Semtex. Damn! The vampire’s face twisted in disgust. It fed his determination. He crouched, ready to spring, ready to fight, ready to kill, prepared to die to protect his family.

  An unexpected quiet ensued. The smoke from the explosives wafted, suspended in the air. A tiny red beam pierced the veil, bouncing along the particles floating in the air. They shone metallic as the intense light burned through. Another beam appeared, performing its own dance. Then another, and yet another.

  Laser sightings, attached to automatic rifles, held by dangerous men, intent on trouble. Expert killers looking for a target.

  The vampire glanced down at Rudy. He put his extended index finger to his black lips, indicating for Rudy to remain silent. Rudy understood, fervently nodding his head.

  The quiet lingered. Then, like ghostly wraiths coalescing, the mercenaries appeared one by one as they materialized out of the cloud. Not a word spoken, no hand signals given. They inched forward down the hall, vengeful spirits, silent as the grave.

  Into the Kill Box.

  Castle fired first, his weapon deafening after the tense silence, and struck his target in the throat, just under the chin. The upward trajectory of the bullet sent it through his brain and out the top of his head. Part of the mercenary’s skull flopped open. He was dead before he hit the ground.

  Automatic gunfire erupted, laser sightings bouncing around, bullets biting into the walls ahead. Horn waited, crouched low to avoid injury, then committed to the attack. The big man spun into the Kill Box and fired his Python. He aimed just a tic above the dancing laser sightings, and two more fell. Then he spun back out of the way, bullets sending plaster near his head spraying, falling like chalky dust.

  Castle reloaded, and took aim just as Reggie stepped up. He opened fire with both pistols. Castle fired as well. In the mist, they could see bullets impacting, and men’s’ bodies twisting backwards crashing to the floor.

  Another quiet ensued. Then the sound of coughing, of ragged breathing. It sounded wet.

  Reggie, Castle, and Horn all advanced down the hallway. Blood and brains splattered the walls like a gruesome Jackson Pollock mural. Blood rivulets, crimson amoebic pseudopods, inched their paths across the wooden flooring.

  The only man left alive, a black man, shivered and convulsed on the floor. A pink frothy blood trail trickling from his mouth and down his chin. He clutched tightly at a wound at the side of his rib cage, a vulnerable area not protected by his body armor.

  Horn kicked the man’s gun away. “What’s your name, son?”

  The black man set his jaw, narrowed his eyes. He was not going to say a word.

  “His name is Melvin.”

  Horn, Reggie, and Castle turned and looked at the vampire. He strolled casually up the hallway. He seemed completely at ease, as if walking among multiple dead bodies in an apartment smeared with bullet holes, blood, and gray matter was something he did every day.

  “All right, Melvin,” Horn continued, “you were at Reggie’s grandmother’s house when you got called off. Who backfilled your position?”

  Melvin coughed, wincing in pain. Then he spat pinkly in Horn’s face.

  The vampire’s head twitched. His ears perked. “Sirens.”

  “I don’t hear anything,” Castle said.

  “You will,” the vampire assured him. Then to Horn, “Time is of the essence, Captain.”

  Horn pulled out a handkerchief, wiped the bloody phlegm off his face. He assessed Melvin’s condition, and mentally projected Melvin’s chances of survival. He stuffed the handkerchief back in his pocket.

  “You’ve got a collapsed lung,” he pointed out. “You’re going into shock. You’re developing a tension pneumothorax. As your lung collapses, it shifts inward, pushing your trachea and your heart out of place. It’s a life-threatening emergency as your heart cannot beat in its proper rhythm, and the one good lung you have left can’t inflate the way it’s supposed to.”

  Horn stood up, crossed one hand over the other. “You know what the difference is between you and me ?” Melvin was in too much pain to answer. “Ten minutes from now, I’ll still be alive.” Horn smiled, then simply turned and walked out.

  “I cannot be detained by the police,” the vampire spoke up. “We must check on my granddaughter.”

  “I’ll hang back, “ Castle volunteered. “Go guys. Head out. I’ll handle the uniforms and the press.”

  The vampire drove efficiently through the deserted streets. Reggie sat in the passenger seat beside him. Horn took up most of the back seat. Reggie was tense, but under control. His heart beat loudly in the vampire’s ears, his blood surged through his arteries, gurgling like water in a pipe.

  Glancing up through the rear view mirror, the vampire regarded Horn. The big man stared through the window at the dark landscape blurring by, silent and grim. He was feeling old emotions, the vampire realized. The firefight had brought up bad memories. The vampire did not probe further. The big man deserved his privacy.

  “Where are we going?” the vampire asked.

  “Encanto,” Reggie replied.

  “Precisely where?”

  Reggie gave him the street address. The vampire nodded.

  “Twelve minutes,” the vampire said. Then he added, “You were betrayed by one of your own.”

  “Who?”

  The vampire eased the car through a turn. “His identity will be known soon
.”

  Horn peeled his eyes away from the window and stared at the back of the vampire’s head. “How can you be so sure?”

  “Human nature,” the vampire answered. “Reginald is alive. The cartel’s plan has unraveled. The drug lord and his top henchmen must come out of the shadows to handle this themselves. That will include the turncoat.”

  “I think you’ve seen too many movies.”

  The vampire grinned.

  “Turn left up ahead,” Reggie said.

  The Encanto neighborhood is located in Southeastern San Diego close to its border with National City, populated with a high percentage of African Americans and other minorities. The old buildings, cracked sidewalks and crumbling curbs made silent testament to the neighborhood’s decay and the residents’ meager incomes. City politicians always promised money for improvement projects, but the programs never materialized. More than once, monies meant for infrastructure maintenance, upgrades, and repair somehow got diverted to other, “higher priority” projects. The projects almost always happened to be in more affluent areas of town: La Jolla, Point Loma, the Gaslamp.

  Meanwhile, Encanto and its residents of modest means and working class backgrounds, were simply forgotten. The neighborhood withered. Drugs, gangs, street crime rose, but the residents endured.

  The Lexus crept down a narrow street, lined on both sides by houses sagging with age and hopelessness. At this time of morning, most of the houses were dark. Some had a single dim bulb shining, but it was more of a nightlight in case someone woke up and, half asleep, needed to stumble to the bathroom.

  “Which one?” the vampire asked.

  Reggie pointed. “Last house on the left.”

  The vampire parked the car further down the block on the opposite side of the street. He shut the engine off. Somewhere in the night, a dog barked. They all got out.

  Reggie glanced at his Grandmother’s house as he counted his remaining ammo. “There’s a light on.”

  “Does she usually have one on at night?” Horn asked.

  “Sometimes.”

  “This is different.” The vampire’s words were barely more than a whisper. But intense.

  Instantly fearful, Horn and Reggie froze and looked at the vampire. His face was awash with murderous intent. His nostrils flared. The right side of his upper lip curled into a snarl, revealing his right fang again.

  “What’s wrong?” Horn asked. “Is she in there?”

  The angry vampire did not answer. He stood there, trembling. Both Horn and Reggie were glad neither of them were the objects of his rage.

  “Come on, Grandpa Eddie,” Reggie prodded. “Is Grandma Lottie in there?”

  “Yes.” His voice was still a whisper.

  “Is she all right?”

  “For the moment.”

  “Are they in there with her?”

  The vampire swallowed, then, “Yes.”

  “Her life is in danger.”

  “Yes.” His whisper had become a growl.

  Horn and Reggie flicked the safeties off their firearms. Horn nodded to his fellow officer, a man he had grown to respect, then moved left. Reggie went right. They fanned out in a classic flanking movement on the house, executing the move with military precision.

  The vampire stalked forward, right up the middle, heading directly towards the front door. His Baby Girl, his Lot-Lot was inside.

  And he was absolutely going to kill anyone, ANYONE, who tried to harm her.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Reggie’s apartment buzzed with activity. White tarps covered the bodies. CSI techs photographed blood and brain splatters. Others walked carefully through the hallway and into the apartment itself, fluidly videotaping their progress with high-def camcorders.

  Castle stood on the small stoop at the top of the stairs, outside the apartment itself. Yellow police tape crisscrossed the entrance. A young uniformed officer climbed the stairs towards him. She was young, probably a rookie, he thought. She pushed wavy red hair from her face.

  “Detective Castle?” she asked, a bit out of breath.

  “Yes,” he answered. He had never felt so calm as he did at that moment.

  “Officer Wahl,” she introduced herself. “The Watch Commander is downstairs. He wants to debrief you.”

  “Of course,” Castle smiled. He started lightly down the stairs. He got a few feet down, then turned. Wahl was at the yellow tape, craning her neck to see inside.

  “Officer Wahl?”

  The young officer jumped at the sound of her name. She stepped back.

  “Have you ever responded to a crime scene like this? Multiple bodies, savage damage done on a scale like this?”

  “No sir.”

  “Steele yourself, then go on inside,” he said. “Tell them Detective Sergeant Castle said it was okay. Have one of the techs lift a tarp. Take it all in: the look, the sounds, the smell. It won’t be pretty, but it’s important that you see this.”

  She stood there, not understanding. But that was all right, he thought.

  “Go on,” he waved. “You’ll thank me someday.”

  Castle turned and descended the stairway. The last step was not wood, but concrete, part of the foundation of the building. He stepped on it and out through the doorway. The early morning air had never smelled so sweet.

  The Watch Commander, a lifer dog with frayed gray hair and a leathered face that reminded Castle of an old catcher’s mitt approached. Castle waited. He shook Castle’s hand. “Looks like you took out some real bad-asses up there.”

  “Yes we did.”

  “So who was up there with you?”

  “Captain Horn and Detective Reginald Downing.”

  The Watch Commander eyed him hard. “So there was no one else?”

  Castle shook his head. He hoped he appeared emphatic. “No sir.”

  “And you’re sure of that?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “You sure you don’t want to change that?”

  “Why would I, sir?”

  “Well, because I’ve got an eyewitness, that Rudy Valdez character, who says there was a fourth person up there with you.”

  “He is mistaken.”

  “He says there was a guy named Eddie Marx. Scary guy.”

  “He must be confused.”

  “He is, is he?” the watch commander was not buying it, but Castle did not falter. After a pause, the Commander asked, “And where are Downing and Horn now?”

  “Following up another lead, sir.”

  “How convenient.”

  “It’s an urgent matter of public safety, sir.”

  The Watch Commander digested this. “So it was just you, Horn, and Downing, and no one else. That right?”

  “Not another living soul, sir.”

  Standing outside Lottie’s house, the vampire felt an unfamiliar twinge of regret. The dilapidated house in front of him had seen much better days, many years ago. He wondered briefly if in keeping his promise to Danae to not interfere in the lives of their descendants, he had left them to lives worse off than they deserved. He could have helped more. Danae was still alive then, but still. He certainly could have contributed anonymous money. After all, he had over twenty-seven million in various accounts spread halfway across the globe.

  A promise is a promise, he told himself. A promise kept is a promise kept. But his promise had been to Danae, and she had passed. And now, he found himself wanting to become more involved.

  He glanced to his left and to his right, saw Reggie gliding towards the front and heard, rather than saw, Horn huffing and puffing around towards the back. He glanced upwards, saw the second floor window.

  Open.

  Drapes fluttering.

  Reggie crept up towards the front porch and small front deck cautiously, firearm in front of him. He blended in with the shadows of the trees, the light poles. He silently climbed onto the railing. His footfalls on the wooden decking made almost no sound. He paused, glanced through the window. Grandma Lottie’s
curtains were so old they were gossamer thin. Quite easy to see through and access the situation within.

  He did not like what he saw.

  He turned to whisper to his ancestor, but the vampire was already walking. Two steps and he, without any obvious effort, leapt straight up, over the covered porch, and disappeared from view.

  He keyed the walkie-talkie function on his phone, whispered, “In position?”

  “In position,” came Horn’s ragged whisper.

  Reggie’s palm made contact with the doorknob, his fingers curled around its circumference. He applied the lightest touch, gingerly turning. The knob gave easily. When pushed, the door gave without resistance. Looking both at the top of the jamb and along the bottom, he noticed no wires, no smell of Semtex or cordite to indicate the door was rigged with an explosive device.

  He let go of the doorknob, let the door swing slowly inward. No big sounds, no crashing of glass. Just a slight ruffle from outside, the tinny squeak of an unlubricated door hinge. Steeling himself for what was coming next, he stepped across the threshold of his Grandmother’s house. It was the first time in his life he had ever contemplated the possibility that he might not walk out of that house alive. He pushed himself through the small foyer and into the living room.

  Everyone was there.

  His Grandma Lottie, elderly, a bit overweight and going gray in her late sixties, sat in a threadbare easy chair, her dingy bathrobe wrapped around her, cinched tight at her waist. Sandals on her feet, fear and worry on her face.

  Directly behind her, Rick Oakley stood, his left hand lightly touching her shoulder, his right hand holding his large caliber hand cannon pointed absently at the base of her skull. His face, cruel in repose, betrayed nothing of what he might or might not be feeling at this very moment.

  It took every fiber of discipline in his being to keep from shooting Oakley in the head right then and there. He barely noticed the two other sides of beef standing on either side of Oakley. One white, one black, both muscular, both professionals, about three feet off.

  Well there you have it, Reggie thought. Diversity in hiring at its finest.

  He glanced at them simply to memorize their positions within the room, which he now thought of as another Kill Box. Other than that, he did not care about them. They did not matter.