They were in an old car park and it was 2am. Apart from a few abandoned cars there was nothing around except graffiti'd concrete walls. When he'd come in, John had sent the lone security guard off to get coffee so it was just the two of them now.
The class system had been created by the Blood Hound Institute as a way of classifying paranormal creatures according to intelligence. Despite no longer working for the BHI, John found it a useful shorthand to use. A Class 5 creature was basically an animal, as dumb as a hamster or a guinea pig. They weren't particularly strange but displayed some abnormal abilities that, for one reason or another, it had been decided should be kept a secret from the general population. On the far ends of the scale you had a Class 10 which was insectile, and Class 1 which had human, or better, levels of intellect. A Class 5 shouldn't have been any trouble for him to deal with.
John had been on his way to dinner with Marla Springer when he'd got the call. He would have ignored it, dinner with Marla, and everything that usually followed, was not something he would jeopardise, but it was a confirmed Class 5 and he was running early. He should have been able to neutralise the threat and still be on time. The money for the bounty was too much to resist.
Things hadn't gone quite according to plan, obviously. He had arrived to find the creatures nest had been disturbed by a bunch of drunks. They were already corpses by the time he got there but she was still pissed off.
John watched her stalk across the car park, looking for any sign of movement. He didn't dare even move his eyeballs.
She snorted and growled but she didn't see him. Once she had turned away he could pick up his gun and end it. He had missed dinner and Marla but he could still get home before morning and right now that seemed like a victory.
She started to turn and he let himself exhale. Then his wrist started to vibrate. He glanced down and saw the blue light flash to show that he was getting a message. When he looked back up he saw that the creature had turned in his direction again.
“Oh shit,” he sighed.
He threw himself into the air as she came charging towards him. Thanks to the enhancements the BHI had provided he flew about five metres before hitting the ground and rolling to a stop. He pulled out his pulse gun and flipped off the safety.
She skidded to a halt where he had just been, her mouth open and her slimy grey tongue weaving around like a cats tale.
He aimed.
She cried out with a painfully human sound and started running towards him again.
Still on the ground, John waited until he was sure. He couldn't risk missing her now and having to wait another five seconds for the gun to recharge.
He closed his left eye, aimed with his right. Deep breath. The creature getting closer, closer. He breathed out slowly and squeezed the trigger. There was a small amount of resistance, a final safeguard to ensure he didn't fire it by accident. There was no mechanism in the weapon that required the movement, it could just have easily been fired by the swipe of a touch panel or a voice command.
The creature seemed to freeze as the purple plasma surrounded it. It floated backwards and up. John watched, his gun hand fell to his side.
The light around the creature got brighter and brighter. The purple hue became impossible to distinguish. John covered his eyes. He knew the timing of the device like his own heart beat. He closed his eyes.
The air seemed to rip. It was all he could hear. Through his closed eyes he could see the air burning.
When he opened his eyes again the light had gone and so had the creature. He rubbed his head and picked himself up. Dusted his leather jacket and jeans down and put his pulse gun back in the holster he carried under his coat.
John Kable walked away from the car park as if nothing had happened at all. He nodded to the security guard who was returning with his coffee and then he walked home.
Despite his best intentions he didn't make it home before daylight. The birds were starting to chirp as he walked up to the front door, the early morning sun reflecting off the windows. He took his key out of his pocket and went to unlock the door but it was already open.
His hand went to the gun. He pushed open the door slowly and peered inside.
The long hallway was dark and cool. He could see the frames of the paintings hanging on the walls but not the pictures themselves.
“You're late.”
He spun around with his gun drawn, ready to shoot until his brain finished processing the words and he realised that he recognised the voice. “Marla,” he said.
She was wearing a low cut black cocktail dress that hung to the floor. She had her hair down and her black eye liner was slightly smudged. She looked like she'd been asleep. “We had a date mister,” she said. She looked at the gun which he was still aiming at her. “Are you going to shoot me?”
He smiled and put the gun away. Didn't ask her how she got inside, with Marla you had to accept that some things would forever remain a mystery.
“You look terrible,” she said walking up to him and touching his face. It stung and he realised he had been cut. It couldn't have been too bad though.
He looked in her big dark eyes and they sparkled. “It's good to see you,” he said.
She returned his smile at last and leaned towards him. They kissed and soon he had forgotten all about the Class 5 in the car park.
2
John didn't wake up until noon by which time Marla was long gone. He rolled over onto her side of the bed, it was already cool but she had left him a note scribbled on the back of an envelope:
“Thanks for a great night J. We should do it again sometime. Love M.”
He dropped the note on the floor and climbed out of bed. He stepped over the pile of clothes he had left in the middle of the floor and showered.
When he was dry he grabbed a couple of energy bars from the kitchen and a bottle of water and walked up to his office at the top of the house. He entered his password on the touch panel at the door and it scanned his fingerprints at the same time. The lock clicked and he pushed the door open.
John's office took up the entire top floor of the house but only appeared to be about twenty-square metres. Anyone who walked into the room would find it empty except for the large white desk in the middle.
The room actually contained thousands of top secret items that he had taken when he left the BHI. It was all hidden behind secure walls. No one would be able to access it without his voice, retina and fingerprints. The walls not only hid the equipment from visual inspection but masked the energy signatures the equipment emitted even when switched off. If anyone from the BHI scanned the property, and he hadn't left on good terms so it was always a possibility, they wouldn't find anything.
He closed the door and sat down at his desk. He removed the communicator from his desk and opened up his computer. The laptop was the only thing in the room that wasn't top secret technology. It was a bog standard MacBook that he'd bought two years previously.
The computer picked up the presence of his communicator and opened the application. It showed him that the message had come from an unknown source which shouldn't have been possible. It wasn't as if it had a phone number.
He scratched his head and pressed play. A face appeared on the screen, not the mystery caller but his personal assistant Timothy. Timothy was a computer program, like most other things in the room he was lifted from the BHI. He read out the message in his private schoolboy accent:
“John Kable, I need your help.”
The message ended.
“Would you like me to play it again sir?” said Timothy.
John scratched his head and silently cursed the person who had sent it. He'd almost been killed for that.
“No Timothy, you can delete it.”
“Sir?”
“Delete it Timothy.”
“Will you be taking any follow up action? I can give you the location the message originated from.”
“I know what you can...” he stopped, calmed down. He
didn't have any work on at the moment, maybe it would be worth his while to find out who had left the message. He could pay them a little visit and give them a warning. “Sure, get me a location.”
An hour later he was still sitting at his desk. He had typed up the details of the Class 5 last night and sent the invoice. The address the message had come from was scribbled on a post-it note and stuck to his desk.
There were no windows in the room but according to his computer it was still light out. He didn't intend to pay his little visit until after dark so once he'd finished his work he opened his desk drawer and pulled out a black ring binder.
John didn't have any family. He had been raised by foster parents since the age of eleven. He had no idea what had become of his parents but he was trying to find out. The more he researched, however, the more complicated it became and the further back the trail stretched. The folder contained what he had managed to work out of his family tree.
So far he had gone back to his great-great-Grandparents, Graham and Carol Kable. He had been a police detective until he'd become tangled up with the Blood Hound Institute. They'd emigrated to America for a while but more trouble had brought them back to England. There had also been some trouble with Graham's father but, as yet, John had been unable to link that to the disappearance of his parents.
He didn't know whether they were dead or alive but thanks to the BHI's computer systems he had been able to name them as David and Kirsty. He had also ruled out the possibility of siblings.
“Sir there is someone at the front door,” said Timothy.
John looked up. “Show me.”
The computer screen came on and he saw a tall blond woman standing at the door. She looked around as if scared she was being watched.
“Is there a record of her?” said John. He was concerned. People didn't just show up at his house and this coming the day after the message made him worry that his location had been compromised. He didn't relish the idea of moving on, though he would if he had to.
“No sir,” said Timothy, “nothing in the database.”
He sighed and stood up.
Before he left the room he took a handheld pulse gun from the security cabinet by the door and set it to charge.
The woman smiled when he opened the door but it looked to him as if she was in pain or under duress. He looked her up and down, she was about thirty, had a nice physique, athletic.
“Can I help you?” he said.
“Do you know what happened to my sister?”
John shook his head. “I think you must have the wrong house.”
The woman opened her handbag and started frantically going through it.
John's hand twitched over his weapon, ready to pull it on her at a moments notice.
She took out a piece of paper and handed it to him, “when I went to see her this morning, I found this.”
He looked down and saw his address scribbled in blue ink across the page. Was it a coincidence? He didn't like coincidences.
“You'd better come in,” he said and held open the door. He watched the way she walked; smooth but not too smooth. She was nervous but trying not to show it, more importantly she wasn't a shape-shifter; they could never get the walk quite right.
“Through here,” he said and led her through into the dining room. It was old fashioned, a room that he only used to entertain clients. The furniture was all antique, the pictures on the wall had been there when he moved in. “Take a seat,” he said and she sat in the green high back by the window. He looked at her for a moment, she really was very pretty, and then sat down himself.
“Do you mind if I smoke?” she said.
He shook his head and nodded to the table beside her where there was a heavy marble ashtray. She lit a slim cigarette and visibly relaxed as she exhaled.
“Why don't you start by telling me what's going on,” he said.
“My sister went missing last night,” she said. “We always meet on a Monday night to play cards at the casino.”
“Cards?” said John.
She shrugged, “Blackjack mostly but sometimes we play the slots or roulette.”
He nodded.
“She calls at my house every Monday at nine, she's always right on time.”
“Except last night?”
“Except last night, right. I tried calling but her line was engaged. So at about ten I drove over. Her front door was open and all the lights were on. But she wasn't there.”
“Then what happened?”
She shrugged. “I made myself a cup of coffee, sat down and waited. The lights were all on, I thought she would come back.” She stubbed out her cigarette. “I looked around to see if she'd left a note or anything. That's when I found your address.”
John nodded and rubbed a hand over his mouth and chin. “Miss...”
“Sandra,” she said. “Sandra Sanctuary.”
“Miss Sanctuary...”
“It's Mrs actually,” she said without a trace of annoyance. “And please, you can call me Sandra.”
“Okay, Sandra,” he said. “This is all very interesting but it sounds like a matter for the police. I don't really deal with missing people.”
“She had your address, that must mean something?”
He shrugged. “It's a mystery.”
“What do you deal with?” she said.
“Well I don't take walk-ins for one thing,” he said. He was starting to feel agitated. Two people in twenty-four hours had managed to find him and there was a high chance that they were related. Even though the time stamps didn't match up he was sure that if he asked for the address of the sister it would turn out to be the place the message had come from. “Have you been to the police?” he asked.
She shook her head.
“Mind if I ask why?”
“We're not the kind of people they help,” she said simply.
“And what kind of people are you?”
“Lucky,” she said. “We beat the odds.”
“Professional gambler?”
“Something like that.”
He nodded and they sat in silence for a moment. It sounded like she had money, it might turn out to be worth his while.
“I'll take a look into it,” he said. “Give me her address.” He handed a notebook and pen to her. “And better put your phone number on there too.”
3
An hour later he was standing outside a house in central Wreathing. It wasn't big but it was modern and expensive looking. There was a silver Ferrari parked in front of the garage and the whole property was behind a tough steel gate. As he had expected it was the same address the message had come from.
He flipped the charge button on the pulse gun under his jacket and tried the gate. It was unlocked.
The front door of the house was open but the lights were off. He tried the switch in the hallway but nothing happened.
“What do you think?” he whispered.
“Perhaps it would be advisable to scout the perimeter before going inside,” said the voice of Timothy in his ear. Another piece of tech stolen from the BHI. Usually he preferred to work without his Artificial Assistant in his ear but he could be useful when going into strange environments. Even away from the house Timothy could connect to millions of databases and provide him with information in an instant.
He followed Timothy's advice and stepped out of the house. It was dark and he felt able to take out his weapon without the risk of being seen by members of the public. He checked it was charged and started walking.
The house stood in the middle of about an acre of land. The lawn was neatly manicured and the bushes trimmed, nothing like his own overgrown back yard. He continued around the whole garden until he returned to the front door.
“Well that was a waste of time,” he said.
“It's better to be safe than sorry sir,” said Timothy in his ear.
He resisted telling the AI to shut up and went inside the house.
John hadn't brought a torch w
ith him but he rarely needed one. As well as enhancing his physical abilities the BHI had worked on his senses and provided him with cat-like night vision. He waited in the dark for his eyes to adjust and then went on.
The house was quiet and still. He could hear a faint breeze blowing in through an open window upstairs but nothing more. The downstairs was clean so he walked up the stairs, thinking that if nothing else he could close the window.
He checked each of the rooms but found nothing until he reached the last. The door was ajar and swaying back and forth in the wind. He pushed it open and found himself in the master bedroom. He walked over to the window and pulled it closed. When he turned to examine the rest of the room he saw a lump on the bed.
John took a step closer to the bed and realised that there was someone in it. He thought he must have disturbed the woman sleeping, probably after a big drinking session.
“She's not breathing sir,” said Timothy in his ear.
John looked more closely and realised that his eyes weren't picking up a heat signature either. That must have been why he hadn't noticed her when he first came in the room. She was dead.
He reached for the blanket meaning to pull it up over her head before he called the police but as he reached the head he got his second surprise, the face was unmistakeable that of Sandra Sanctuary.
4
He waited until he got home to phone Marla. He told her what had happened, everything, there were no secrets between them. She listened patiently and then said she would send a couple of beat cops around to investigate a disturbance. They could stumble upon the body.
“Are you coming over tonight?” he asked, he needed to be with someone.
“I can't hon, I've got to work.”
He let her go and hoped she might surprise him. He leaned back in his office chair looked at the two pieces of paper on his desk, both with the same address on them in two different hands. He told himself that this was a police case, that there was no evidence that it fell into his line of business. But something niggled at him. Maybe it was just because they had both come to him, Sandra and her sister. He had an feeling that before long he would get a call back from Marla telling him she needed his help.
Three Stories Tall Page 9
