by Jamel Cato
“Kaptein?” she yelled playfully.
No answer.
“Jonas?”
She got up and went to the Kitchen, where she found Jonas rope-bound to one of their new dining chairs and gagged with masking tape. Three pale-skinned vampires stood around her husband. A fourth was at the stove tasting Jonas’s stew with a wooden serving spoon.
Astrid’s heart sank. She attempted to turn and run but the vampire closest to her moved with unnatural speed to block her way. Another placed her in a painful chokehold from behind, lifting her slightly off the ground. She was spun so she faced the stove.
“This is missing something,” Petrov Leclerc said, a streak of dark broth running down his chin. “And I have no idea what these little white balls are.” He shrugged. “But what do I know? I gave up food for blood years ago.”
Eleven years, four months, nineteen days. Astrid knew precisely when Leclerc had been turned. She knew the date when his mother had first reported him missing to the Stavanger police. She knew the locations of almost all his lairs, the fences he used to launder money and the exact week that the crime syndicate he controlled had expanded into greater Oslo and violently took over leadership of the Nordic Nightwalkers.
She had become obsessed with bringing down Leclerc from the moment the MSA had shown her the extent of his involvement in human trafficking. He specialized in selling children to pedophiles and kept a personal harem of eighteen women as sex slaves and food.
Her research efforts had become a monumental thorn in his side. She had disrupted his operations and repeatedly given the MSA the latest location of his daylight sleeping chamber.
Leclerc nodded to the thug restraining Astrid, who released the pressure on her neck while keeping his forearm pressed firmly into her breasts.
She immediately recited a chant that should have activated one of the wards that protected their home from invasions like this.
Leclerc tossed three small rocks and a nine-inch bone to the floor near her feet. “Nice try,” he said. “These are useless against me.”
Astrid was confused. She spoke another chant. Still nothing.
Leclerc smiled. “I’m going to have so much fun breaking you. You may even end up with your own room if you have this much spunk with your clothes off.”
She glared at him. “I would die first.”
“Oh, you’ll die. But then you’ll be reborn as one of us. I’ll crown you First Mistress of the Nordic Nightwalkers.” But then he laughed. “Just kidding, Professor Hot Bod. After all the trouble you’ve caused, I’m going to let my men take you until you don’t know which way is up.”
Astrid didn’t need magical wards to defend herself. “And I’ll tell every one of them to search for the Tommeliten Slam on YouTube. We’ll see how long you remain at the top after enough of them see you getting body slammed by a nine-year-old girl.”
The other vampires in the room exchanged glances.
Leclerc became enraged. “Turn her! Now!”
The vampire restraining Astrid pushed her chin up to expose her luscious carotid artery and then eagerly bit down. Its entire head disintegrated into dust, leaving a decapitated body to tumble lifelessly to the ground.
“She’s wearing Vampthrax!” one of the others shrieked as it leapt to the far side of the room.
Astrid produced a plastic charcoal lighter from her pocket and set its tip aflame.
The third vampire, thinking quickly, grabbed Jonas’s cutting knife from the counter and held the blade against her husband’s throat.
Astrid extinguished the lighter.
Leclerc covered his mouth and nose with a blue handkerchief and then approached her.
She faced him with square shoulders. “I have an email set to automatically send Konning’s phone everything about your operation in Narvik. This message will go out every morning unless I stop it.”
“Konning is dead,” he said.
She backed toward the wall. “There are tracking devices in my skin. The MSA will find me wherever you take me.”
He clamped a gloved hand around the bottom of her chin and squeezed hard. “I know about the beacons,” he said. He withdrew his smartphone and held it in her face while he scrolled through photos of two women in various states of bondage and nudity. “I think it’s safe to say your mother and sister don’t have any or someone would have shown up to rescue them by now.” He released her chin and pointed at Jonas. “I bet that fat heldiggris doesn’t have any either.”
She scowled.
Leclerc’s cheek muscles rose over the top of the handkerchief. “You think you’re so clever because you tracked down some dusty books and a few old farts with stories. Big deal. Did any of that stop me from walking in here tonight?”
She turned her face away.
He yanked it back.
She spat in his face.
He smacked her.
Jonas, knife still pressed to his jugular, protested by shaking his chair and mumbling guttural sounds through the tape covering his mouth.
Leclerc clenched her chin again. “Listen to me, you meddling fitte. Your time is running out. Make sure you wear your prettiest panties the day you put your last drop of Vampthrax on because I’ll be coming for you.” He unhinged a switchblade. “Scream and Captain Hook gets a sunroof in his neck.”
Then he carved the number nineteen into Astrid’s cheek while she clenched her eyes and teeth from the pain of it.
He stepped back and licked the blood from the blade. “You taste so good.”
Astrid pressed her shirt to her cheek to staunch the blood loss.
“Lover Boy is coming with me. If you stay out of my business, I’ll trade all three of them for you when our date night pops up on the calendar. But if you do anything to piss me off, I’ll turn him into the biggest Happy Meal in Norway.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Two teenage boys played a spirited game of basketball in a cul-de-sac of luxury homes in the city’s Chestnut Hill neighborhood.
“Jason and Kanani,” Xavier yelled from his driveway. “Go in the house. Now.”
“C’mon Mr. X,” a lanky boy of Polynesian descent answered. “We’re playing Twenty-One. It’s almost over.”
His friend was about to join him in protest when a deep male voice from behind them said, “Go.”
The boys turned to see all eight feet and five hundred pounds of Xavier’s neighbor Juergen coming toward them. Despite his modern attire and custom-made sunglasses that hid his single eye, the creature’s sallow skin, sloping shoulders and elongated limbs left no doubt that he was anything but human.
The basketball hoop shook as the cyclops stomped between the boys on an intercept course with the government car that had just parked at the curb in front of Xavier’s house.
Jason and Kanani sprinted toward a Tudor style mansion where neither of them lived.
Xavier was relieved to see the boys head toward the correct house. It was tough to get the kids to pay attention during the drills and the escape house varied depending on the nature of the threat.
Two other individuals emerged from their homes and fell into lockstep on either side of Juergen. One was a woman of average height and a fit build who was about forty. Contessa had her sandy brown hair tied into a hasty ponytail and was dressed in yoga pants and a t-shirt. The other individual was about the size of a grade school child, but it was impossible to tell much else because its body was enshrouded in a hooded black gown.
The driver side door of the car swung open. A stocky, middle-aged white man wearing a tie and a short-sleeved dress shirt stepped out and faced the approaching group.
“That’s close enough,” he barked.
None of the three even slowed down.
The man twisted to face Xavier. “You better tell them to stand down,” he said, raising his right arm to expose a black device about the size of a smartphone. “Or I swear I’ll call in an airstrike from Egg Harbor and turn this
whole damn neighborhood into a parking lot.”
Xavier raised his palm. Juergen, Contessa and the hooded being paused their advance and formed a perimeter about ten feet from the car.
“There are at least three hundred human civilians within the blast radius of anything you could call in from Egg Harbor,” Xavier said. “And Regulation 504 requires you to get Director and CentCom approval before calling in a strike against a domestic target. Unless you have Carlos and General Stuggart on hold, you’re bluffing.”
The Homeowners Association of Xavier’s development ensured that at least one home on their street was always occupied by a normal human family because of Regulation 504.
The visitor’s mouth dropped open. “What the...that’s classified information. I could take you down right now for that alone.”
“You’re not taking anyone down,” Contessa said.
The man turned to her, then seemed to notice Nobuku for the first time. “Is that a Tongou?”
Nobuku quickly withdrew the pointed edge of his beak back into the shadow of his hood.
“You can’t have a goddam Tongou living amongst the general civilian population,” the man said. Veins were bulging in his neck. “I don’t care what kind of deal you worked out with Carlos.”
Xavier nodded to Juergen and the cyclops charged full speed toward the car.
In a practiced motion, the man reached to his waist holster and withdrew a handgun.
Contessa made a circular motion in the air with her hands.
The man fired two shots at Juergen but the bullets turned red and disappeared before striking their target.
Nobuku squawked. Thunder boomed and an unusually small storm cloud formed overhead.
Juergen placed the large man in a one-handed chokehold, easily lifting him into the air.
The man dropped the handgun and began clawing at the skin on the back of Juergen’s hand.
The passenger side door of the car opened partway. A medium-pitched female voice yelled out, “Pleeease! Stop!”
Juergen dropped the man and fell to one knee. Nobuku stumbled backward, exposing both sets of his talons as he pressed them to the sides of his head.
Xavier covered his right ear and braced his left hand against a light pole to steady himself. A small ankh tattoo beneath his right eye burned hot.
Though physically unaffected, Contessa was confused by the sudden turn of events. Her confusion only lasted a moment before red mist began swirling around her fists.
People died when the mist was red.
“Contessa, wait!” Xavier shouted.
* * *
Xavier and the woman from the passenger seat stood on his front porch while Juergen and Contessa remained at the curb keeping watch on her traveling companion. Nobuku, as usual, was out of sight.
She extended a business card.
He ignored it. “So, you’re going to pretend that didn’t just happen?”
“You mean being physically assaulted by a Norwalk witch and two creatures that are illegal to harbor even in the SGZ?”
The SGZ was shorthand for the Self Governance Zone, a region in and around Philadelphia where a limited list of supernatural entities was allowed to coexist with the general public so long as they hid their true identities and submitted to a strict oversight program that had many similarities to criminal probation.
“You know what I mean,” he said. “That was some kind of siren shout. What are you and how in the world can you be working for the DSO?”
”I’ll answer those questions after you tell me how the whole neighborhood knew we were coming before we arrived and where you obtained detailed knowledge of a classified government regulation.”
Xavier studied her.
“It seems the Tongou has got your tongue,” she said.
“Why are you here?”
“Carlos sent me to ask you off-the-record if you have the other body.”
“What other body?”
“The body matching the second set of DNA our recovery team found in the Poconos. The report Ms. Pham submitted only referenced the female corpse you left at the scene.”
“You should be talking to Maya if you have questions about her report.”
“Is that what you want me to tell Carlos?”
“Why would Carlos send you here knowing I would be able to tell you’re one of us?”
“He said to tell you it was his way of letting you know that he trusts you.”
He considered that. Then he said, “We took the other body to our lab to see if we could find out how it was capable of doing what it did during a full moon.”
“And?”
“They told me that some of the genes related to its lycanthropy recently experienced a mutation.”
“What kind of mutation?”
“I can get you the details.”
“We would appreciate that.”
“Can I ask you a question?”
“If it’s a professional one related to my duties.”
“Did you read my file before you came here?”
“Yes. That’s standard procedure.”
“Do I look better in person?”
She chuckled. “That was two questions and I’m pretty sure you already know you’re not hard to look at.”
“Neither are you, which is why I’m dying to know if what I see is real or just some kind of seduction magic.”
“I’m going to go now, Mr. Hill. Please send us that data from your lab.”
“You really expect me to send life and death information to someone I just met who won’t even answer basic questions?”
Now it was her turn to consider.
She moved away from him a step. “Which celebrity would you say I look like?”
He took full advantage of the invitation. “You look like a cross between the actress Gabrielle Union and the singer Amerie.”
“That’s a new one,” she said. “I thought for sure you were going to say Zina or Beyonce. Black men usually see Beyonce.”
“There’s some Beyonce there too,” he said. “Definitely. And what do you mean by usually see?”
“When males look at me, the light that hits their retinas gets refracted in a way that makes me appear like their ideal vision of beauty—or as close to it as my actual height and weight can support.”
“What do you see in the mirror?”
“Nothing. I don’t have a reflection.”
“Must be hard to put on makeup.”
“Which is why I don’t wear any.”
“So, I was right. You are some kind of siren.”
“Yes, but that’s as much as I’m comfortable saying.”
He understood. Revealing what you were also revealed what you were vulnerable to.
CHAPTER FIVE
After the DSO agents pulled away, Xavier placed two phone calls.
The first was to Maya Pham.
“Hey X,” she said. “Tell me something good.”
“A woman with seduction magic just left my house.”
“Lucky you. Was she hot?”
“Like hot sauce on a flame in the middle of July.”
She laughed. “Figures. Why does it seem like most of the people with seduction magic are female?”
He let that question slide by with no mention of the incubus who had seduced Maya and stolen her life savings through a sham real estate investment.
“She works for the DSO.”
“Just a sec,” Maya said, tapping at a keyboard. Her calls were always encrypted, but the winged computer hacker did something extra whenever the conversation involved the government.
“Did I hear you correctly? There’s a super working in the DSO?”
“I was as surprised as you are.”
“Isn’t that illegal?”
“Big time.”
“Did we place her there?”
“Not if she’s telling the truth about Carlos knowing what she really is.”
“Oh, wow. The rabbit hole goes deeper. I
take it you’re calling because you want me to do a workup on her.”
“You read my mind.”
“What’s her name?”
“Michelle Lathan.”
“Got it. I’ll poke the ant hill. Anything else?”
“Yes. I want you to send her a copy of Chiyem’s report on the Lycan from the Poconos.”
There was silence on the other end of the line.
“Maya? Did I lose you?”
“Did you sleep with her?”
“What? No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure. What’s the problem here?”
“You’re asking me to send sensitive information to a woman at the DSO you’ve already admitted has seduction magic. Does that sound like a good idea? Are you sure we shouldn’t run this by Isabella first?”
“It sounds like a better idea than Pascal getting you to invest all your money in an imaginary timeshare.”
“Low blow, X.”
“You’re right. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have gone there. Listen, the DSO already knows about the second body. Dollars to donuts they’re only asking for our research to see if it matches up with theirs. You can put a digital fingerprint on Chiyem’s report like you did with those pictures we sent to the Golem Task Force. We can use it to find out what they’re not telling us.”
“I guess that sort of makes sense,” she said.
Xavier sighed. “How about you just ask Isabella what she thinks and then go from there since that’s what you’re going to do anyway.”
“I’m so glad we’re on the same page. You know I trust you with my life right?”
“So you say.”
“C’mon, X. Don’t be that way. I’m only doing what I think is right because I know what it’s like to be seduced.”
“I know.”
His next call was to an unpublished phone number in Washington, DC.
“We had an office pool going on how long it would take this call to come in,” Carlos said when he answered the line.
Carlos Vasquez was fifty-eight years old with a full head of dark hair and a runner’s build. He had the people skills of a salesman and the brains of a scholar. He favored black suits with open-collared black dress shirts.
