The Stars Never Rise (The Midnight Defenders Book 2)

by Joey Ruff

  “I was just about to say that.”

  His smile reminded me of the Cheshire Cat. “Surely you did not come to speak of the Hunt. What can I help you with today?”

  “I’m looking for information.”

  “So is every traveler,” he said. He turned and walked towards the back of the shop. The hem of his kimono drug across the floor, and as he walked it would ride up a little where I could just make out the red and white fur of his tail.

  Despite his appearance, Chin wasn’t human. He was Kitsune, a Japanese fox spirit that typically took human form, but for the tails. Depending on their age, Kitsune had multiple tails, the oldest having as many as nine. I didn’t know how old Chin was, but I did know he had seven tails stuffed up under that robe of his.

  He passed two towering shelves of glass apothecary jars and more volumes of ancient texts before he realized I wasn’t following and turned to me. “Come along, Mr. Swyftt.”

  I followed.

  He took me to an elevated platform in the back that bore a small table with four chairs. A small wood-burning stove sat nearby, and a tea kettle percolated over a low flame. Chin took two cups from the table and poured tea into both. He handed me one and motioned for me to sit while he set his on the table.

  I sat and took the cup in both hands, sipping gently. It was hot and good.

  “Now,” he said after sipping from his. “What information have you come seeking?”

  “Two days ago,” I said. “My ward and I intercepted a shipment at the harbor.” I paused, and his golden eyes held mine pensively. “It was a bonnacon.”

  Chin nodded.

  “This morning, I was with the FBI when they found a crate of ka-raiju.”

  “And you are wondering if I know who would be smuggling these creatures from my homeland.”

  “The way I see it, someone’s pitching and someone’s catching. Could be the same group on both ends, but it’s unlikely.”

  “So who is receiving these shipments?”

  “Some Italian blokes were bringing in the bonnacon. The raiju…those wankers didn’t exactly hang around long enough for me to find out. Do you know any distributors in the Orient?”

  “I do,” he said. “As you well remember.”

  “Right. The chicken I caught you importing.”

  “It was a fenghuang.”

  I hadn’t known Chin long. About a year and a half ago, I took a case involving a Chinese chicken that was running loose in the city. Chin hired me to find it, turns out he was also responsible for importing it and then letting it get away. It wound up in the hands of some blokes that didn’t get on well with the kitsune. They demanded ransom for its return. I gave them bullets, instead.

  “Fenghuang is a symbol of high virtue and grace.”

  “Mr. Chin, I’m not here to talk about your peacock. I just want to know who would be shipping rare Asian animals to the states. Potentially dangerous, rare Asian animals, at that.”

  “The answer to your question is simple, Mr. Swyftt: the Tengu. While you ask a good question, you do not ask the best one.”

  His answer surprised me a little. “What is the best question?”

  “You say ka-raiju and bonnacon.”

  I nodded.

  “You should ask yourself not who would send them, but why. You do not wish to know who is sending them. You wish to know who is receiving them.” He paused and took a sip of his tea. “If you can figure out why someone would want two different firebreeds, you might find out who they would be sent to.” He took another sip. “Focus on the why to arrive at the answer you truly seek.”

  I sank back into my chair, feeling the weight of the past two days pressing against my chest. Part of me didn’t want to think, didn’t want to do anymore. Part of me wanted to go see Anna. I hadn’t been to see her since this whole thing started. I probably wouldn’t see her again until it was over.

  The only way out was through. There was no turning back.

  Fine. Time to think.

  The raiju and the bonnacon were both firebreeds, which meant they had one thing in common: fire. Who would want fire? What could they use it for? Hell, I’d used fire quite a bit lately with my flare rounds in fighting off the…

  “The gargoyles,” I said. “Someone’s looking for defense.”

  “And why would they do that?”

  Kinnara said where there was one gargoyle, there were usually more. The gargoyle had killed Tom Robinson, killed Seven… Hell, there were nine victims total. Whoever was importing these creatures was looking for a ward, a natural defense. Which meant they knew they would be next.

  “Because they’re a target.”

  If the victims had been targeted, that meant there was a link between the victims. I’d been operating under the assumption the acts had been random.

  “Gargoyles are dragons. Dragons are the natural enemies of the Fallen.”

  Chin watched me intently and sipped from his tea.

  “Seven was part human, part goblin. He was a Halfling. So was Kevin Hastings, the doctor. They were part Sidhe, which is basically just a weaker fucking cousin of the Fallen. Which means whoever is importing the firebreeds is being targeted because they’re also a Halfling.”

  “So then,” Chin said. “Who do you know that could possibly be a Halfling that would also employ Italians?”

  “It could be anyone,” I said. “Fuck. Those Italians blokes could’ve been goons for hire. They were like the…”

  “Yes?”

  “Mafia,” I said. “Rino. Holy shit. Ape’s friend is the importer.”

  I stood suddenly, nearly knocking over the little table. Chin steadied his cup while mine rattled along the table top.

  “I’ve gotta fucking tell him.”

  “Mr. Swyftt,” the fox said calmly. “Take heed. The most dire is yet upon you.”

  The comment didn’t register as I moved through the curio shop, shuffling past the shelves of relics to the front entrance which tinkled its bells as I pushed my way out into the daylight.

  I grabbed my cell phone from my pocket and dialed Ape. After two rings, he picked up. “Jono, what?”

  “It’s Rino, mate.”

  “What’s Rino?”

  “The bonnacon. The raiju. He’s importing firebreeds to…”

  “Wait. Slow down. Raiju?”

  “At the docks, just over an hour ago.”

  “Where are they now?”

  “FBI custody. Probably evidence lock-up downtown.”

  “Okay, good.” He grew suddenly very silent.

  “What is it?”

  “Jono, I need you to come home. I’ve…got something to tell you.”

  “Did you find something out about the house?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, tell me.”

  “Not over the phone. This is going to take a minute.”

  I sighed. “Fine, Ape. I’m heading your way now.”

  I hung up with him and dialed Chuck.

  “Swyftt,” Chuck said in answer. “Your informant pay off?”

  “You could say that.”

  “Great, let’s go nab this bastard.”

  “Hang on, mate. This is where it gets…complicated.”

  “What’s complicated? Illegal importation? Animal cruelty? This guy’s in violation of a dozen laws, domestic and international. You’re not confronting him without us.”

  “Fine,” I said. “You can come. But wait on my word. I have another errand first.”

  “Alright. Where we going?”

  “I’ll call you with an address.”

  I’d hardly hung up the phone when it rang.

  “Hello?

  “Swyftt,” came a female voice.

  “Dr. Cooper,” I said. My voice no doubt sounded impatient. “What can I do for you, love?”

  I got to my car and fired up the engine as she said, “I’m calling you back. I can’t really talk. I told you, I’m at Kevin’s funeral today.”

  “Funeral. Rig
ht. Look, I was just curious if the results came in on that blood work?”

  “DeNobb, right?” she asked. “Yeah. It came in this morning like you asked. I got it sent to my phone, but I haven’t had a chance to look over it. I can call you tonight, okay?”

  “Too late.”

  “I’m getting ready to go back to the funeral, Swyftt. I can’t talk right now.”

  “You’ve got the results with you?”

  “Yes, on my phone, but like I said…”

  “And where are you?”

  “St. James,” she said. “What are you…”

  I hung up the phone and put the car in gear.

  25

  I pulled up outside St. James Cathedral not twenty minutes later.

  People were milling about outside on the steps while others in fancy outfits were filing through the main doors.

  Given my history, I wasn’t one to frequent churches, but I kept finding myself drawn to St. James. I used to know a priest here, but he left and Ape didn’t tell me why. I couldn’t help but wonder if it was somehow my fault.

  Inside, I moved through the elaborately decorated halls and entered the sanctuary which was as quiet as a tomb. Just inside the doorway, I looked across the seated masses in their pews and noticed two things. The first was that the sanctuary – with its hundred-foot domed ceilings, arches and massive pillars – was not only huge, but looked like it should belong in Rome somewhere. The second was that it seemed a hundred thousand people were in attendance to pay their respects to the hero doctor.

  At the head of the pews stood a raised altar on a circular platform. On the floor in front, stood the closed casket. Lit candles burned around it.

  Music began playing softly, and a few lifted their voices in that high-pitched, children’s-choir falsetto that made the words difficult to understand. Others sobbed quietly.

  As the music died, a priest in a black robe came to the pulpit. He was a grey-haired man, wrinkled like a raisin, with kind eyes. When all was silent, he spoke into his microphone. “Réquiem ætérnam dona eis, Dómine; et lux perpétua lúceat eis.” It was Latin for, “Eternal rest give to them, O Lord; and let perpetual light shine upon them.”

  He continued to speak, but I tuned him out while I searched the crowd for Cooper’s brown hair. However, there were a lot of brown-haired women – blondes and redheads, too – all sobbing while melancholy children clutched tightly to their sides. Men in suits wore dour expressions as though they’d all just sucked a lemon and cut an onion at the same time. There wasn’t a dry fucking eye in the house.

  I’d known many people who’d been a casualty of the job over the years. I knew blokes from university that died from accidents or illness. None had boasted the numbers that Kevin Hastings did.

  So this was what a hero’s funeral was like.

  As I watched the morose reactions, I thought back twenty years to when I buried Anna. Her coffin was a lot smaller than Hastings’. We had only the family. Lara and I, of course. My parents. Her parents. Aunts and uncles.

  I remember the rain was colder and harder than gravel as we all gathered around the small grave plot in Portsmouth. It was where I was from, where Lara and I had met. It seemed fitting to us, even if Lara’s parents wanted Anna buried in the family lot outside of London.

  We had a small, outdoor ceremony, rather than in the church. Anna wasn’t baptized, and the church wouldn’t allow her to have a proper Christian funeral. It was only a friend of the family, Bishop Morton, who agreed to perform the ceremony. After Lara took her own life, Morton was kind, offered me hope for my pain and convinced me to join seminary.

  “How do you deal with grief?” I’d asked.

  “God,” he said. That one word was supposed to be enough.

  I was so fucking young then. It seems like a thousand years ago now. I was naïve, too. Stupid. I was willing to believe that God actually gave two shits about me.

  When I was a child, I believed like a child, but when I became a man, I put away childish things. There’s a reason Jesus said to come to him with the faith of a child. It’s only when we grow in wisdom that we learn to look behind the curtain to see the great and powerful wizard for who he really is.

  The good Lord giveth, and the good Lord taketh away. And when he does, still we come to him with our loss and mourn our dead in his ancient, hollow halls.

  I didn’t go to Lara’s funeral. I couldn’t. I was broken over losing Anna. I was wracked with grief and pain and anguish, and when she bowed out on me, I fucking hated her with every bitter fiber in my being. She was my wife and had pledged her love for me. But she abandoned me. Was that love? And if God is love, what does that say about Him?

  After burying Anna, I understood what a farce funerals really were. Yet, as I stood in the back of St. James’ sanctuary and watched the countless dozens mourning a man that had been their husband, their father, their doctor, their hero, or even their relative stranger, I felt a sense of honor in being recognized for a life well-lived.

  It wasn’t a feeling that lasted long. Almost as quickly as it came, the honor was replaced with cold bitterness that the true heroes would continue to go unsung. My colleagues, who had lived by the sword, died by the sword, and served their time in relative obscurity to protect millions from a threat they’d never even acknowledge, deserved better than what they had been given. Sure, the Hand of Shanai saw their warriors laid to rest with dignity reserved for kings, but so few even knew of the sacrifice that it seemed like such a small measure in comparison.

  Hastings was a fraud, and for a moment, I wanted to stand up and shout it to the gathered congregation. I wanted him to be exposed for the cover story that he was.

  I didn’t. I fumed quietly while the proceedings wore on – the prayers, the Mass for the dead, the absolution – and eventually, the service ended.

  Pallbearers lifted the casket and carried it out through the front doors where they loaded it into a hearse.

  I stood just outside the doors to the sanctuary as the gathered crowd shuffled past, most of their faces downtrodden. Somewhere in the middle of the crowd, I spotted Dr. Cooper and called to her. She looked embarrassed when she saw me and only reluctantly followed me over to a quieter corner of the vestibule.

  “What are you doing?” she asked. She tried not to look at me, and her eyes were swollen and red, a used tissue clutched in her hand.

  “You told me I should pay my respects.”

  “But you aren’t. You came for the blood results. I should’ve known when you asked where I was that…”

  “Do you have them?”

  She glared at me.

  “I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important,” I told her.

  “Somebody better be dying, Swyftt, and it’s unlikely to be your friend from the other night. He seemed perfectly healthy to me.”

  “I’m not sure you should wish more death at a funeral. Doesn’t seem like good karma.”

  She pulled out her phone and started touching the screen and pushing buttons. I wasn’t completely illiterate when it came to phones these days, but she moved so damn fast I couldn’t keep up.

  “Okay,” she said. “Let me see here. Blood results for…”

  “DeNobb.”

  “Here it is.”

  “You’re looking at an e-mail, right?”

  She looked up at me and then back down at her phone. She was silent for a moment and then her face became worried.

  “What?” I asked.

  “The sample must’ve been contaminated somehow.”

  “What do you mean? He’s not human?”

  “No, he is. It’s just.” She bit her lower lip. “Animal proteins. His white blood cell count is nearly tripled.”

  “Is that bad?”

  “Not necessarily. I mean, if this is true, your friend would…heal a lot faster than most.”

  “Okay.”

  “And…hmm,” she said. “That doesn’t make any sense.” She looked up at me and said, “Hemocyan
in. Like, a lot of it.”

  “You say that like I’m supposed to understand, Doc.”

  “Sorry. Vertebrates – people and animals – use hemoglobin to carry oxygen through the blood to the various organs.”

  “Okay…”

  “Hemocyanin does the same thing for mollusks – squids, octopi, things like that.”

  “So he’s a squid?”

  “Well, he has both. The thing that doesn’t make sense is that when I took the blood, it looked fine, normal. Oxygenated hemocyanin is dark blue, though, not red. I guess…Oh, God. It’s been a long time since I had to worry about this stuff.”

  “Yeah, I don’t imagine you get many octopussies.”

  “I want to say that deoxygenated hemocyanin is colorless, which would allow the red in the hemoglobin to come through just fine and look normal. It makes sense.”

  “I have no fucking idea what you’re talking about anymore,” I said. I reached into my pocket and pulled out a scrap piece of paper and a pencil. “What’s that word again?”

  “Hemocyanin.”

  “Spell it.” She did. I wrote it. Ape would know.

  She pocketed her phone and said, “Is there anything else I can do for you right now, Swyftt, or can I get back to my funeral? Are you going to leave me alone?”

  “I’m done,” I said. “Cheers.”

  She forced a smile. “You’re welcome.”

  She walked off without so much as a backwards glance, and I slid my phone out of my pocket and dialed the house.

  Ape answered. “Jono, what? I thought you were coming home?”

  “I’m working on it,” I said. “I just got the blood results back from Dr. Cooper.”

  “Okay. What were they?”

  “Animal proteins and three times the white blood cell count. She said it would make him heal faster.”

  “Yeah. That would explain why the blister sacs don’t leave marks or scars on his skin. What else?”

  “Does the word…” I glanced at the scrap of paper in my hand. “Hemocyanin mean anything to you?”

  “Sure,” he said. “It’s prevalent in mollusks. Why?”

  “Because she said it was mixed with his hemoglobin and it should turn his blood colors but when she drew his blood, there wasn’t oxygen in it.”