Last Ditch Effort

by Isobella Crowley

  He stopped abruptly where he stood when a disconcerting thought intruded. In the course of his job to come, he surmised, there might come a time when he could no longer consider that a joke.

  “What the hell have I gotten myself into?” he wondered. “How is this even real? A vampire sent me to have the crap beaten out of me by the fae. Christ on a cracker…this is even more absurd than the time me and that Rothschild shithead had a puking contest while trying to sing death metal lyrics.”

  Furthermore, he and Taylor had not even discussed the subject of his pay. That would be the first thing on his agenda tomorrow.

  But for now, he needed to sleep. He took off his shirt, his tie, and his slacks and slouched his way to the bathroom, brushed his teeth in a painful daze, and tried not to think too hard.

  Part of him desperately wanted a drink. And by a drink, he meant half a bottle or so of Swedish vodka. But that was about how much he had left in total. He settled for two shots. After all, he needed to wean himself off.

  “How,” he asked aloud, “will I stay off drugs if I barely even drink? Whatever. I’m a Remington. I can do anything.”

  He dragged himself to bed, reset his alarm, and collapsed onto the soft mattress, already dozing off as he pulled the warm covers over his sprawled body. Consciousness faded so quickly that he might as well have passed out on the floor.

  The alarm went off at 3:00 am.

  “Huhh?” David protested, both against the noise and the drool on his pillow. His arm flopped out and his fingers groped in the general direction of the alarm clock.

  “No,” he mumbled. “Please, Mom. I’ll be good. Just not the little asshole flying people again. Anything but… Come on, I mean it.”

  Chapter Seven

  Harrison, Westchester County, New York

  Taylor walked into her garage and stood before her five cars.

  Three gleamed in the low light and two others were protected beneath tarps. But one, in particular, was her usual chosen mode of transportation.

  It was a Tesla Model S, P100D and only about two years old. Already a beautiful, efficient, and well-functioning vehicle on its own, its appeal was even stronger since she had made a few alterations. Of course, she had requested it with Ludicrous Mode. Acceleration was a beautiful thing. And Spaceballs, along with Mel Brooks’ entire oeuvre, was a guilty pleasure of hers. The Tesla could take it and she was not a chicken.

  In addition to these standard features, she’d had the interior upgraded in several key ways. The seats and floors were all recovered with real, premium leather, not the synthetic, vegan stuff. Nothing beat the feel—and smell—of genuine leather, she felt. And as a true predator, she felt she had the right.

  There were also a few nifty gadgets on or near the console and various minor hacks had tweaked the car’s main system. Not all of these were what you’d call street-legal, but legality was more of a guideline than a rule—a white-and-orange roadblock that could be driven around or plowed under.

  Shortly after purchasing the car, she had tracked down and mesmerized a Tesla engineer. The man was the type who didn’t believe at all in the paranormal, which made him easy prey for manipulation. In minutes, he happily did whatever she’d asked.

  Which, in this case, meant removing every last barrier on her vehicle’s speed. She could drive as fast as she wanted to. However, the car’s computer would give her an alert when she exceeded the manufacturer’s stated lockdowns so that at least she’d know to be cautious.

  The car was black, of course. All five vehicles were.

  Taylor climbed into the vehicle, pressed the button to open the garage, and piloted the sleek ebony vehicle out into the night. She quickly navigated the labyrinth of private roads surrounding the estate and soon found herself on a major street, heading into the heart of the city.

  Something beeped on her dashboard and Presley’s voice came through. “Madam,” he began, “it appears that Mr Remington put a handprint on your harpsichord. He barged in there looking for you before I could stop him, I’m afraid. Shall I call for professional cleaning and restoration, or will my own ministrations be sufficient?”

  She bit her lip and realized she would have to inform David that he was not to touch anything unless given permission to do so first. “I trust your abilities, Presley. If they prove insufficient, you may call the pros.”

  “Yes, madam.” He ended the call.

  The rest of the drive passed uneventfully. She enjoyed driving, even in the thick of Manhattan’s traffic. It was almost like fighting—the interplay of speed and force along with the technique and exhilaration—only less physically intimate. Usually.

  Her destination was a club of sorts—arguably more of a bar-and-grille and one frequented almost exclusively by preternaturals.

  The term “supernatural” was already close to played out by around 1880, many individuals felt, and she was one of them. Now, a good one hundred and forty years later, the term had acquired all manner of cheesy, banal, and ridiculous connotations, which only served to remind her that they’d been right.

  Besides, those few humans who knew the truth didn’t like it when the world’s other sentient beings went around referring to themselves as “super.” It made them edgy and hostile and was simply bad PR.

  “Preternatural” was a more neutral and less clichéd term. It conveyed the same essential meaning—beyond the normal standards of what is considered natural.

  As Taylor eased her Model S into the establishment’s parking lot, she saw that her usual space was occupied by an obnoxious red pickup truck. It looked like it burned a ton of fossil fuels and she grimaced.

  She didn’t feel like starting shit. Not yet, at least, so she let it go and parked in the next space over and swung her legs out of the vehicle to stand on the pavement.

  New York City glimmered all around her. The artificial lights made by humanity never failed to impress her. It was a welcome sight for someone who hadn’t glimpsed the original source of Earth’s illumination for so, so long.

  The building was unassuming from the outside—a fairly standard, blocky, yuppie-restaurant type establishment, clean and modern-looking. There were no flashy advertisements to draw undue scrutiny. Along similar lines, it was located slightly off the beaten path and surrounded by vacant but well-maintained lots, yet they’d managed to select the location to avoid it seeming too private, either.

  Taylor strode in through the front door. Beyond the entrance lay a small lobby, with doors leading to the right and left. The left opened onto an exclusive dining parlor, where the guests were expected to dress nicely and be on their best behavior. The right led to the bar, where things were rather less formal.

  She went left and nodded at the hostess. The maître d’ noticed her presence once she’d taken a step or two into the restaurant area.

  “Ms Steele!” he greeted her, beaming politely beneath his well-groomed mustache. “Welcome. It’s so nice to see you again.”

  The vampire nodded to him as well. “Thank you, Chagnon.” It was unnecessary to say anything more as he was already leading her to her usual place, a booth in the extreme rear. This was also the darkest part of the restaurant where only those with excellent night vision would even be able to see she was there.

  She, on the other hand, had her back to the wall when she sat and could see the entire dining wing. And she could hear, quite clearly, anything the humans were saying.

  As Chagnon moved toward the front, he dispatched another waiter to her booth. It was a youngish man she recognized, although she’d only seen him two or three times.

  He seemed a little tense. “What will you have, madame?” he asked.

  “Historical Bloody Mary,” she responded with a smile.

  The waiter wrote it on his pad. “At once.” He turned and left.

  The Historical differed from a standard Bloody Mary in that it was made with something other than tomato juice. There were ways to acquire such ingredients for a place like th
is. Some of them were even relatively ethical.

  While she waited, she looked around. The current clientele was a motley group but everyone seemed to be minding their manners so far.

  A moment later, a man strode down the aisle toward her booth. He was short—Taylor was taller than him—but broad-shouldered and barrel-chested and looked extremely strong. He wore a fine tuxedo and had a long, full beard that hung almost to his waist.

  When the bearded man reached the booth, he nodded respectfully and eased himself into the seat opposite her. “Good evening,” he said in a voice somehow both gruff and elegantly formal. Many people thought he had a vestigial accent, although opinions varied as to whether it sounded more Scottish, Yiddish, or Scandinavian.

  “Good evening,” she greeted him. “It seems that all is well with the warring fae.”

  The man nodded again. The fae of Fort Washington Park lay within his sphere of influence and were his responsibility. He’d long since learned that it was best to resolve their disputes before more powerful preternaturals were drawn in and all hell broke loose. While the diminutive folk largely kept to themselves, they did have friends with more violent tendencies.

  Slowly, he withdrew a handwoven sack from his tux. As he loosened the drawstring, she saw a flash of gold within. His kind always paid in antique coins of precious metals. Human paper money was regarded as worthless. Like the species who created it, it was neither stable nor enduring.

  He counted out a few coins. All were large and heavy and inscribed with obscure writing and symbols. “So,” he began, “is the rumor true, then?”

  Before Taylor could answer, her waiter reappeared with her drink.

  “Thank you.” She sipped almost immediately but kept her eyes mostly lidded as she drank. While she’d been hungry and knew not to wait any longer to assuage it, she did not want to advertise the slight red glow that emanated from her pupils.

  Even before the waiter could ask, her guest raised a hand and requested a stout. “The darker and stouter the better, please.”

  The server gave a curt bow. “Of course, sir.” He moved quickly toward the bar.

  Refreshed, she now turned her attention to the man’s query. “Which rumor? There’s never exactly a shortage of them.”

  “The rumor,” he replied, “that a human—during the day—went to the fairies’ nest in the middle of one of their arguments and picked a fight with all of them at once. Which of course forced them to come together against the invading giant in their mutual defense and thereby resolved the feud.” He ran a hand through his beard.

  “It was a unique way to solve the problem,” she agreed, “but let’s not tell the human that. The important thing, though, is that everything turned out well…assuming the fairies didn’t track him home and poison him and he hasn’t died in his sleep overnight.”

  Seeing her faint smirk, the dwarf rolled his eyes toward some distant upwards point. “A new partner for you?” he asked.

  She took another sip. “Let us say…an old partner who may decide to take the daytime shift. I’ll give him the mitigation tasks, if so.”

  The waiter returned with a bottle of beer. It was sufficiently dark and stout to be almost black, by the looks of it.

  The man spoke first. “It’s a good enough beer,” he pronounced. “While it’s not quite as strong as I’d like, the humans are getting better at this kind of thing.”

  Taylor smiled. “The craft beer revolution, my friend. As for mixed drinks, though, at first, I had to show them exactly how to make a good Historical myself. Don’t worry. No one was harmed.”

  He snorted. “Of course not. I understand the ‘tomato juice’ comes from a…bank, these days.”

  The dwarf finished his beer and set the bottle firmly in the table’s center. “There is another rumor, you know—one alleging that the alpha of the Southern Tip Pack seems to have lost his head. And his heart.”

  She acknowledged this with a small movement of her head. “I have also heard that. I should assume it is accurate.”

  “The rumors also say,” he went on, “that James tried to run shakedowns on humans, the way the Mob does, and that he may have bitten off more than he could chew.”

  “Hmm,” she said calmly, “that would have been a bad decision if so. Everyone knows that the rules state to leave humans to humans.”

  The dwarf grunted. “Those are your rules, Taylor. Many feel that they never had the opportunity to agree to them. Or disagree. Some even say this part of the country would be ripe for the plucking if it wasn’t for your personal authority over New York.”

  Their eyes locked. The dwarf was stolid and poker-faced, but even he was not impervious to her abilities. She could read, almost immediately, that he himself was not amongst those who agitated against her. No, someone else had said such things. He was merely trying to warn her.

  Taylor broke the silence. “I know of quite a few who seem discontented yet have nevertheless behaved themselves. Such as…”

  She rattled off a list of names, speaking fast enough that the dwarf could not get a word in edgewise but with enough of a pause between each one that his brain had time to register them individually.

  While she spoke, she watched his subtle reaction to each name, noted every nuance, and filed the information away.

  There were three agitators, it seemed. Two werewolves—that didn’t surprise her—and a relatively young male vampire, only about two hundred years old. She was not well-acquainted with any of them but had heard their names and seen their faces on the odd occasion. They’d all struck her as potential troublemakers, even though none had done anything egregious.

  Yet.

  Something in the dwarf’s demeanor suggested that the hints they’d dropped were not merely the desire to call a forum and debate the issues. More likely, the three suspects actually imagined a world in which she was dead.

  Taylor betrayed no sign that she had gleaned so much information from nothing more than subtle cues. “I see,” she acknowledged. “Yes, the young and ignorant never seem to think that the things they dream up could possibly be flawed. They look around and see no one else implementing their plans and assume it’s because they are the first geniuses ever born in this world and everyone else is too stupid to understand them.”

  The dwarf fingered his beard in silence and she continued. “I imagine that the aforementioned pack alpha was a member of the malcontents. What has happened to James will send a message to the remaining ones.”

  “Well,” her guest responded with a firm air of finality, “I have been around long enough to know when we have a good thing going. Fools and troublemakers are not wanted. I hope the message is received.”

  She nodded. The dwarf had told her what she needed to know—that he had voted for measures to be taken to preserve the peace, if necessary, and that she had his support if things started to get ugly.

  Her drink finished, she stood and prepared to leave. Before she could say her goodbyes, however, her attention snapped toward a table near the front where a trio of idiots—almost certainly lycanthropes—had been gradually raising their voices. Now, one of them shouted and cursed violently, disturbing the entire room.

  With no more sound than a shadow would make as it flitted across a wall, she strode toward their table. They did not even notice her presence until she was beside them.

  “Excuse me,” she remarked to the noisiest of the three, slapped her hand on the back of his head, and drove his face flat into the table in the same motion.

  Not only did that quiet the other two but the rest of the room, as well. With piercing black eyes, she stared at the other two. “This side is for quiet dinner, not outbursts and rowdiness. Please do not make me complain to the management about the inconvenience of your blood on my clothing.”

  The two nodded slowly. To emphasize her point, she seized the arm of the one she’d accosted and gave his wrist a sharp twist. That ought to give him something to think about.

  “N
ow,” she went on, “eat in peace or go to the bar side.”

  Their jaws clenched, the two unscathed young werewolves gathered their drinks—and their disoriented friend—and shuffled away from the table toward the lobby.

  Taylor followed them but remained a few paces behind. They did as instructed, passed the host and entered the bar, and gave no indication that they intended to cause further trouble. Satisfied, she turned aside and pushed out the front door.

  Her Tesla waited for her. No valet was ever needed as it drove itself. She smiled.

  Chapter Eight

  Harrison, Westchester County, New York

  Remy—the nickname the fairies had given David had kind of stuck in his own mind—sighed and shifted the vehicle into park. Or, rather, he thought he shifted into park but apparently, it was into neutral since the car began to slowly lurch backward and down the slight incline immediately before Taylor’s house.

  “Shit, shit, shit!” he cursed, fumbled for the gearshift, and stamped on the brakes. “Park is all the way forward. Remember that.” He pressed the button on the side of the lever and shoved it where it needed to be. The car came to a stop.

  He exhaled. “Well, I’m getting better. I’m a tad rusty, is all.” He probably wasn’t supposed to park there, though. He wondered if he could get away with it or if Taylor would try to chew his ass on the matter. At least he was inside the gate, Presley having buzzed him in.

  Not that she was likely to be up and about. Remy had overslept by almost half an hour, not to mention that driving himself all the way to Harrison in Westchester had taken another half-hour longer than he’d expected. The sun had been up for a good forty-five minutes by now.

  He was about to remove the keys and exit the car when the garage door opened.

  “Damn.” He shifted into drive again and inched gently toward what seemed to be his reserved space.

  There were already several cars within but the structure was large enough to accommodate at least six, maybe more. he selected an empty space and eased into it.