by Gwynn White
“Aw, you missed me,” Cato said as he slid out of the roadster.
“Compared to these mopes? Hell, yes, I did.”
“You do realize I’m taken, right?”
“Do you? Because you’re the one I wonder about.”
“Touché.”
“Hello?”
The voice was unmistakable, yet so soft and distant it was impossible to place. Hank had no idea where it was coming from, and Cato didn’t seem to, either.
“Hello? Is anyone there?”
It was the hint of static toward the end that gave it away. Nodding with recognition, Hank turned to Cato’s roadster and slid into the passenger seat, where he snatched the receiver from its cradle. “Hello, hello. This is Spector Hank Smiley. Who’s this?’
“Please, you have to help us. They’re coming. They’re coming and they’re going to kill us. I know it.”
“Okay, okay. I know this is hard, but I need you to take a breath. Then tell me everything you can about your situation. I’m here with my partner. We can help you if we know where to find you.”
“Oh, thank you. Okay… my name is Luca. My father and I—we live in Tanglereave and can’t get out. We’re so scared.”
“I understand, Luca,” Hank said as Cato got back into the driver’s seat. “Can you tell me where you are in Tanglereave?”
“I don’t know. We just moved here a few weeks ago, and everything is weird and strange here. I don’t know any of it.”
“Hell, she’s just a kid,” Cato whispered, mopping his face while Hank tried to keep the girl calm.
“It’s going to be okay, Luca. My friends and I can come and help you. We just need to know where to start.”
“I told you, we’re in Tanglereave.”
“Tanglereave is a big place, Luca. I need more than that.”
A series of gulping sounds told Hank that the girl had started to cry. “I don’t know. Please…”
Cato grimaced. Then he lifted his head. “Ask her how she’s contacting us.”
“What?”
“Just ask her!”
“Ahem… this might sound strange, Luca, but can I ask how you’re talking to us right now?”
“My dad’s been working on a ham radio. It’s not very strong. I wasn’t even sure I’d be able to get it to work.”
“A ham radio…” Cato lifted his eyebrows hopefully. “What do you figure the range on that is? Couple miles, tops?”
“Not sure,” Hank said. Thinking quickly, he keyed the receiver. “Luca, can you see the lord commander’s tower from where you are?”
“Yes…”
“When you look at it, is it on your left side, or your right side?”
“Left side.”
“Okay, that’s good. That’s the side it’s on for me, too. That means you’re close. Do you see anything else?”
“Uhm… there’s a building across the street. It has a big red teardrop in a glowing circle on its window. Does that help?”
Hank frowned, crossing his brows in thought. “A big red teardrop…” He repeated the phrase once more, twice more, until finally it clicked. Eyes going spotlight wide, he spoke quickly into the receiver. “Luca, do you live in an apartment building?”
“Yes.”
“One with a gabled roof?”
An unnerving hiss of static followed. Then the girl answered, “Gabled? Do you mean the pointy kind?”
“That’s right, sweetheart.”
“Yes.”
Slapping the dash of Cato’s roadster excitedly, Hank said, “I know where you are, Luca.”
“You do?”
“I do, hon. All I need to know now is what floor you live on.”
“Third floor. Apartment 3B.”
“Perfect. You did great, Luca. Hang in there. My friends and I will see you soon.”
“The girl and her family are in Tanglereave’s Old Town district.”
“How can you be sure?” asked the PWD officer who had given Hank a ride in his cruiser.
“She lives across from a blood dispensary, where the strigs provide what’s sold to them at the blood banks. There’s only one in Old Town, and only Old Town has those buildings with the gabled roofs. They were abandoned by wights generations ago, and some of the poorer strigs started squatting in them.”
“Ipso facto, she lives across from the dispensary,” Cato said, filling in the unspoken blank.
“Exactly, and it’s only a few miles away. If we leave now we can be there in ten minutes.”
“But the vamp king said he’s locking down Tanglereave.” This, from one of the two officers who had arrived to buttress the checkpoint they had been assigned.
“He’s not a king, and Tanglereave is too big to lock down all at once,” Hank explained. “They wouldn’t start with Old Town, anyway. It’s not strategically important enough.”
“Much like this posting, it turns out.” Cato eyed the checkpoint and the empty streets on either side pointedly.
One of the PWD officers crossed his arms and made a slight hmph-ing noise under his breath. Obviously, he thought the draw of his assignment was more important than it actually was.
Hank ignored the officer, continuing unabated. “Look, if we haul ass, we can secure the building, get the girl and her family, and be gone before the strigs know we were even there.”
One way or the other, they had to act fast, Hank knew. Too much delay and there would be no hope for them, to say nothing of the girl and her family. He looked steadily at his partner, standing there in the empty street, arms akimbo, working his bottom lip with his teeth.
Finally, Cato made his decision. “Okay. I’m in.”
“All right, then.” Hank looked to the PWD officers and thumped the hood of Cato’s roadster with the meaty part of his fist. “Let’s roll out.”
“Due respect, Spectors, but our posting is here. The emergency protocols don’t mention anything about running into Tanglereave for an unsanctioned op during martial law.”
Gritting his teeth, Hank was about to lay into them with everything he had.
Until Cato beat him to the punch, that was.
“All right,” Cato said levelly… at first. With each word that followed, his tone grew more clipped, more impatient, becoming a rumbling growl as he dressed down the skittish officers. “All right. Fair enough. You guys hang back here and enjoy this thankless little errand you’ve been tasked with. Just be sure to mention that whole ‘emergency protocol’ thing when the mayor is filleting your asses because his two best people, not to mention a little girl and her family, were torn to shreds in Tanglereave while you four were having a circle jerk over the least contested spot in the entire city. He’ll love that part.”
“Or you can climb into your cruisers, follow us, and do what you signed up to do: serve and protect.” Making a face as if to say ‘take it or leave it,’ Hank shrugged and pulled himself into the passenger seat.
“Either way, you’re going to need to move those cruisers.” By now an angry bark, Cato’s tone brooked no argument from the officers.
Moments later, he and Hank were speeding toward Old Town as the four officers continued the discussion in Cato’s rearview mirrors.
“Think they’ll bite?” Hank asked.
Cato didn’t answer; he was watching the officers’ dwindling reflections. Hank took a look, too, and was about to write them off entirely when two of the officers abruptly broke off and piled into their cruiser. After a bit of hasty maneuvering, they fell in behind the roadster. Like Cato, they were running without lights or sirens.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Cato said.
“Two is better than none,” Hank agreed.
“Hopefully two more than we’ll need.” With that, Cato pressed down on the gas.
Tanglereave rose ahead of them, its stunted, strangely silhouetted skyline looming closer and closer. At its center stood the lord commander’s tower like some gnarled, twisted finger beckoning them into the unknown.
> The entrance to Tanglereave’s Old Town district was unguarded, exactly as Hank had predicted. Still, they progressed slowly through the empty, twisting streets, lights dark and sirens silent. Even with time working against them, it remained critical to avoid drawing attention to themselves for as long as possible.
“How much farther?”
“The blood dispensary is around the next corner. Luca’s building should be directly across from it.”
“Gotcha. Tell your PWD friends to cover the main door while we secure the girl and her family.”
Hank relayed the orders to the officers behind them and received an affirmative in response. Meanwhile, Cato turned the wheel around the corner Hank had indicated. The street it fed into was a narrow little ribbon, largely unlit and only allowing for traffic in one direction. Ahead, Hank could make out the glowing red neon sign announcing the presence of the blood dispensary. Across from the dispensary stood a decrepit little apartment building, three stories high with a gabled roof. How the building had yet to be condemned was a bonafide mystery as far as Hank was concerned. Like a punch-drunk boxer on the edge of consciousness, it looked as if it could be knocked over by a stiff breeze.
“This is the place,” Hank said.
Nodding absently, Cato pulled the roadster to a stop a few feet past the building’s entrance. The PWD officer driving the cruiser followed Cato’s lead, leaving a slight gap between the two vehicles. They stepped out of their vehicles simultaneously. The officers were on edge, heads on a swivel as they took up their positions by the building’s main door. Cato followed while Hank brought up the rear with his trusty shotgun.
“All right, so, you guys know what to do?”
“Keep watch and let you know if anyone shows up,” one of the officers said. “Easy-peasy, right?”
Cato clapped him on the shoulder. “Let’s hope so.”
Hank joined them then, shotgun clutched at the ready. “Ready?”
“Let’s do it.”
With one last nod to the officers manning the door, they entered the building. Hank took the lead, his shotgun more than ready to make the acquaintance of anyone who would dare stand in their way. No one presented themselves, however, and so they mounted the stairs, Cato watching their six. After swinging around the switchback and hurrying up to the second floor, Hank stopped on the last stair and peered carefully around the corner. No activity. Quickly, quietly, they repeated the same maneuvers until they reached the third floor. Once again, Hank cleared the hallway before continuing.
“God, what died in here?” Cato asked from behind the back of his hand.
At least Cato had the option. Hank had no such luxury, the shotgun requiring two hands to wield most effectively. “More like, what didn’t?”
“Touché”
They reached apartment 3B without incident. A stray thought pushed itself to the front of Hank’s mind, warning him that this was too easy, too textbook; just as quickly he banished it so he could focus on the mission as he rapped softly on the chipped and stained door.
“Luca? You in there? It’s your friend Hank, from the radio.”
The door opened slowly, by degrees, cracking at first before easing farther open with a wheezing creak. Behind it stood a girl waist-high to Hank. When she spoke, her voice was a paper-thin whisper. “Hank, you found me.”
“That’s right, sweetheart. I have my partner Ryen with me, and two more of my friends are waiting downstairs. Can we come in?”
“Okay.” She stepped aside and opened the door. Hank went through first, checking the apartment room by room. As Cato followed over the threshold, Luca offered a shy smile. “Hi.”
She was adorable, the girl. Ecru skin, hair dark as pitch. It was those big, watery brown eyes, though, that spoke to her fear.
“Hi, Luca,” Cato said. “Is there anyone else here with you?”
“My dad went to work today. Sometimes he doesn’t come home for a while.”
“Where does he work?”
“I don’t know.”
Having finished his sweep of the small apartment, Hank rejoined them in the living room. “All clear. Nobody else here.”
Cato nodded. “All right.” Smiling, he offered his hand to the girl. “Come on, Luca, let’s get you out of here. We’ll find your dad once everything has settled down.”
Luca offered him her hand obligingly. They were just about to make their exit when the radio on Hank’s hip buzzed. He had been right before. This had been too easy.
“Spector Smiley, we have a situation down here.”
Hank lowered his shotgun, freeing up a hand to key the radio on his shoulder. “What’s the problem?”
“Movement. In the streets.”
With three quick strides, Hank stepped to the window overlooking the street. At first, he could see nothing through the darkness except the officers below. One of the officers was standing in the gap between the vehicles. He had assumed a ready stance—left hand thrust out before him, right hand clutching the grip of his service weapon—though against who or what, Hank couldn’t see. Behind him, the second officer stood nervously. His hand was hovering over the grip of his weapon; he wasn’t yet fully committed to the need to draw it.
“How many? I can’t see anything.”
“Not sure. That damn sign is making it hard to—wait…”
Squinting through the glass, Hank finally saw them: at least half a dozen figures emerging from the shadowy alleys and spaces between buildings. The officer in the gap raised his voice to address them, though whatever he said wasn’t loud enough to travel three stories up. Hank didn’t need to hear it to know the script, though, or how it was likely to end.
“Withdraw,” he said into his radio. “Withdraw now! Get inside the building and secure the door behind you. Do you hear me? Get inside now!”
But it was too late.
The first officer, provoked by some unknown movement or other threat, drew his weapon. Whether the fear had gotten to him or the officer just wasn’t as fast as he’d thought, Hank couldn’t say. Either way, the muzzle had barely cleared the holster before he was set upon.
He was hit from the side, not even the direction he was looking, bowled over and sprawled out across the hood of his cruiser. The impact shook the gun from his hand, not that it mattered. The vamp who had launched himself at the officer tore out the young man’s throat well before he could have brought the weapon to bear, a bright arterial spray painting the cruiser’s white hood even as the creature wriggled back and forth atop his prey.
“SHIT,” Hank heard the second officer yell, though not through the radio. He dropped it a moment later, then actually managed to grab his weapon and yank it free. He was aiming in every direction, trying to draw a bead and finding none, when Hank heard a series of rapid thumps through the ceiling.
The building’s roof.
He would have cried out to warn the officer, but the figure who leapt from the rooftop fell too fast, too gracefully. The vamp landed flush on his target, burying his fangs into the back of the officer’s neck. He crumpled to the pavement like all his wires had been cut, and the vamp feasted. Likely, the bite had severed his spine and the officer had been dead before he hit the ground, but Hank couldn’t know that for certain, not really.
“What’s happening out there?” Cato asked from the door as Hank turned away, wincing. It had all happened so fast, Cato and Luca were still standing by the door.
Before Hank could bring himself to answer, his radio issued a series of sputtering hisses before the line abruptly cleared.
“Hello in there,” a breathy, rasping voice said through the line. “You have the honor of speaking with Ahrkul Alsace. My fellow Slayers and I have dispatched your compatriots, though I suspect you already know that. You should also be aware that we have the building surrounded. All of that said, please respond so that we may negotiate your surrender.”
Eyes meeting across the living room, Hank and Cato were under no delusions. The situat
ion was bad, but surrender was most certainly not an option. Alsace and his Slayers had made that abundantly clear. If they could just hold out, maybe stall the vamps while they radioed for backup…
Cato looked as if he was about to speak when Luca began to cry softly at his side. The hardened spector knelt beside the girl without hesitation, taking precious time to comfort her even as the building was being swarmed by murderous strigoi. It was a rare display of tenderness on his part, at least so far as Hank had ever seen. It also spoke to why Jeanine was so dedicated to her uncle.
More importantly, it gave Hank an idea.
“All right, Alsace,” Hank said into the radio. “Since we’re introducing ourselves, this is Sergeant Merriweather of PWD.”
Cato eyed him curiously but said nothing as the radio squawked back with a response.
“Good evening, Sergeant. Shall we discuss the terms of your surrender?”
“Yeah, about that… We’ve got some frightened people up here, Alsace. Downright hysterical. You’re going to need to give us a few minutes to calm them down.”
“I assure you, Sergeant, my people mean yours no harm.”
“Kind of hard to sell them on that after what they just saw.”
“A regrettable turn of events, indeed, but it was your men who provoked mine. Nevertheless, I shall allow you ten minutes to calm your people down.”
“Thank you. Hopefully, we won’t need any longer than that.”
“Hopefully not. I shall be in touch, Sergeant. Over and out.”
By then Luca had stopping crying, her cheeks dried by Cato’s gentle touch. Only once he was sure the girl was okay did he turn to speak with his partner, their voices pitched low.
“Not bad, ‘Sergeant Merriweather.’ What now?”
Hank shrugged, then switched to PWD’s emergency frequency. “We hope like hell someone out there likes us enough to try something really, really stupid.” He spoke again into the radio. “Mayday, mayday, mayday. This is Spector Smiley transmitting in the clear to all PWD personnel. My partner and I are holed up in Tanglereave’s Old Town district, about to be overrun by hostile forces identifying themselves as Steelskin Slayers. We are on the third floor of the apartment building across the street from Old Town’s only blood dispensary. Be advised, we have a human child with us. Repeat…”
