Stormrise

by Knizley, Skye

  “And what would your job be?” Raven asked.

  Wong smiled, a gesture he probably believed would disarm anyone with ovaries. It just made Raven want to slap him.

  “Technically, I’m the chief attorney for the marketing division of Deva,” he said. “But I do a little bit of everything. In this case, I’m familiar with the product, which, as I said, was indeed discontinued. We sold all of our printing and manufacturing facilities last year. The product in question used to be boxed and shipped from our facility in Prospect Meadows. It’s possible some of our packaging was left behind during the sale.”

  Raven made a note of that and circled it on her pad. “So you believe these products are being made without your knowledge by whomever you sold the facility to? Doesn’t that bother you?”

  Wong smiled again and Raven resisted the urge to reach across the table and smack him. She hated guys who thought a row of white teeth and a charming smile would get them into her pants. “Of course it does. I'll let our leadership know immediately. I’m sure an investigation and lawsuit will be initiated against the current owners. They will obviously have to cease their production.”

  “What about the people harmed by your product?” Raven asked.

  “That is, unfortunately, not our product and therefore not our responsibility,” he said. “Oh, there may be some vicarious liability for leaving the printed boxes lying around, but I daresay it will be minimal and the case for trademark infringement will be much larger.”

  Raven shook her head in disbelief, staring at the handsome attorney, who only continued to smile. After a moment, she said, “Fine, fine. Do you have the address of the Prospect Meadows facility?”

  “The receptionist can provide you with that,” Wong replied. “Most of my equipment is still in San Diego and I don’t have the address on me.”

  “I suppose I’ll get the same answer if I ask for the name of the purchasing company?” Raven asked sourly.

  Wong nodded, offering the same charming, self-satisfied smile. “I don’t have that information, but I’m sure I can get it for you. Perhaps you could call me in a few days when my things arrive? I would love to see you again.”

  “I’ll get it myself,” Raven replied. “Thank you for your time.”

  “You’re welcome,” Wong said. “And now that business is concluded, perhaps we can discuss a private matter? May I take you out for dinner and a movie?" He smiled again.

  Raven rolled her eyes and stood, muttering "I'm not interested in Chinese tonight, Wong. It will just leave me unsatisfied and wanting something else later. Thank you for your time.”

  VI

  Back in the lobby, Raven collected the address of the BioCyte facility as well as the name of the corporation that had purchased the property. She felt certain it would turn out that Whitehall Pharmaceuticals would be a dummy corporation, but any lead would do. With the information in hand, she checked in with Frost and proceeded across the city to Prospect Meadows.

  It was late afternoon by the time she had fought through traffic and entered the industrial zone on the northwest side of the city. Though the area had once been wide, rolling green meadows full of tall grasses and wildflowers, decades of development had left the fields covered in pavement, smokestacks and abandoned buildings with broken windows and boarded-up doors.

  The newly named Whitehall Pharmaceuticals building was in the middle of a block of similar-looking cinderblock factories. Most had been cast off as the recession crawled onwards and businesses were forced to relocate or close. The Whitehall building, however, had two or three dozen cars parked in the fenced-in lot and a wary-looking security guard was manning the small, brown shack near the gate. He watched Raven approach with hooded eyes and leaned out to speak with her.

  “Good afternoon,” he began. “This is a private facility; unless you’re an employee, I can’t let you pass.”

  Raven smiled and flashed her badge. “Detective Raven Storm, Chicago Police. I’m here to speak with someone in charge, please.”

  The guard examined the badge as if it were the Holy Grail “Do you have a warrant or something? I can’t just let you wander around the grounds.”

  “I was referred here by Mr. Wong of the BioCyte Company,” Raven answered. "I’m just here to ask questions, no warrant is necessary.”

  “I don’t know any Wong,” the guard said. “I can let you in to speak with the shift manager. Not much of anyone else to speak with; this is just a factory warehouse.”

  The guard opened the gate and continued, “You can park in the visitor spots up by the building. The shift manager should be in his office.”

  “Thank you,” Raven said, putting the car in gear and moving through the gate.

  She parked the Shelby near the building as the guard had instructed and proceeded through the wide double doors into the facility. Beyond, she found a large, mostly automated packaging facility. A maze of conveyor belts, machinery and storage bins stretched out before her, each assembly line spitting out a different packaged medicine, ranging from mild analgesics to antihistamines and cough-drops. She caught a box of nasal spray as it tumbled off the conveyor belt into the bin and examined the label.

  Whitehall Pharmaceuticals: When Quality Matters, she read.

  The outside of the box was blue and white, with a small logo of a flying dove on the front just below the trade name of the spray. It looked nothing like the BioCyte box still nestled in her purse; even the cardboard was a different color. Where the BioCyte box was beige, the Whitehall box was bone white.

  Raven tossed the box back into the bin and continued deeper into the facility. She found the shift manager’s office at the far side of the factory floor. There was no receptionist or anyone outside, but a short, pudgy man with brown hair and a beard was sweating over a laptop inside the small, cramped office. Raven knocked and waited for the man to look up before entering.

  “Detective Raven Storm,” she said, holding up her badge. “I was hoping you could help me with a few questions, if you have a moment.”

  The man nodded and waved for Raven to have a seat in one of the plastic chairs opposite him. “Justin called and said you were coming. What can I do for you?”

  “Justin is the security guard, I presume?” Raven asked.

  “Yeah, he’s a good kid; let me know right away I was getting a visitor,” the manager replied. “What’s this about?”

  Raven tossed the empty medicine box on the desk. “This. This box appears to have been manufactured after Whitehall took over this facility. BioCyte no longer makes this medication. Any idea where it came from?”

  The manager picked up the box and twirled it between his fingers before tossing it back onto the desk. “No idea. We do make a compatible product, but as I’m sure you’ve seen, our packaging is completely different. You can also see from the stamping that this was hand folded and glued.”

  “What do you mean?” Raven asked, picking up the box and examining it again.

  “Most manufacturers use a stamping process when they glue the box shut,” he replied. “It helps set the glue and in some cases presses a manufacturing date into the cardboard. This one isn’t a smooth crease like you would get in a machine and the glue is thick. If it had been sealed by a machine, the corners would be more precise and the glue flattened by the process.”

  “So you think this box was made by hand?” Raven pressed.

  The manager nodded. “I would stake my life on it.”

  “Okay, so how about the medicine inside? Could that be hand filled?”

  “If it’s a two-part gelatin capsule, certainly. All it would take is some patience and a steady hand,” he said. “We do some that way if it’s a sample run. And before you ask, yes, the blister pack they come in is available in two parts. All they would have to do is glue them together.”

  “What about the box?” Raven asked. “Wong said there might have been some materials left behind when they closed this building down.”

  The
manager shrugged. “There might have been. I came on after Whitehall had taken over. When I started, there was nothing but Whitehall materials.”

  Raven studied the man opposite her for a moment, her senses telling her he was telling the truth. “Damn,” she muttered after a moment.

  “Sorry I don’t have better news, detective,” the manager said. “Is there anything else I can do to help with your inquiries?”

  “No, thank you,” Raven said with a shake of her head. “I appreciate your help. Have a sparkling day.”

  “Any time, detective. Have a nice day!”

  Alone in the Shelby, Raven stared at the brick wall in front of her, her eyes tracing the cracked paint over the old cinderblocks as she thought. With a growl, she leaned back in the seat and put in a call to Levac. After reporting that the medication was, at least for the moment, a dead end, she inquired on his progress with Hellsey.

  “Run of the mill, for the most part,” he reported. “Most of it you already know. Only child, grew up in the Bronze, mother was a maid at one of the local hotels, father unknown.”

  “When did the first deposit go through, again?” Raven asked, perking up.

  “Um…August, like you said, about nine months after that shot with King,” Levac said.

  “And when did she break up with King?”

  “Lemme check the timeline…” Levac said. Raven heard him put the phone down with a thud. He came back a moment later and said, “The week after the first deposit, if our wild guess is correct.”

  “Okay, so Nathan King breaks up with Hellsey after she gets a large payday and he starts dating Victoria, a friend of Hellsey’s. Brand Symone, who was also friends with both women, is heartbroken that King is dating Victoria and tries to make them both sick. Someone who knows this uses the medication they're taking to kill them; how is Hellsey connected to the medication?” Raven asked, thinking out loud. “Did the crime scene boys find a gris-gris at the scene?”

  “There was nothing about that in the preliminary list. Just a lot of clothing and toiletries. Raven, I still think Symone is our prime suspect. He’s the common denominator and we only have his word that Hellsey told him the other two were dead. For all we know, he killed all three.”

  “I agree he’s our best suspect,” Raven replied. “But we still have no connection to the murder weapon and he has an alibi. I think our answer lies in finding the source of the mercury explosive and linking it to Hellsey. Did Elysium have any video for you?”

  “Not much. It’s pretty clear that Taylor had a visitor in the evening,” he said. “She met him down in the lobby and escorted him upstairs.”

  “That sounds like something. Can we get a hard copy and run it through DMV?”

  “That’s the thing. This guy definitely knew the Elysium had cameras. Every time he was about to be visible, he managed to turn away or have his hand over his face. All I could make out is that he was taller than Taylor and had light hair.”

  “Damn… All right, has Frost gone to see the mother yet?” Raven asked.

  Raven could almost hear the nod of Levac’s head. “Yeah, he did that as soon as I’d tracked her down.”

  “Damn. Okay, give me the address; I’ll go there later anyway and try not to crush anyone’s feelings,” Raven said.

  “Will do…” Levac rattled off the address.

  Raven wrote it on her notepad and then said, “Wait… I thought you said she was in Bronzeville?”

  “She was. It looks like she moved a few weeks ago.”

  “This is a pretty up town address."

  “Don’t I know it? Looks to me like Hellsey was generous with her newfound wealth. You want company?”

  “No, thanks,” Raven replied. “I’m on this. See if you can track down who held the Whitehall factory building in escrow during the sale. Maybe they can help us track down the medicine boxes.”

  “Roger. You do the easy stuff and I’ll fill in the blanks.”

  “Thanks, Rupert,” Raven said, and ended the call.

  VII

  Night was falling, turning the bright afternoon into a sullen black, lit by a handful of early stars scattered along the horizon like discarded sequins. Raven glared out at the deepening horizon and tapped her nails on the steering wheel of the Shelby, wishing she had chosen to take the long way rather than sit in ‘going home’ traffic. She hated traffic; it was caused by people’s inability to offer common courtesy to one another. If people would follow one another further apart than a sheet of single ply tissue, she wouldn’t be sitting there…

  Her annoyed reverie was cut off by the sudden and angry whirr of her phone sitting on the center console. She glanced at it; surprised to see it was her sister Pandora calling, she picked it up.

  “Hey, Dora,” she said with a smile. “It’s good to hear from you, babe, what’s up?”

  “Ray?” Pandora’s voice came, laced with tears. “Ray, I need to talk to you; can you meet me?”

  “Of course, Dora,” she said, concerned. “What’s wrong?”

  “I…I can’t tell you on the phone. Please, meet me behind Club Purgatory after full dark. Will you be there?” Pandora sobbed.

  “I will, Dora. Be safe,” Raven replied.

  The phone went dead and Raven frowned at it. Though Pandora was one of the more emotional of the family, she was still a member of the Court and a full pureblooded one at that. There was little she couldn’t handle on her own.

  Still frowning, Raven placed her police light on the dash, activated the siren and accelerated down the shoulder of the highway, part of her pleased she wouldn’t have to wait in traffic any longer.

  It was full dark when she pulled to the curb less than a block from Club Purgatory. She had turned the siren and light off as soon as she’d cleared traffic, wanting to neither abuse her authority as a detective nor alert anyone to her presence at the club.

  She sat and watched the darkness for several minutes. The club’s usual mixed crowd of lycans, Embraced, vampires and norms huddled together outside the club, each waiting for a chance to be judged and allowed access to the inner sanctum. A bum was warming himself over a garbage can fire and a pair of prostitutes were trying their luck on the corner. By their movements, Raven could tell they were Embraced, likely hunting for dinner. Selling sex for blood wasn’t strictly against Mother’s rules, but it was skirting the edge.

  Raven shook her head and slid from the car, pausing only to grab a spare magazine for the Automag, one loaded with her special blend. She then made her way down the alley towards the shadowed back of the club.

  The rear of Club Purgatory was even less attractive than the front. The walls had not been painted since the building was new and the back wall was a spider web of cracks patched with auto-body filler and gum. In the corner sat an old dumpster, overflowing with refuse and emanating the stench of death and decay, likely the last resting place of both lycans and humans who had been either too damaged after a night of partying to survive or had been intentionally drained and discarded.

  Raven entered cautiously, searching the darkness for any sign of her sister. Seeing no one, she whistled a two-tone note only vampires, werewolves and other canines would hear. A moment later, Pandora stepped into view, her white hair shining in the single sodium-vapor light illuminating the back lot.

  Immaculate as always, Pandora was dressed in a black leather cat-suit that stretched from her ankles to her neck, and stiletto boots added nearly seven inches to her height. She offered a sad smile at her younger sister and beckoned her closer.

  Still searching the darkness for any hint of danger, Raven entered the circle of light, her Automag held at her side.

  “Dora? Dora, what happened?” Raven asked when she got closer, her eyes taking in the tear streaks on her sister's face and the hint of blood at the corner of her mouth, a smear that hadn’t come from feeding.

  “I’m sorry, Ravenel,” she replied. “They have Ash.”

  Ash was Pandora’s familiar and lover.
He had been with her for nearly fifty years. Raven knew her sister loved him more than life itself.

  “Who?” she asked. “Who has Ash and where can I find them?”

  By way of answer, Pandora let her eyes flick upward. Raven followed the gesture and watched as, one by one, more than a dozen men dressed in black and wearing stocking caps and protective goggles rose into view on the roof of Club Purgatory.

  “I’m so, so sorry, Ravenel,” Pandora said, backing into the darkness. “I couldn’t do anything; they have Ash!”

  Raven cast an annoyed look back at her sister and then turned to face the men on the roof. “You have my attention,” she said, gripping her pistol and weighing the odds. “What can I do for you tonight?”

  “Do nothing, Fürstin Ravenel,” one of the men rasped, his voice laced with a German accent. “Like your sisters and brothers will.”

  “Do nothing?” Raven asked. “I don’t understand. Do nothing in general or right now? ’Cause if you’re planning to kill me tonight, I intend to do something about it; you won’t get me or Dora without a fight.”

  “Your mother’s reign is at an end, Fürstin,” the man replied. “Do nothing to delay her end and you’ll be granted your rightful place in the new Court.”

  Raven frowned and decided the leader would be the first to die. “You mean you intend to kill my mother, and you want me to stand by and do nothing?”

  The man nodded once. “That is correct, Fürstin,” he said. “Swear an oath to my master and you’ll be spared the carnage of the coming war.”

  Raven smiled sweetly. “I have a better idea. You clowns put down your guns and surrender now, and I promise Mother will make your deaths quick and painless. Because I definitely won’t let you touch a hair on her head.”

  The man laughed and took a half step back, raising the wicked-looking rifle he had been cradling. “I told the master you were stupid and would not deal,” he said. “Stupid half-breed. Goodbye, Fürstin.”

  “Goodbye, asshole.”

  Moving in a blur, she raised her pistol, firing a single round that punched through the leader’s night vision scope and exited through the back of his skull. Before he had even finished burning, Raven had shot the next two men in succession and rolled behind the relative safety of the dumpster. Gagging at the stench emanating from the black plastic garbage bags, Raven peered around the corner, ignoring the sparks kicked up by the mercenaries’ gunfire. Several of the men were moving along the roof, trying to get a better vantage point or get behind her. The rest were covering the open pavement, preventing her from being able escape down the alley.