Simon contacted Ben in Seattle, who in turn contacted someone high in the council of Inquisitors. A squad of Shadowcasters was dispatched to deal with the rogue, and Simon was warned to stay away from the fight entirely. With wounded pride that was evident in his voice as he recalled it, he agreed to stay away.
Shadowcasters were something that even Inquisitors talked about with hushed awe. A widely known secret among the paranormal, they had no training that extended beyond how best to kill the various paranormal races. It was said that the Sorceress herself named them in a rare melodramatic moment, saying that “everywhere they go they shall cast the shadow of death, and all our enemies shall know fear.” Our Sorceress wasn’t a poet, but she certainly hit the nail on the head with that assertion. Even if you were a law-abiding para and you knew a squad was coming to your city you locked yourself inside, hid under the bed, and prayed for them to leave. There was no diplomacy or negotiations with them, only killing, and they were the best at it. Except for this time they didn’t succeed. A five-member squad was sent to track down the rogue and any who served him and destroy them all. Simon’s apprentice, a young adept tracker named Dale who was attuned with magic in a way that only those of his race were, trailed their arrival without ever leaving his home. The squad followed the flow of necromantic energy deep into the Second City of L.A. Simon’s apprentice had watched with metaphysical eyes as they closed with their target. Then he described to Simon what sounded like a magical version of nuclear strike, a power unleashed that was earth-shaking in intensity. And then the squad was gone. Just like that. Simon’s apprentice said it was as if they had just fallen off the face of the earth.
Simon and Dale had spent the next three weeks trying to track down the rogue and the squad, or whatever remained of them, but to no avail. As an adept tracker, Dale could follow magical trails the way vampires and werewolves could track scents, but now he was blind to their magic. Simon hit up anyone he could find for a lead, but like Dale had said, they simply vanished.
My blood ran cold at the implications. A necromancer who could beat the Shadowcasters? No one had ever beaten them. Individual members had been killed before, sure, that came with the job, but they never failed in a mission. Until now, apparently.
Simon leaned back on the couch, his face staring blankly at the ceiling, and spoke in blank monotone, as if the life had been sucked out of him. “I should have been with them. Dale and I could have—”
“You couldn’t have changed anything,” I said, cutting him off from his doubts. “You followed orders like you were supposed to. And besides, the squad is probably still intact.” I felt the lie worm its way out of my mouth, yet I felt a strange comfort with it. “They were probably the ones that blinded your apprentice to their trail. Maybe the necro just got lucky and escaped. The squad’s probably on his trail right now.”
We sat in silence, the smell of Larry’s cooking drifting out to us from the kitchen. Simon knew as well as I did the likelihood of the squad being alive was next to none. They weren’t the hiding types. But he didn’t bother to point that out. Instead, he looked over at me with dark angry eyes and said, “They made me sit out the fight. They came to my city and told me to do nothing. I’m in your territory now, your city. You won’t ask me to do the same, will you, little brother?”
Behind the anger was a sadness that I couldn’t reconcile with the Simon I knew. He was unflappable and fearless, not dejected and beaten like the man on the couch across from me. “No, Simon, I won’t ask you to do that.” I looked away from him towards the kitchen.
“Thank you,” he said simply, and the quiet stretched between us like a river.
11
“Dinner is served.”
I heard Larry from far away. Simon was shaking me. I had fallen asleep in my chair. How embarrassing. The letdown of the dreamscape had caused me to crash hard. It must have been the overuse of my powers against the ghouls. I had never pushed that hard before, high or not, and it had felt easy at the time. Looking back, it was amazing that it took this long for the after-effects to catch up with me. Shaking my head to clear the cobwebs, I stood slowly and followed Simon in to the kitchen.
Larry had laid out three plates of steak for us. Blood seeped out in spreading pools across the plates. Lovely.
I wiped sleep from my eyes. “Larry, did you bother to cook these at all? Not all of us can take a healthy dose of food poisoning.”
“Calm down, sleeping beauty,” he winked. “I cooked yours twice as long.”
We all sat and started cutting our food. I eyed mine like a bomb-squad member looking at a suspicious package. If Larry was offended he didn’t show it. Vampires don’t need to eat or drink anything but blood, but many do. Perhaps it was a way for them to keep in touch with their lost humanity, or maybe they just liked sharing a normal meal with other people once in a while. Who knew?
Larry hadn’t had any of the blood I had brought over yet. He still looked like a cadaver with a thin covering of flesh, his baggy clothes looking absurdly large on him. As we ate and drank—beer for Simon and Larry, coffee for me—we studiously avoided talking about anything important. It was a relief to reminisce about times gone by and not once think about the job. Larry even shared some lurid stories of his life before the curse. According to him, he was quite the ladies’ man back in the day. But knowing him half the stories were just wishful thinking. I especially had doubts about him being the inspiration for all those jokes about the farmer’s daughter.
After finishing our meals and clearing the table, we stood around the kitchen, Simon smoking a cigarette and ashing into the sink. “Thanks for the meal,” I said to Larry. “You sure you don’t mind Simon staying here for a few days?”
“Mi casa, su casa,” he said, and waved it away. “Be careful though, if he stays too long I might bring him over to the dark side.” He cackled like a mad scientist and rubbed his hands together. “I have a feeling he’s been under your influence too long and has forgotten the fun that can be had with gluttony and debauchery.”
Simon smirked and blew out a thin stream of blue smoke. “Perhaps you have forgotten that I come from L.A., the home of gluttony and debauchery.”
Larry mimicked a crestfallen look. “That’s right. Well, I’ll just have to try harder then.” He turned to me with a stern look. “Don’t worry; I’m up to the challenge.”
“Good to hear. I have to stop by my office. Here’s Ben’s number, he’ll want to hear from you.” I wrote down his number on a scrap of paper and handed it to Simon.
We said our goodbyes and I went to STS headquarters.
* * *
The operations center for the Supernatural Tactics Squad was an old three-story library that had been gutted and expanded to handle all of the unit’s needs. When you only have one building per city to house all the people and equipment necessary for an operation like this, functionality is key. And this place had that in spades. They had their own call center linked directly to the main emergency response center, a half-dozen operators working the switch boards during the day and double that at night when business picked up. A small gymnasium on the first floor allowed for training and regular workouts, while a recreation room allowed the troops to unwind. My office was against the east wall of the first floor. It was as far away from any people as you could get without going outside the building. The closest room to mine was an oversized room they used for storage. I didn’t know who was responsible for keeping me away from the agents, whether it was Lou or someone else, but on days like today I wanted to thank whoever it was.
I had only had an office here for two months now and everyone was still adjusting. It was an effort by the Inquisition to integrate us with the human police force. In a perfect world that would mean better communications, information sharing, and coordinated law-enforcement within our two agencies. Unfortunately we live in the real world and things are much more complicated than that. My relationships with the officers ranged from friendly banter t
o a simple hello to a couple of the men and women who absolutely refused to acknowledge my existence. After those zombies had cropped up in a human area the sentiment around the office was decidedly closer to the latter with even fewer nods than usual, and most of those were curt, as if it pained them to admit that I was sharing space with them. As if it was my fault someone had encroached into the human zone. And perhaps to them it was my fault. I was the Inquisitor after all, responsible for keeping all the bad things bottled up in the Second City. But that was also their job, so maybe seeing me here was a reminder of their failure as well as my own. Maybe their resentment made more sense than I liked to admit.
Signing on to my computer, I leafed through the papers that were left in my in-box. It was mostly stuff I just needed to sign off on; pack registration for a couple new wolves in town, a petition from a man who wanted to turn his wife into a vampire like himself, and a request by a human family to adopt a preteen warlock and move him into their house in the First City. Looking at the werewolf registrations, I saw that Robert’s was among them. Eric’s new second was a species-supremacist asshole, but at least he did things the legal way. At the bottom of the form, under ‘reasons for leaving old pack,’ he had put “conflict of interests.” Imagine that. I signed the form and tossed it in the completed file.
My e-mail was overflowing with new messages, little icons of unopened letters lining the left side of the screen. I deleted the ones that I new were spam or advertisements and opened the first one that looked legit. It was a note from the Civil Liberties Association informing me that they were going to be taking a closer look at the Inquisition’s activities because of recent reports of human rights violations. They did things like this occasionally. But the CLA or any of the other activists out there who were afraid we would abuse our power—which, to be fair, we did quite often—were only interested in the human side of things. They claimed to want equal rights for humans and paras, but the truth was they didn’t give a crap about us, and seeing as how our dealings with the human population were nearly nonexistent the CLA usually gave us a perfunctory once-over and forgot about us.
Delete.
A reporter trying to set up an interview was the second note. She knew that the members of my group didn’t give interviews normally, but if I would just hear her out she knew I would want to speak to her.
Delete.
A barely coherent death threat.
Delete. Honestly, how did these people get my e-mail address?
The last was from a fellow Inquisitor who operated out of Australia. It looked like he copied every member he could find in on it. The letter read simply: demonic retaliation? Attached were two copies of scanned news articles. The first was about a jet liner that crashed into the ocean off the coast of Australia killing all 147 passengers and crew. The second was a small article about a couple of beach-goers who found the burnt wing of a Hartori demon washed up on shore a dozen or so miles from where the plane went down. I frowned at the screen. Had the demons decided to strike at humanity because they couldn’t readily fight us? It seemed likely. In fact, looking at the picture of the two boys holding up a flayed wing between them it seemed almost certain.
Save.
So far the media hadn’t made the connection that our Australian agent had, but who knew how long that would last. I could only hope that the upcoming talks with the Demon ambassador could stop things before they spun out of control. If the general population knew what was going on right now it wouldn’t be long before the mercenary groups restarted the campaign that they left unfinished after the war.
My phone rang with a shrill cry. “Goldman,” I rumbled into the receiver.
“Frank.” It was Lou. “Can you come up to my office? I got someone here I want you to meet.”
“Sure, be right there.” We hung up and I went to meet Lou in his third floor office.
The door was open so I knocked on the frame and walked in. Lou sat behind his desk on the right, and a young black man in a t-shirt and baggy jeans sat across from him. Neither looked happy to be there.
“Frank,” Lou said, and pointed to the man in the chair across from him. “This is Andre. I thought you should hear what he has to say.”
Andre had a black and white bandana wrapped around his arm. “You’re with the spiders,” I stated.
“He’s their leader, actually. Isn’t that right, Andre?” Lou didn’t bother to mask the venom in his voice.
“Yeah, that’s right,” Andre said, and smiled. He looked at me. “And who the hell are you?”
“Watch your tone,” Lou growled. “This is Frank Goldman, Inquisitor of the Second City.”
I walked over and propped myself against Lou’s desk. Andre looked me up and down and ran a hand over his shaved head. “Huh, I thought you Inquisitor types were supposed to be all badass, but you don’t look tough to me. Just another pig in a different kind of uniform you ask me.” He raised his eyes to mine in open challenge, begging me to take the bait. I wasn’t in the mood for it.
“Andre,” I said, holding eye contact and draining my features and voice of emotion. The training kicked into gear, assessing his posture, expression, and the way his fingers danced along the armrest in a nervous twitch. “I’ve been here less than thirty seconds and I’m already bored with you. Now do you have something relevant to say or are you just wasting our time?” His posture spoke of confidence and toughness, yet everything else about him was anything but. Fear and anxiety filled the air around him, smothering him, begging for a release.
He crumpled back into the chair, all his empty threats and bravado gone. Lou and I waited while he rubbed his chin and collected himself. “We need protection.”
Lou snorted. “You want our protection, Andre? Is that what I’m hearing? I thought you and your friends would rather die than talk to us.”
Andre looked from Lou to me and then back. “Yo, you don’t know what my homeboys would do if they knew I was here. They all want to hit someone back for what happened to Josh and Rasheed the other night.”
“Those were the two that were killed?” I asked Lou. He nodded. The zombies had been so torn up and drenched in blood that I couldn’t have identified gang colors on them even if I hadn’t been busy trying not to let them eat my face at the time.
“Yeah, son, that’s them. Most of my boys still think it was the rollers that hit us. The last thing we need right now is shit starting with them.” He resumed rubbing his scalp. Looking at Lou, he smiled and said, “Not that we would ever be involved in anything illegal, officer.” Lou just rolled his eyes and made a get-on-with-it gesture. “When I found out that it was a roller that called the cops to help out my boys, I called a meeting with their leader and called a truce until we got this shit sorted out. But I don’t think we can. I mean, I saw what happened to Josh and Rasheed, man. How do you fight that voodoo shit?”
“You can’t,” I said simply. “But still, why are you here? It sounds to me like you should try enlisting the aid of your local police, if you want protection that is.”
“Enlist their aid?” he parroted. “What kind of diplomatic bullshit is that?” he said, and let out a short vicious stab of laughter. “The cops down there don’t give a crap about us. They’d just as soon let us all get torn to ribbons and look the other way.”
Lou slammed his fist on the table. “Watch your mouth you scumbag! There are good cops down there. I still have friends in those precincts.”
“That figures. You look like you’ve been on donut-patrol before, fat boy.”
They both tensed in their seats as if they were waiting for the opening bell of a boxing match. Andre’s hands were wrapped around the armrests so tight I could see every muscle in his forearm stretched taught as they pushed out against his skin. Andre was in his element now. Authority he could fight, he had been doing it most of his life. It was a comfort to him, I could tell. Even without the training it was as plain as day. He had spent days, maybe weeks being hunted by something he
didn’t understand and didn’t know how to fight against. But now here was the captain of a law enforcement agency calling him a scumbag just like he had been expecting. He would play the street-tough gang leader till it killed him. People can find reassurance in the strangest places.
“Shut up, both of you,” I snapped. They did, but still kept staring at each other, hate plain in their expressions. “Okay Andre,” I sighed. “What do you want us to do? Until we find this guy you and your people are in danger, and I don’t think any of you would agree to being locked up until this is over.”
Andre shook his head. “Someone might forget where they put the key.”
“I guess the only thing I can suggest is that you leave town for a week or two. Give us time to find this guy and put him away.”
“Yeah, about that, man. I might be able to help you.” He looked at me, but there was no challenge there this time. It was more like a look of hope, or maybe desperation. “These are your dogs, right? You got to keep them on a leash, right?” I shrugged noncommittally, not liking the analogy of paras as dogs. “Well I used to have this homeboy, knew him growing up. He comes to me a couple weeks ago telling me stories about a new gang coming into the city. Now my boy, he never ran with me in the spiders, but he’s all pumped up about this new thing. Says its run by this guy named Christian who’s a para. Says the guy is into some heavy-duty voodoo, or whatever. This Christian guy, he says that he’ll reward everyone that serves him with immortality.” Andre shakes his head. “How do you say no to that, huh? So my boy is all pumped about this, saying that him and his girl are doing better than getting married, they’re going to live together forever. Never seen him so happy.”
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