Shadows of the Midnight Sun

by Graham Brown

  Christian moved through the room like a shark in calm waters, slow and menacing, looking for his prey. He knew Hecht wouldn’t stay long in the populated areas. He’d be off in some dark corner feeding a different addiction.

  A woman working the crowd in a fishnet outfit caught Christian’s eye. She went from one man to the next, leaning on them, touching them provocatively.

  No takers, Christian thought. But the night was young. She was just advertising at this point, figuring out who had money and who was just pretending. She’d planted the seed, and now every single one of them was thinking about her, thinking about later.

  She noticed Christian watching, and a sultry smile appeared on her lips. As she slinked toward him, the lasers crisscrossed over her body, lighting up her surgically enhanced curves.

  “You look like a man who gets what he wants,” she said.

  He looked her over. Tattoos made of invisible ink covered parts of her body. Under normal lighting, you’d never see them, but they appeared instantly under the black lights of the club.

  He marveled at her ingenuity. Not a drop of dark ink marred her skin. She could mix with this crowd or take a call at a five-star hotel, and no one would bat an eye as she strutted across the lobby in a business suit.

  “You’re a professional,” he said. “If you’re any good at your job, you’ve put your hands on every guy who’s walked into this place. I need to find someone who came in five minutes ago.”

  He slipped his hand into a pocket and produced some more cash. She put her hand on the bill, but Christian held it tight.

  “Six feet tall. Close-cut dark hair, silver shirt.”

  “Half the guys in here,” she said.

  “No jewelry,” he added. “Pale. No tracks on his arms, no drugs.”

  She exhaled loudly as if she was thinking. “I don’t know.”

  “Forget it,” Christian said, pulling the money back and pushing past.

  “Wait,” she said. “Gimme something else?”

  Christian glared at her coldly. “You look your clients in the face?”

  “Sure.”

  “If you saw his eyes, you’d remember.”

  “His eyes?”

  “Hollow,” Christian said. “Lifeless…Like mine.”

  She looked into Christian’s eyes, and her face lost all expression, as if a cold wind had just blown across it. The eager smile, the fake gloss—all of it vanished. She stepped backward, flustered and unnerved.

  Christian grabbed her wrist to keep her from leaving. “You’ve seen him.”

  “He went up top,” she said, “with a new girl.”

  Christian extended his hand with the money. She didn’t take it. Christian stuffed it into her palm and closed her fingers over it. “If you ever see eyes like these again, I suggest you run.”

  She nodded, blinked a few times, and then stepped backward into the crowd, moving quickly away from him.

  Christian looked up. The place was cavernous, with three levels and a hundred hidden recesses. No doubt Hecht had lured the girl into one of them. Christian headed for the upper levels, hoping he wasn’t too late.

  CHAPTER 2

  JAMES HECHT stood at the bar on the third floor of the abandoned factory. Red velvet drapes hung on each side. The girl next to him was less provocative than most of the others, in a black cocktail dress with an open back and a little chain in front to keep the low-cut sections together. She looked clean—clean enough for him.

  Hecht pushed a double shot of Red Bull and vodka toward her and picked up his own. She downed it without hesitation and moved in closer to him. He sensed the warmth of her hand on his thigh, but it meant nothing to him.

  She licked her lips. “I want you.”

  He pulled her in and kissed her, the taste of her mouth and scent of her skin arousing him, igniting his purpose for being there. He would take her in the back. No one would even notice. He wouldn’t even leave the party after it was done. He might even stick around long enough to make it a double feature.

  He grabbed the back of her arm, put his own glass down without finishing, and led her away from the bar. It had been so long. Too long. He pushed through the crowd, eager to reach the darkness. Too eager, perhaps, as he knocked into a group by the bar.

  Someone stumbled, spilling his drink.

  “Watch it, jackass!” the guy shouted.

  Hecht’s body tensed. He snapped his head around. His free hand went for the blade in his pocket, but he held back.

  The guy looked at him, raising his hands and backing off quickly. Hecht turned, leading the girl away.

  “Freak,” someone mumbled.

  They had no idea.

  Escaping the crowd, Hecht took her into a hallway that once held the factory’s offices.

  “Where are we going?” the girl asked in a groggy voice.

  “Someplace quiet,” Hecht said.

  He led her to the end of the hall. He still hadn’t seen a place that would do, until he spotted a metal stairway that led up to the roof.

  He scaled the stairway, pulling her along. She followed as if in a trance. A padlocked door blocked their path. He kicked it once, breaking the chain with ease. The door flew open. The loud bang startled the girl, even in her drugged state.

  It was cold and the rain was still falling.

  “I don’t want to go outside—”

  Hecht threw her out onto the roof. She hit hard and slid on the wet surface.

  He pulled out a butterfly knife and whipped it open. Licking his lips, he stepped forward and let the metal door slam shut behind him.

  By now, Christian had reached the highest point in the factory, the third floor. He didn’t know how close he was, but in the low light and the sea of people, he could have walked right by Hecht and never seen him.

  He ignored the dance floor. There were too many faces to scan, and it wouldn’t happen there, anyway. Hecht needed privacy to enjoy himself.

  He spotted an open section filled with old, rusted equipment.

  Darting into the room, he checked behind the huge machines. Nothing. He busted through the office doors, one after another. They were empty.

  Time was running out.

  Beyond the last office, he found another hallway. He started down it and then stopped. He’d heard a dull bang, like the sound of a shutter broken loose in a storm. It rang out again and then twice more in quick succession.

  Christian turned around. At the end of the hall, a stairway beckoned. He raced toward it. A metal door at the top of the stairs was being pulled open by the wind and then released to slam shut again. Bang…bang, bang.

  Christian climbed the stairs, slipping the carbon-steel knife from his sleeve. A hint of light reflected off its polished surface. He stopped near the unlatched door, seeing that it had been forced open. He knew what lay beyond it.

  He eased it open. Hecht was across the roof, under the eaves of the old elevator housing. The girl was there, backed against the wall. Hecht was playing with the butterfly knife in front of her, opening it and closing it, waving it across her face.

  “Scream all you want,” Hecht said. “No one can hear you.”

  Without hesitating, Christian pushed through the door and charged at Hecht.

  Hecht sensed him at the last second, turned, and swung the butterfly knife. It slashed through Christian’s coat as Christian stabbed downward with his own knife.

  Hecht blocked Christian’s strike with his arm, and the two men tumbled onto the roof ’s surface and separated.

  Christian sprang to his feet. As Hecht came up, Christian slashed his blade through the air, cutting across Hecht’s face, slicing his cheek, and taking off half of his nose.

  Hecht stumbled back, landing beside the girl, strangely colored blood oozing from the wounds to his face. Even in the dim light, the blood was dark, a deep-orange color, closer to rust than the bright red it should have been.

  The girl pushed backward, trying to move away, trying to get as far
under the eaves of the elevator housing as possible.

  Hecht snatched at her, grabbing her ankle and pulling her out. Crouching behind her, he wrapped an arm around her neck and pressed the butterfly knife against her throat.

  “I’ll kill her,” he snarled.

  “You’ll kill her anyway,” Christian said.

  Truth was, killing wasn’t Hecht’s goal. It was only a means to an end. He was after something else.

  “This is none of your business,” Hecht shouted. “What right do you have to interfere?”

  The rain began to pick up. The wind seemed to blow a little stronger.

  “You don’t have to do this,” Christian said. “You don’t have to live like this. There’s another way.”

  Hecht began to laugh. A laugh of disgust. “And what way would that be? Your way? Drake’s way? Dead and barren as a stone?”

  “You ran from the brotherhood,” Christian shouted. “But your life doesn’t have to end in misery.”

  “What do you know about my life?” Hecht grunted, backing up and dragging the girl.

  “I know you’re in pain,” Christian said, stepping forward. “And I know you were once a decent man. And we both know where this road ends.”

  “Fire,” Hecht whispered.

  “Fire,” Christian said.

  Hecht seemed to waver, and Christian stepped forward, closing the gap.

  Hecht recovered quickly. He snipped at the girl’s skin with the knife, pricking her throat just outside her jugular vein. Christian stopped in his tracks as a trickle of blood began to flow.

  “Please,” she begged, squirming to get free.

  Hecht kept her up, crushing her to him with his forearm.

  Any hesitation was gone from him now, replaced with rage and anger. “Maybe I’ll force you to watch,” he shouted. “Maybe I’ll bleed her right here in front of you. Think you can handle that?”

  Her blood continued to flow. Hecht looked down as it trickled over his arm.

  In that moment of distraction, Christian charged, grabbing for Hecht’s arm with his left hand and swinging his knife around the side of the girl with his right.

  Christian plunged the blade into Hecht’s ribs, and Hecht arched his back, releasing a scream that sounded something other than human. It echoed across the rooftop.

  Hecht flung the girl to one side and stumbled backward with Christian’s knife stuck in his ribs.

  The girl hit the roof hard and grabbed at the wound on her neck. Hecht fell, clutching at the knife. He slammed onto the roof, made a weak attempt to get up, and then fell again. He crawled a few feet, trying to grab at the knife and pull it out, but finally, he slumped to the ground. He lay there and began to shake, his hands twitching before finally going still.

  Christian dropped down beside the girl. Blood was streaming over her fingers, down past her collarbone and onto her chest.

  Christian reached for her. She pulled back.

  “Let me see,” he demanded.

  He pulled one of her hands away and looked at the wound. An inch wide and straight across her neck, the gash had blood flowing from it, but not squirting. Neither artery had been cut. He placed her hand back on the sliced skin.

  “You’ll live.”

  He grabbed for her purse, riffled through it, and pulled out her cell phone. He dialed 911 and threw the phone down next to her. The operator would trace the call, and help would arrive soon enough.

  Next, he looked at his own hand. The girl’s blood covered his fingers and palm, spreading and thinning with the rain. He could feel it like nothing else in memory.

  He stared at it for a second and then let the rain wash it away, slowly diluting the red color until no traces of it could be seen.

  Finally, he turned to where Hecht lay. A sign he’d been waiting for had not come. It meant Hecht was still alive.

  As if to prove it, Hecht began to move.

  “Damn,” Christian said.

  Hecht got to his feet and wobbled on his legs, clutching once again at Christian’s knife. He pulled at it, but the barbed edge held it in place.

  The girl saw him and began to shake.

  Christian readied himself for another battle. “There’s nowhere left to go, James. This is how it ends. This is how it always ends for us.”

  Hecht glared at Christian with unyielding malevolence. “For you!” he shouted.

  He charged, but instead of attacking Christian, he went for one of the factory’s huge skylights—a giant ten-by-ten grid of dirty glass. He launched himself without pause, flying and dropping and crashing through the aging skylight.

  He fell three stories, shards of glass trailing down behind him like glitter. He landed in the crowd, sending a shock wave of screams and stumbling people scattering toward the edge of the dance floor. Some were injured, others in shock. Curses flew everywhere. People covered their heads from the falling slivers.

  The lights and lasers continued to pulse, the music pounded without slowing, but all movement stopped.

  The crowd stared at Hecht, inching toward him.

  They stopped in their tracks when he started to move, even after a thirty-foot drop, even with the twelve-inch knife sticking out of his ribs.

  They gasped as he stood and put his hands on the blade and ripped it from his side, releasing a shriek of agony that swept through the factory and drowned out the music for an instant or two.

  By now, the crowd was backing up, giving him all the space they could. And when he began to lumber toward them—stumbling and carrying the knife in his hands—they got the hell out of the way, tripping and pushing and all but climbing over one another to give the madman and his twelve-inch knife some room.

  Watching from above, Christian shook his head. He grabbed the girl, brushed the slick, wet hair from her face, and gazed into her eyes.

  “Let it fade,” he said. “All of this. Let it fade.”

  She blinked once, and then her eyes glazed over. Christian left her in the rain and tore off down the stairs. Halfway to the ground floor, the sound of gunshots rang out.

  The bouncers.

  More shots followed, including the sound of the Tech 9 spraying bullets in all directions. The crowd scattered, stampeding for the side and rear exits.

  Christian pushed and shoved his way through them toward the front entrance. Finally reaching it, he stepped through the gap.

  He was too late. The two Jamaicans lay dead on the concrete, pools of blood spreading around them. The white guy was gone, dragged off to a fate only an unfortunate few would ever know.

  People were streaming out every exit, running in a panic for cars and subway lines. Over the noise of the stampede, police sirens could be heard approaching through the rain.

  Christian looked in all directions. Hecht was long gone, and despite a desire to chase him, Christian knew he had little choice but to run himself.

  CHAPTER 3

  Potomac, Maryland

  A COOL mist hung amid the trees of St. Gabriel’s Parish Cemetery as dawn graced the Maryland sky. It left the grass wet and the stone paths dark, shrouding the grounds respectfully and dampening out the noise of the world beyond.

  In the middle of the cemetery, thirty-five-year-old Katherine Pfeiffer stood motionless. One hand touched the headstone in front of her; the other clutched the delicate fingers of her five-year-old son, Calvin. He tugged and pulled at times, distracted by this and that, but he’d yet to complain, even if he didn’t understand what they were really doing there.

  Kate kept her eyes on the marker in front of her. The name Marcus Pfeiffer was carved into the granite shape, along with the dates of his birth and death. An epitaph read, Love Always.

  Kate’s mind reeled. Could it really be a whole year since that terrible, awful day? A year since he’d been found murdered on her kitchen floor on a night she’d chosen to work far too late.

  Kate Pfeiffer was a special agent with the FBI. She was supposed to be strong and brave and unemotional. But all she
remembered from that time was her knees giving out with the shock of her discovery. She recalled the desperate efforts to revive him and lashing out at the police as they pulled her away from the scene while they gathered evidence. She remembered being short of breath and throwing up and endless crying.

  What she didn’t remember was how she got through it.

  She figured it was her son who’d made it possible. Thinking of him, she found a way to pull herself together. She’d been told that children fed off the emotions of their parents. She didn’t want him feeding off such pain.

  She ran her fingers across her husband’s name, then pointed to a spot on the wet grass. “Put the flowers there.”

  Calvin let go of her hand and placed a small bouquet against the gravestone.

  “Why do we come here?” Calvin asked.

  “To visit your dad,” she said.

  “But Daddy’s not here.”

  “No,” she said. “This is just a place where we remember him. He’s up in heaven now.”

  Her son looked up at her, making that face that only young children can make. The one that said they understood the words being spoken but had no idea what any of it meant.

  “When is he coming back?”

  “Oh, sweetheart,” Kate said, squeezing his hand tightly. “He’s not coming back. It doesn’t work that way.”

  “But I want him to come back.”

  She crouched down beside him, inched the zipper on his coat up a bit to keep the chill off him, and forced a smile. “I know you do,” she said. “So do I. If we’re both real good, one day we’ll go see him there.”

  Calvin looked around, as if he could spot heaven somewhere, as if it might be a place nearby, like the rehab center where his father had worked, a place they’d been to dozens of times.

  “But I want to go now,” he said.

  She pulled him close and held him tighter than she’d really intended to. He didn’t know what he was saying, of course, but the thought of losing him and the images it put in her mind were more than she could really bear.

  “Don’t say that,” she whispered, brushing his hair back. “You need to stay here with me. Otherwise, Mommy will be all alone.”