“I'll see what I can do?” she lilted, making me seriously consider kicking a few puppies too.
She slipped out from behind the desk and undulated towards the door. I had no idea how she was able to get so many different parts of her body moving in so many different directions at once but I did think it would take about five minutes for everything to come to rest if she stopped suddenly.
She disappeared inside a door. Cam, who had been watching the swishing, sashaying walk very closely, muttered something about showing her what he could do. I allowed myself a brief smile, keeping my eyes on the door. Interesting. Even though the secretary's voice seemed fully capable of etching glass at fifty paces, not a single sound could be heard from within the office. DeClerc's office was soundproofed. I liked that. It would give me extra options once inside. Soundproofing wouldn't completely eliminate the sound of a gun but it would effectively muffle any screams I had to extract.
The secretary swished back through the door, a smile as fake as her boobs popping onto her lips.
“Mr DeClerc has a gap in his schedule right now?” she grated. “You can go in now?”
“You may go in now,” Cam muttered.
“I'm sorry?” she asked vacantly.
“Nothing, thank you.” I said as we stepped into the vampire's office.
It had to be acknowledged, DeClerc's office was impressive. Deep carpeting muffled the floor. A desk, large, but not ostentatiously huge, sat unobtrusively, just back from the center of the room. Brass shaded lamps illuminated the corners of the room and one wall was dominated by a big flat screen TV which was showing some business channel, sound muted, with share prices ticking along the bottom. Two other walls were floor-to-ceiling bookcases filled with leather-bound volumes and various ornaments and knickknacks, a golf ball here, a signed print there. On one shelf a wooden rack held a collection of cigars, the glass tubes sealed with artfully dripped wax. On a small side-table off to one side stood a fax machine, on the desk, a laptop, both slim and expensive looking.
And behind the desk sat the vampire himself.
“How can I help you gentlemen?” said DeClerc with an unctuous smile.
I heard the door click shut behind us.
“Where is she?” I asked.
“I'm sorry, where is who?” DeClerc asked, taken aback.
My patience, never too sturdy to begin with, snapped at that point. I ripped my SIG from its holster.
“The female werewolf,” I said. “Where is she?”
“Really subtle, Jack,” said Cam with a fierce grin.
He reached over the desk and grabbed DeClec by the front of his shirt, lifting him clean off of the floor.
“Female werewolf,” he snarled into the terrified vamp's face.
Cam pulled the vamp over the desk and tossed him towards a chair, which splintered under the impact and spilled him to the floor.
“She was kidnapped from England yesterday by an associate of yours named Abraham Bollen,” I said, keeping my pistol trained on him. “She was brought over the Atlantic on a KnightStar flight and loaded onto a truck bound for right here. So, where is she?”
“I have no idea what you're talking about!” DeClerc shrieked.
I squatted down next to the vamp's head and put my pistol against his chest, directly over the heart.
“Now, I'm not gonna lie to you about there being an easy way and a hard way,” I said gently. “There's only one way this goes and that's you telling me what you know about this vampire Abraham Bollen. I know you don't have the pull to make something like that happen, and I know you don't have the motive either.”
“Motive?” said DeClerc desperately.
“She is an MPRD Vampire Hunter and I just don't see what you'd get out of kidnapping her. There's no motive.”
“Right!” he babbled. “Right, right! No motive!”
“So who does Bollen—did Bollen—work for? He hired out to whoever wanted him. You were just his latest stop.”
“Whomever,” said Cam.
“Whatever,” I replied. “So who was Bollen working for? Who snatched the werewolf?”
“Tunbridge! Bollen worked for Tunbridge!”
“Who is this Tunbridge?”
“He is the leader of the Redtooths around here,” he said. “Wait, the Redtooths musta ordered it. Ah've got nuthin' t' do with them!”
“Who are the Redtooths?” I demanded.
“They're a po-lit-ical group,” he sneered. “Small but powerful. They want a war with humanity. They want us t' go back t' openly hunting humans. It's from the old 'red in tooth and claw' saying. They say cooperation makes us weak and want a return to the old ways.”
Oh great, a vampire return-to-the-soil movement. We'd suspected as much but now it was confirmed. Sure, we had similar goals. I'd like to see all-out war with the vamps, too. Just not in the way they wanted. Something else occurred to me. Lucia was always banging on about these 'conservatives' who opposed any changes made in the vampire lifestyle and her in particular. Part of me wondered whether this Redtooth organization was part of that same group, and whether this was no coincidence. I remembered Lucia saying that Marie's kidnapping might have been aimed at discrediting her. I didn't believe it at the time but it was starting to make a certain twisted sense if you took the view that the world revolved around Lucia.
“So she would be in the hands of this Redtooth group?” Cam rumbled.
“Yes—no!” the vamp's eyes went wide and he gasped. “She escaped! It couldn't be anything else. Had to be her. Had to be!”
“Had to be what?” I asked.
“Yesterday,” he said. “There was a—they said it was an accident but it wasn't. A truck, out on the Interstate. Vampires killed, humans injured, one vampire was literally torn to pieces.”
“Sounds like Marie,” said Cam.
“Please,” said the vampire, indicating the gun still pressed against his chest. “Ah can show you where it happened.”
I gave it a moment's thought, then backed off and gestured with my pistol for the vamp to get up.
“Thank you,” said DeClerc as he got to his feet. “But understand that ah do this purely because Ah hate the Redtooths. They're tryin' t' stir up trouble and Ah, for one, enjoy mah comforts.”
He glanced across at the shattered remains of the chair.
“Alas,” said Declerc, “that chair was over two hundred years old, a gift from Governor Sevier.”
“Shame,” I said with no conviction whatsoever.
“Well, no matter,” he said, walking to his desk. He turned the laptop around and brought up a window. After a few moments searching he found what he was looking for.
“I-75, just before the Prescott County line heading south,” he read. “Dead vampires, humans unconscious. Mah sources tell me there has been a hunt involving Redtooth agents an' assets, so far unsuccessful. If you'll pardon the advice, you might want to start with the Prescott County Sheriff’s Department. Those Redtooth imbeciles lost your friend right next door to their jurisdiction. Prescott County is one of the biggest werewolf communities in the country and the Sheriff's Department is literally run by them. Mah kind tends to keep away from that part of the state.”
He tapped a few keys and brought up an email.
“This was sent this morning,” he said. “It's a request to be on the lookout for a female werewolf. There's a picture. Two, actually.”
The pictures he brought up were grainy, low-res, but both were clearly Marie. Human and wolf form.
“It says she's a fugitive from justice, escaped from pre-trial detention in Georgia.” I read. “Says she killed a police officer and a prison guard in the process of her escape. Says it's from the Tennessee State Police.
“Now ah'm no lawyer,” said the vamp, “but interstate fugitives are federal jurisdiction if ah recall. Th' State po-lice would be involved but the US Marshall's Service would be taking the lead on that. Silly mistake, ah feel.”
I didn't give a flying fuck
about the vamp's stupidity. I was having difficulty keeping myself calm and still. I wanted to leap around the room whooping for joy. Marie had escaped from her captors and, apparently, spread a few of them around the landscape in the process. That's my girl.
Now I had to find her. Starting with this Prescott County Sheriff’s Department.
Actually, no. I'd have Loki check in with the British Embassy. Surely she would have immediately contacted them? She wasn't the one here illegally, after all. She was a kidnapping victim.
Before I could finish the thought the door opened in a manner which could best be described as impolite. A threesome of armed vampires charged in. And that was where they made their mistake.
When people rush into a room they need a second to identify targets, to absorb the layout of the room, the positions of the occupants. People inside the room, however, know exactly where the threat is coming from and can react a heartbeat faster. It's why the Regiment developed flash-bangs—stun grenades—designed to throw the occupants of a room off balance for long enough to effect a safe entry.
The vamps who rushed into the room didn't use a stun grenade. They simply rushed in. And rushing into a room containing armed people is a tactic used by quite a few corpses in the history of the world.
The first had barely cleared the threshold when Cam's Arwen came up and he pulled the trigger. A rubber bullet sounds reasonably harmless but catching one in the top lip from less than five feet away is not the way I'd like to start my day. The figure did a backward flip and crashed to the floor, his face a bloody ruin. The second took two rounds in the chest from my SIG, the third got both. A rubber bullet in the throat and a double-tap in the chest. That will put a serious crimp on your day. I took a moment to pump a couple of rounds into the vamp with the rearranged smile, just to make sure he stayed down.
DeClerc was staring at the three dead vamps with his mouth hanging open.
The three bodies weren't dressed in DeClerc's blue uniform. They were wearing ordinary street clothes. Each had an M4 carbine and Glock pistols. I had no idea who they were until DeClerc pointed a trembling finger.
“Those are Redtooth soldiers,” he exclaimed. “Ah'm sure of it!”
Good luck proving it, I thought. These guys looked like they weren't carrying anything that could identify them. Not that it mattered. I was burning to leave and get on Marie's trail.
“You better find yourself an escape route,” I said to DeClerc as I bent to pick up one of the fallen assault rifles.
“Why would ah need that?” DeClerc gasped.
“Because I doubt these three came alone,” I replied. “And we're leaving.”
I finished searching the bodies. Six spare mags for the M4, loaded with silver-tipped rounds. That sealed the deal. The assassins had come loaded for vampires. They had intended to kill DeClerc. I would prefer to have my trusty FAL with me but needs must.
“Cam, get to the cars and make sure everyone made it,” I said. “Ditch those rubber bullets. Load up something with a bit more bang.”
“And where will you be?” Cam asked.
“Covering your escape, big boy.”
“Who are you people?” DeClerc screeched, his eyes showing the whites all round his dark irises.
For a second I was tempted to tell him.
“Just some guys who happened to be passing,” I replied.
Besides, saying something like 'I'm your worst nightmare' would not only have been tacky and cliché, but I didn't have a cigar to take out of my mouth or a pair of sunglasses to put on to dramatically punctuate such a line. And that would have been a waste of a good comment. So I walked away.
Outside of the office there was the sudden chatter of automatic gunfire. Someone was attacking the mansion openly. Probably more of those Redtooth fanatics. There was no sign of DeClerc's annoying secretary. There was, however, one of DeClerc's few guards, laying on the floor, his blue uniform darkened with blood.
Cam and I cautiously made our way through the hallways, sweeping the area with our guns, the silence broken only by the occasional bursts of gunfire.
Cam stepped through a large arched doorway into the building's foyer and stopped abruptly. I pulled up short, eyes darting around to see what he had spotted. Cam suddenly dived to one side, bringing his launcher up and firing at a target I couldn't see. At the same instant shots rang out. I dropped to one side of the doorway and returned fire. Cam's shot had hit the wall and buried itself in the plaster. It was burning with a fierce white light, tinged with blue. I had no idea how Cam had gotten hold of them but I knew UV flares when I saw them. There were three vampires crouching behind the scant cover of an antique couch, shying away from the light. As one popped up to fire I nailed him with a long burst, right through the back of the couch.
Cam fired again, this round going deep into the couch and igniting in a shower of sparks. As the two vamps jumped away from the burning wreckage I cut one of them down. As I drew a bead on the second I suddenly registered the M203 under his M4. I sprang backwards and rolled as I hit the floor. I heard the chug of the grenade launcher as I tumbled to one knee and brought my assault rifle up and fired. My shots hit the vamp and his grenade hit the side of the doorway at the same time. The doorway shattered under the impact and explosion, sending cracks up the wall. I stood helpless as the whole archway and a large part of the wall came down, blocking my exit with rubble and filling the corridor with billowing clouds of dust.
“Aw, fucking Jerry-built bullshit fucking building!” I yelled.
“You okay boss?” Came cam's voice.
I coughed some dust out of my lungs before replying.
“Yeah, I'm fine.”
“I think I can dig you out.”
“No, get outside. I'll find another way out and meet you at the first rendezvous point.”
“Okay boss. Getting out now.”
I quickly reloaded my misappropriated M4 and staggered away from the rubble, shaking my head in an attempt to clear the ringing out of my ears. Fuzzy recollection penetrated the fog. The building had three—no, four—other exits. The kitchen, one door on either side, and a door in the servants' quarters which let out into the stable. I decided on the last. To reach it I had to go up the main stairs, through the house proper, and then down the back stairs through the servants' quarters. Moving cautiously and covering myself with every step, I made it to the top of the stairs. There was a brief burst of gunfire from outside and the sound of vehicles starting up and accelerating away. My team making their escape. Or so I hoped.
Up on the landing there was another dead guard. His weapon was still clutched in one hand. The cause of death was obvious. Two bloody wounds in the middle of his chest. A cursory search of the dead guard's pockets revealed the reason why. The house guards were armed with standard lead-core, copper-jacketed, 5.56mm NATO ball rounds. Obviously someone had made the decision that the guards weren't going to be armed with anything with which they might harm their vampiric employers. A paranoid move which might seem understandable under any other circumstances. Or maybe it was budgetary. Silver tipped rounds cost more than standard.
I put the magazine back in the guard's pocket and slowly crept down the hallway, tracking the assault rifle left and right, covering each doorway as I passed. The scent of smoke was drifting down the hallway. Seems like Cam's little accident hadn't been extinguished. Either that or someone else had taken a leaf from the Pagan Book of Tactics and set fire to the place all on their own. Not so much fun when you're on the receiving end, I suppose.
The corridor went straight as an arrow along the length of the house, bedrooms branching off of both sides. At the end was a turn to the left, towards the rear of the house, and a short corridor ending in a window. To the right of that window was a door, behind the door a staircase. And at the bottom of the staircase, the servants' quarters.
Nice to know under normal circumstances, lifesaving now. The sun was shining through the window and throwing the shadows of two arme
d figures on to the opposite wall.
They were probably vamps. Which means that all the creeping and sneaking I'd been doing had been a complete waste of time. These guys could probably hear my heart beating.
I stopped in front of the last door on the left, a sneaky plan forming in my mind. I reached out with my left hand and opened the door as silently as possible. Then I flung it back. By the time it banged off of the wall behind it my hand was back on the assault rifle.
Two figures burst around the corner, obviously thinking they were going to catch me unawares, distracted by a room-to-room search. Instead they met a hail of gunfire. The first went down. The second, a lanky vamp with a military-style buzz cut dodged back around the corner before I could drop him.
Time for a little trick known as amateur hour.
I continued firing on full auto, peppering the corner and wall opposite with every round left in the magazine. When the rifle clicked empty I hit the magazine release. Instead of reaching for a fresh mag I flung the rifle around my body by the strap, snatching my SIG on the way back. I had the pistol pointed before the empty mag had finished clattering against the floor. The vamp leaned around the corner, expecting a reloading target, and died without firing a shot.
Vamps have lifetimes to work on their intelligence but I'd had a few years to work on my Sneaky As Fuck. Good instructors, too.
I stepped over the corpse and cautiously checked around the corner. It was clear and my luck held all the way down the back staircase. The servants' quarters were similarly deserted. I moved through, scanning every room and corridor as I did. Eventually I reached the door to the outside world.
The stables were dank and clammy. The scent of rotting hay and ground-in horseshit made a fug in the air which bit the back of my throat. The stables had a second level, a hayloft by the look of it. The only way up seemed to be a crude approximation of a ladder, basically slats nailed across an indent in one wall. Still, getting up to the hayloft would provide me with a good view of the grounds, so I climbed up. The hayloft was empty apart from a couple of rotting bales and a spilled bag of horse feed. From the center of the loft I could see out of the two openings in the walls. One was the doorway for loading supplies, evidenced by the remains of a wall-mounted pulley still visible above the hole. The other just looked like it was supposed to let in light. Between the two I had a fair view of the surrounding grounds. I paused to reload both of my weapons as I watched and crouched, calmly examining my options. I wanted to have a better look around and, just as I was trying to figure out how to manage that without exposing myself at either the door or the window, a voice spoke. It seemed to be coming from the air a few feet in front of me. The voice didn't seem excited in the slightest. It was coming from someone stood close to the wall, out of sight from my position.
Renegade (Ministry of Paranormal Research & Defence) Page 15
