Half Past Hell

by Jaye Roycraft

  Other books by Jaye Roycraft

  Dance With Me, My Lovely

  Rain Series

  Rainscape

  Crimson Rain

  Image Series

  Double Image

  Afterimage

  Shadow Image

  Immortal Image

  Hell Series

  Half Past Hell

  Hell’s Warrior

  Half Past Hell

  Hell Series

  Book 1

  by

  Jaye Roycraft

  ImaJinn Books

  Copyright

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead), events or locations is entirely coincidental.

  ImaJinn Books

  PO BOX 300921

  Memphis, TN 38130

  Ebook ISBN: 978-1-933417-91-2

  Print ISBN: 978-1-933417-31-8

  ImaJinn Books is an Imprint of BelleBooks, Inc.

  Copyright © 2007 by Jeanette Roycraft writing as Jaye Roycraft

  Printed and bound in the United States of America.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

  ImaJinn Books was founded by Linda Kichline.

  We at ImaJinn Books enjoy hearing from readers. Visit our websites

  ImaJinnBooks.com

  BelleBooks.com

  BellBridgeBooks.com

  #10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2

  Cover design: Patricia Lazarus

  Interior design: Hank Smith

  Photo/Art credits:

  Milwaukee skyline © nguyenphoto | canstockphoto.com

  Vamp © curaphotography | canstockphoto.com

  Cop © Jimmy Thomas | romancenovelcovers.com

  :Ephh:01:

  Dedication

  This book is dedicated to the real men and women of the Milwaukee Police Department.

  May the end of their shift see them safely home each night.

  One

  Chi-No, Wisconsin

  Tomorrow

  KILPATRICK HAD BEEN to hundreds of crime scenes before, but this one was different. Word of the incident had spread over the low band channels faster than gossip. So many patrol officers were sliding by in their squads to gawk at the victim that the incident commander had posted a cop at the front door with strict instructions not to let anyone inside unless they had specifically been dispatched to the assignment.

  Kilpatrick was lucky in one respect. As one of the detectives assigned to the case, he was privy to a sight few mortals outside the veterans of Midnight Storm ever got to see—a corpse that wasn’t human. Once the initial fascination and satisfaction that there was one less monster walking the earth wore off, though, Kil cursed his luck. He hated these kinds of cases. They were a waste of his time and the city’s money. It wasn’t so much that twelve years as a cop had jaded him, although he supposed that was true, or that he no longer cared about justice. He simply believed that the only good vampire was a dead one—correction—a real and truly dead one.

  This one was as dead as they came. It had been a male, with the long hair favored by his kind. Beyond that, it was difficult to tell much about the victim’s original appearance. His pale skin had taken on a sickly gray cast, reminding Kil of the skin on a piece of rotten fruit. The body was stretched out crosswise on a bare mattress in a small bedroom and was naked from both the waist up and down. A pair of jeans was pulled halfway up its legs, making Kil glad the body was face down. Based on how disgusting the rest of the body looked, he had no desire to look at a dead vampire’s privates.

  It was a typical squid rooming house, one of many in the inner city. Black sheets were nailed over the inside of windows that were boarded over on the outside. Furniture was old and mismatched. The kitchen and dining rooms, no longer needed for their original functions, were made over into extra bedrooms. As a day shift detective, it was the kind of house Kil had been lucky enough to avoid in recent years. Ever since Chicago’s poorer neighborhoods had been destroyed during Midnight Storm, thousands of homeless survivors, mostly vampires, had traveled north to resettle across the state line. The vampire war, cleverly named by some media genius, had been nearly twenty years ago, but it seemed like yesterday to Kil that the vampires had come to Milwaukee to displace the blacks and Asians in the old duplexes on the near north side. So many had flocked from Chicago that Milwaukee had been renamed Chicago North, but Chi-No was what everyone except the map-makers now called the city.

  He cursed to himself again. His luck seemed to be running out. With the recent spate of vampire deaths, it was a scene Kil was sure he would be subjected to all too often in the near future. He took one last look at the corpse before he stepped out of the room to make way for the medical examiner.

  At least his luck was better than that of the squid who had the unfortunate distinction of dying in a flophouse with his pants down.

  TWO HOURS LATER Kil was downtown. It had been a long day, but in sitting down to fill out his overtime card, he felt none of the exhaustion. Four hours at time and a half had a way of lessening the pain of the worst assignments, even interviewing squids.

  “John, in my office.”

  Kilpatrick looked up to see Lt. Attridge standing a few feet away.

  “I’m getting ready to punch out.”

  “I know. In my office.”

  Kil followed his boss into the small office and wondered what it was this time. Maybe the lieutenant wanted a lengthier report. Hell, maybe one of the squids had complained he had looked at him cross-eyed.

  “Close the door.”

  Those words were a bad sign. It wasn’t the reports, then. Most likely a citizen complaint. Well, it wouldn’t be the first, and it wouldn’t be the last. He shut the door, sat down, and picked up the papers the lieutenant shoved across the desk at him.

  It was no citizen complaint, but a five-page personnel transfer, and Kil’s name was on it. He was transferred from day shift to late power shift, effective immediately.

  “Son of a bitch!” The whispered expletive was softer than his feelings, but was still loud enough to be heard by the lieutenant. Just five years ago such profanity in front of a commanding officer would have earned him a good ass-chewing. But five years ago was before affirmative action legislation, spearheaded by the peacemakers on both sides, had mandated that vampires be allowed into responsible job positions.

  Lt. Attridge sat quietly, resignation covering his face like a mask he was too weary to remove.

  “Son of a fucking bitch,” Kil repeated, almost as if he challenged his boss to respond. Kil wanted a reprimand. Hell, he would have welcomed a tongue-lashing. He wanted things to be like they had been. Like they should be. But the world would never be the same.

  Still, Kil wanted a reason—some piece of logic that would right the upside-down. “Why, Lieut? I deserve that much.”

  The lieutenant ran his hand down his face. “It won’t make you feel better.”

  “Tell me anyway.”

  Attridge sighed and leaned all the way back in his chair, as if wanting to distance himself from Kil’s response. “It’s these vampire deaths. Three of them tonight alone. Six total in the last week. We’re getting pressure for action.”

  “Jesus, Lieut . . .”

 
“I know what you’re going to say, so don’t say it. They’re citizens, and you’re a cop.”

  Kil couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Don’t give me that crap, Lieut. You sound like the goddamned mayor.”

  The lieutenant’s eyes narrowed, a sure sign that his patience was growing just as thin. “And I don’t want to hear any of your shit. I’m under orders, too. All of us are doing things we don’t want to do.”

  It didn’t make Kil feel any better. “Citizens, my ass,” he mumbled. “Besides, there’s no evidence of foul play.”

  “Vampires don’t just up and die, John, you know that. We treat them as suspicious deaths until we know otherwise.”

  “But why me?” Kil knew he was pushing it, but he didn’t care.

  “They need experienced officers on the late shifts.”

  More propaganda. Kil hoped to hell he never became a supervisor. He’d never be able to spoon-feed such pabulum to a fellow officer. “You mean they need humans. None of those squids on late shift have more than five years on the job.”

  The lieutenant’s pale blue eyes lost a few degrees. “Don’t call ‘em squids. Or leeches, or maggots. I can guarantee the late shift commander won’t put up with that. They want balance and diversity on the shift.”

  “Diversity, my ass. You mean they want people to keep the squids in line if things get ugly with this vampire investigation.”

  “Go get your new partner.”

  “Now? I just worked a twelve hour shift.”

  “I don’t care. You’re working a double shift. There’s a briefing at 2200 hours. Duvall has a habit of not answering his radio, but Dispatch has him doing a tavern check at Leon’s. On the way back, call your wife and get something to eat. Now get out of my office before I write you up for insubordination.”

  “Transferred to the graveyard shift” had taken on a whole new meaning.

  Two

  Fort William Henry

  August 8, 1757

  PRIVATE BEOWULF Duvall watched the sun sink over the lines of the enemy, and he thought it was the ugliest sunset he’d ever seen. The sky was raw with gashes of crimson that slashed across the blue like open wounds, and even in the fading of the color there was no promise of respite. There’d be no rest again this night, and no relief from the summer heat that hung inside the walls of the fort like stagnant water and magnified every other misery.

  He leaned his head against the pine log parapet and closed his eyes. He tried to take a deep breath, but the oppressive air, thick with sweat and fear and cannon smoke, threatened to choke him, and the gnats and mosquitoes that arrived with the dusk hovered like the enemy, waiting to strike.

  “Do you think we can hold another day?”

  Wulf forced his eyes open and took in what was left of this day. All he could see was the garden to the west and Lake George to the north. The garden was a ruin, trampled by careless boots and hooves, and the water was as ugly as the sunset, dark and mottled, but the sight of his mate Elijah Quinberry cheered him. Even so, his tired mind could respond to Quin’s words only with a pitiful laugh. “Do I dare say no? You saw the orders Monro published only yesterday. Any man proved cowardly or advising to give up the fort will be immediately hanged over the fort’s walls.”

  Cannon and mortar fire boomed, and Quin waited for a moment of silence to answer. “Cowardly? Even Monro has to know how bloody hopeless it is. What the hell are we doing here anyway?”

  Wulf didn’t know anymore. He stared at the lake. The gray surface glinted like molten lead. “Damned if I know. Some Royal fart decided that the pond there should be named George instead of Saint Sac-re-mon, or whatever the Frenchies used to call it.” But he didn’t care who controlled the waterways. Every bone ached with fatigue, and he didn’t have the energy to even swat at the mosquitoes. The Frenchies could have the lake, the swamp, and the whole bloody New York wilderness.

  “I hear we’ve only five guns left. A fort like this one is only as good as its guns.”

  Five days of siege. Five nights without sleep. And only five cannon still operable, while French cannon and mortars and howitzers seemed to fire endlessly without bursting from the heat of overuse. “Aye. I heard the same. I’m no coward, Quin, but I can’t see us lasting another day.”

  Quin shook his head. “Nor can I. I’m so bloody knackered my mind is playing tricks on me. What’ll you think will happen to us?”

  Wulf shifted his body and peered out the embrasure at the French lines just beyond the garden plots. In the dying light he couldn’t see the enemy, but he knew they were there. They were so near he could smell their sweat as easily as he could his own. Hell, the French sappers had dug a trench so close to the western curtain of the fort that he could almost spit down at them. “I don’t know about you, but I’d rather die fighting than languish in some stinkin’ Frenchie prison.”

  “Oh, aye.” Quin snorted. “But there’re worse things, you know. I hear the red men can smell fresh human flesh from five hundred leagues away. I hear they teach their children how to cut up a person for the pot and that they use blood for broth. I’d rather starve in prison than fill some savage’s belly.”

  Wulf laughed, but more howitzer shells screamed overhead and drowned out the sound of his own voice in his ears. An exploding shell hit the top floor of the barracks just behind them, and he ducked his head from the flying shards of wood. Acrid smoke filled his nostrils, and his mouth filled with the taste of powder and blood from a self-inflicted bite. He wondered what was worse, the odor of the artillery barrage, or the normal everyday stench of the necessary houses, kitchens, and graves. At least the cattle were gone. The Frenchies had driven them off five days ago. No more stink of slaughtered cattle. He coughed and spewed out the blood before answering. “No, Quin. I hear they only like to eat pallid, plump officers. You and I won’t ever have to worry. We’re too scrawny and sunburnt to be appetizing.”

  Quin clapped him on the back. “Aye, Wulfie. Nuthin’ at all to worry about, then.”

  Wulf gave Quin as much of a smile as his sore mouth would allow. “Nuthin.” But the knot in his gut told him it was a lie.

  Three

  ANOTHER TAVERN.

  Duvall stepped into the unlit foyer, half-shrugged out of his trench coat, and flapped the wet leather, not caring how much rainwater splattered onto the walls and floor. Vamps are dying again, and here I am checking a bar for blood-whores in Piggsville.

  He swore at the hapless walls and added a silent vow. Patience . . . your night will come. It was the mortals’ brief moment to shine, but it wouldn’t last. Someday . . .

  After a moment he sighed, raked his tangled hair away from his face, and entered Leon’s inner sanctum. Someday would have to wait. He had a job to do, and as trivial as it was, it had to be done.

  He was detailed to the tavern car tonight, as he often was, and his job was to bar hop—not to indulge himself, of course, but to make sure no whores were using the bars in his area to drum up business. Blood for money had opened up whole new career paths for those in the oldest of professions. Oh, but his job was more than that. It was also to make sure that any vamps on the premises were hunched over the bar, obediently putting the bite on the neck of a bottle of synthetic blood instead of draped over the shoulder of some unsuspecting female. As if any self-respecting vampire would be caught dead in a place like this. It wasn’t the vamps who were a problem anyway—it was the human wannabes and posers.

  Leon’s was the one and only tavern in the tiny, secluded neighborhood on Chi-No’s west side affectionately known as Piggsville, for being situated next to a pig farm once upon a time. That had been over one hundred years ago. The pigs were long gone, but the name had stuck. Wedged between the expressway on the south and the brewery on the north, the neighborhood seemed to exist in a time warp, secluded not only from the rest of the city, but from th
e havoc of time as well. That meant no vampires, real or otherwise.

  The real vampires, those who could claim a lifespan of centuries, if not eternal life, preferred underground havens for their social gatherings, the same as in the old days. They were unadvertised, in unmarked locations, and humans weren’t allowed in. It was the one small part of the vampire community that the human establishment hadn’t exposed, outlawed, or destroyed.

  But he’d checked Leon’s several times in the past few weeks, as he had all the licensed establishments in his territory, and this one was cleaner than most. It wasn’t known as a wannabe bar, unlike the Cape or the Crow Bar, both of which were located halfway between downtown and the university—just a hop and a skip for the young East Side liberals and the jaded downtown crowd looking to inject some extra juice into their night out.

  Vall drew in a long breath. Working the East Side would have at least netted him some action if not some good arrests, but there wasn’t a vamp stirring tonight on the conservative west side, not even a wannabe. True, there was the usual flock of noisy young females present, all preening like so many birds—chirpy, colorful, and with brains to match—but none were hookers. He leaned against the bar and swept his gaze along the line of mortals bellied up to the gleaming length of wood like animals at a feeding trough. At the far end, the voices of three men rose in raucous laughter above the steady drone, signaling that their happy state was rapidly nearing intoxication.

  He curved one side of his mouth down in disgust and ran his gaze over each of the other tavern patrons. All mortals. Leon’s was stacking up to be a waste of time. As expected, no vamps. No wannabes, either. The wannabes usually limited their getup to makeup and fashion. The more serious happily bore the expense of permanently sharpened eyeteeth or custom-made fangs, and all seemed to indulge in body piercings and tattoos. This crowd was just as pierced and tattooed as the wannabes, but their black motorcycle jackets advertised devotion to a different hobby.