Half Past Hell

by Jaye Roycraft

  He didn’t know what tomorrow would bring, but tonight he had everything he needed.

  WHEN HE GOT UP at three in the afternoon, Candy, as usual, wanted to talk. For once he didn’t try to avoid her questions. He’d been away from home for two days in real time and seemingly forever in terms of happenings.

  “So, John, what’s really going on? First, Lawrence Main makes it sound like his plant was responsible for the blood that killed all those vampires, then this morning on the news they said there was a curfew because the vampires were rioting.”

  Damn media buzzards! A few squids throw bottles of blood . . . let’s show it on TV and make it look like a riot! “Sometimes I think the media actually wants war so their miserable existence can be justified.”

  “Like the way cops want crimes, you mean?”

  He ignored that. Sometimes Candy was too smart for her own good. “Main said what he did because it was a condition of his daughter’s release, but yeah, it’s true. The squids died because his plant shipped blood that was poisoned with silver nitrate. And, no, it wasn’t a riot.” Not yet.

  “So what would you call it?”

  He sighed. “Babe, it was just a few isolated cases of vandalism.”

  She got that same look in her eye as when she was power shopping and not buying the line of crap some salesman was trying to feed her. “John, if you’re trying to sugarcoat things just because I’m pregnant, please don’t. I worry, but I’ll worry more if I think you’re keeping things from me.”

  He wasn’t trying to sugarcoat, not much anyway. Still, he took her in his arms and smoothed her hair. “Babe, I just don’t want you panicking because the media’s blown something way out of proportion. Listen, Duvall is fine, and we have us a suspect. We’re going to try to make an arrest tonight.”

  She pulled away and caught his eye, as if she didn’t trust only his voice. “Who is it?”

  This time he had a legitimate reason for not telling her something. “I can’t tell you. We’re all under orders not to talk.”

  “John . . .”

  He was sorry he’d said anything. Candy could be relentless when she wanted something. “It’s a squid. That’s all I can tell you.”

  “A vampire is behind the vampire killings? I don’t understand. Why would a vampire want other vampires dead?”

  “I didn’t understand either, but Duvall says squids aren’t any bigger on brotherly love than any other segment of society.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Do you know this vampire?”

  He nodded.

  Lt. Butler called a half hour later. Kilpatrick was to come in an hour before his regular shift start. Main had correctly identified Crevant’s nasally voice from the lineup as being the voice of the man calling himself Deadeye. If Crevant showed up for work, they’d arrest him then and there. If he didn’t show up, they’d go for an immediate arrest warrant. Either way, Kil wanted in.

  VALL ARRIVED downtown as soon as it got dark. The hospital wanted to keep him another day, and he knew he was officially on desk duty, but there was too much still at stake for him to be left out of the loop now. And if the Department was going after Crevant, he definitely wanted in on the action.

  His regenerated flesh was still pink and tender and as glabrous as a baby’s butt, but his clothes hid the healing skin, and no one would know he was anything but one hundred percent fit for duty.

  Butler called him into his office as soon as he saw him.

  “We’ve got our PC on Crevant in case you haven’t heard. Main picked him out of the voice lineup. We’re going to go for the arrest as soon as Crevant comes in, providing, of course, he hasn’t been tipped off or spooked into hiding.”

  “I want to be on the arrest team.”

  “You’ve got office duty. You know that.”

  Vall had anticipated that statement. “Sure, but if you arrest Crevant in the office, no one can blame me for lending a hand, can they? Come on, Lieut, no one here has more of a right to a piece of Crevant, and you know it.”

  Butler leaned back, but even with the extra distance between them, he still looked tired. His bloodshot eyes stood out against his brown skin like hot coals. “This case is not your personal vendetta, Duvall.”

  Vall was too tired himself to argue, so he took advantage of the power of his mind. “Lieutenant, you will postpone suspension of street duty due to exigent circumstances. You will put me on the arrest team.” He didn’t often use his compelling powers on his bosses, but, as he said, this was an emergency.

  Butler’s will crumbled. “All right. You’re on the team. There’s going to be a briefing in a half hour. Now, what can you tell me about Crevant?”

  Duvall shook his head. “Not much. But if he is guilty, he won’t go quietly. He’ll fight you to the death.”

  “No, he’ll fight you to the death. You and whatever other vampires we put on the arrest team.”

  “You’d better make sure your weapons don’t backfire, Lieut. If you’re planning on putting other vamps on the team, you’d better make sure what side of the fence they’re on.”

  Butler sighed. “I was counting on DeMora. There’s no evidence he was involved with Crevant.”

  Vall had always like DeMora, but he realized now that he didn’t know him any better than he knew Crevant. “Do you have one hundred percent faith in his loyalty?”

  “No. Do you?”

  “No.”

  “Can you take Crevant by yourself if it comes to that?”

  Vall wanted to say he could. His vampiric pride shouted he could. But the tiny part of his brain where logic and reason resided told him he could use help. And the lieut was right—this wasn’t his personal vendetta, even though it felt like it. If DeMora wasn’t in cahoots with Crevant, he deserved a piece of him, too. “I can take him, but insurance in the form of Valentin DeMora would be welcome.”

  “You and DeMora wouldn’t be alone. If Crevant makes any kind of threatening move toward the human cops, they’ll be justified in using their service weapons.”

  Claws. “In killing shots?”

  “They’ll use their weapons as they’ve been trained. You know that.”

  He did. When shooting a human, cops were trained to aim for the “upper hydraulics.” That meant the heart and lungs. When shooting vamps, the target shifted to the “dotted i”—the head and spine. “I know that, Lieut. But we need a suspect that isn’t laughing at us from hell. I guarantee that if your human cops leave his ugly head connected to his body, I can wring a confession out of that gooseneck of his.”

  Kilpatrick came in soon after, made a pit stop at the coffee room, then wandered over to Vall’s desk. Kilpatrick looked worse than Butler did. His black hair was combed, and the blue eyes glowed fever-bright, but his face looked like a cloth that had been wrung out wet and hung up to dry. He gave Vall his usual greeting. “Hey.”

  “Hey, yourself.”

  “The wife says ‘hi.’”

  “Tell her ‘hi’ back.”

  “Tell her yourself when this is over. You in on this?”

  Vall smiled, showing his fangs. “My desk duty has been indefinitely postponed.”

  “You okay, then?” Kilpatrick cleared his throat. “What I mean is, after what happened last night, can you take Crevant?”

  He owed his partner no less of the truth than he’d given Butler. “With a little help, yeah.”

  Butler came out and was about to start the briefing when Crevant walked in early. The bastard was never early. All eyes turned on him, and Vall heard a dozen silent oh, shits fall from open mouths.

  Crevant must have heard them, too, for his dark eyes widened like those of a rabbit surrounded by a pack of wolves. He bolted out of the same door he’d just entered, and Vall took after him, a step ahead of DeMora.

 
Bloody hell! Why couldn’t just one thing go right with this case? Crevant was fast, and the coattails of his trench coat flapped behind him like the wings of a raven. At the far end of the corridor Crevant flung open the door to the stairwell. Vall caught the door before it closed and was just in time to see Crevant grab the inside railing of the switchback staircase and vault over to land on the stairs below. Vall followed, ignoring the pain of regenerated flesh that was being pulled and stretched before it was fully healed. Crevant dropped down two more flights of stairs, his coat billowing like a black parachute, yanked open the door to the second floor corridor, and disappeared into the hallway.

  Vall followed him into the corridor, feeling as if he’d been sewn up with a thousand stitches that had just ripped open. With a burst of speed, he launched himself at Crevant. His outstretched hands snagged a fistful of trench and brought Crevant down. Both their bodies slid across the freshly polished linoleum floor.

  “Give it up, Crevant. You won’t get out of here.”

  Crevant’s answer was a laugh, and he wiggled out of the trench as effortlessly as a stripper, leaving Vall holding nothing but an armful of damp and none-too-fragrant cloth. Crevant stood, only to have the two-hundred-pound-plus DeMora slam into him like a charging bull. Their momentum drove both men into the wall at the end of the corridor, and Vall scrabbled to his feet to help. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw an officer enter the hallway from the door to the District One assembly. From the shine on both the young face and his polished leather goods, it was a damn rookie, who simply stood and stared.

  “Don’t just stand there, get help! But whatever you do, no shooting!” yelled Vall. The rookie disappeared back into the assembly.

  DeMora had a grip on one of Crevant’s arms, and Vall grabbed the other. “Cuff him!”

  DeMora grunted as Crevant kicked him with enough force to pop a knee. “I’m trying!”

  Crevant was slender, but surprisingly strong, and slippery to boot. DeMora got his cuffs out and snapped one on Crevant’s right wrist, but DeMora lost his hold on the other cuff, leaving Crevant free to swing his arm and whip the dangling cuff across DeMora’s face.

  “Son of a bitch!” cried DeMora, and Crevant tore himself free of both vamps.

  Vall turned and saw Kilpatrick and Wallace huffing down the hallway at the same time cops poured into the corridor from District One. Everything from Glocks to batons to pepper spray canisters were being drawn, and everyone started yelling at the same time.

  Bloody fucking hell! Someone’s going to bleed. Vall had a second of hope that Kilpatrick could control the uniforms, who obviously had no clue what was happening, but chaos took over too quickly. Crevant picked up a uniformed copper and threw him at Kilpatrick, and both missile and target went down in a heap. Someone fired, and the gunshot echoed in the hallway like cannon fire.

  “Don’t shoot him,” screamed Vall, but the copper’s aim had been as bad as his judgment. Crevant was shot in the gut—messy, but thankfully not enough to send him to vamp hell. Black polyester and bloody bowels hung in shreds from a hole the size of a fist in his left side.

  Everyone was shouting, and cops tried to pile on Crevant, but he flung them off as if they were children, and blood flew with each hurl and toss.

  “You’re fools, all of you!” shouted Crevant. “Stopping me won’t stop the war.”

  “Why, Jean?” asked DeMora. “Why war?”

  “Let the mortals die. The sucklings, too. Those who are weak deserve to die. We in Chi-No never wanted this peace you Cadians forced on us.”

  Cadians. Those of Cade’s blood. But Cade had never spoken for the peace.

  Vall grabbed the arm with the wrist jewelry, trying to force it behind Crevant’s back. They needed to get the other cuff locked on. “Why me, Crevant? Why send the Brothers of the Sun to kill me? I’m not a Cadian. I’m a Nathusiast, and I go my own way.”

  Crevant laughed and twisted free. “You fool!” He spit at Vall, and the gob of mucus and blood hit the knot of his tie. “I was the one who said to leave you be. You’re too stupid to be a threat to us. But others thought otherwise.” Crevant grabbed another human cop, flung him right at Vall, and ducked into the District One assembly. Vall followed, only a step behind, with DeMora on his heels. Both came to a dead stop as soon as they entered the assembly.

  Crevant stood next to the roll call podium, his arms full. One held a female cop as possessively as if she were a hunting kill, and his other held her Glock. The cop was young and blond and looked more like she should be dishing drinks in a local club than tickets on traffic stops. To her credit, she didn’t panic, but held herself as still as she could.

  “You’re going to let me go, or this one dies a very ugly death,” said Crevant, his voice sounding more nasally than normal.

  “There’s no where you can go, Jean,” answered DeMora.

  Crevant laughed softly. “I can go anywhere I want to go. And I can do anything I want to do.” He bent his head, opened his mouth, and pressed it against the woman’s neck. A sound that was half-cry, half-grunt escaped from her like air from a deflating balloon as he pierced her jugular vein and worked his mouth to draw from her as hard and fast as he could. For a brief moment everyone in the room seemed frozen with shock, and Crevant seemed to relish every second, caressing the woman’s crotch with the barrel of the gun.

  “For God’s sake, do something!” yelled someone behind Vall. “He’ll kill her.”

  “There’s nothing we can do,” said DeMora.

  It was true. Any sign of aggression, and Vall had no doubt Crevant would shoot the cop. However, at the rate he was soaking up her blood, he’d kill her anyway.

  “Shoot him!”

  “No!” shouted Vall. “No one shoots! And if any of you want to live, you’d better take cover.” He threw as much compelling force into the words as he could. The last thing they needed was Claws flying around the room slicing coppers in half. Besides, right now, Crevant’s continued existence was more important than the woman’s.

  Cops scrambled for what little cover they could find in the room. The District One Lieutenant, however, stepped forward, apparently feeling it was his duty to handle the incident. The man was a Department fixture, with silver hair and a shirt-stretching gut that paid homage to three decades of donut worship. “We can talk about this, Crevant. It hasn’t gone too far yet. Tell us what you want.”

  Vall wanted to laugh. Old school Hostage Negotiation 101, taught to dinosaurs like this lieutenant long before vampires muddied the waters of how to parley with nutters. “Don’t bother, Lieutenant. You don’t have anything Jean Crevant wants, except maybe that diabetic blood of yours.”

  The female’s eyes drifted shut as her world grew smaller and smaller, but Crevant’s dark eyes were wide and focused directly on Vall. If dead eyes could smile, his did. The bastard enjoys my helplessness more than he enjoys her blood, thought Vall. Crevant took one last swallow, kissed the woman’s blond hair, then licked the blood from his lips.

  “Thank you, sunshine. I’ve been wanting to do that ever since I was hired. I’m sure you’d make a fine fuck as well, but I’ll have to save that for another time.”

  Still hugging her body, Crevant gave a toothy smile, raised the Glock, and pumped Claws into the room as smoothly as if he were fucking his targets.

  Thirty

  SCREAMS AND BLOOD gushed all around him, as cops who hadn’t taken cover paid for it. Out of the corner of his eye, Vall saw DeMora collapse like an imploded building, shot to the face, but there was no time for remorse. For a change, Vall had escaped the Claws untouched.

  Still clutching the slumped body in his arms, Crevant shot out a window behind him. The window shattered, and the storm of noise and showering glass froze those human cops left unscathed long enough for Crevant to drop the woman, turn, and hurl himself through the breac
h.

  Vall followed, sprinting toward the opening and diving through it head first. Cold air and driving snow pelted his face, and below him he saw Crevant’s coatless body plummet two stories like a wingless whooping crane. Crevant landed on the snowbank the street plows had formed at the curb and squeezed off more rounds in Vall’s direction, but the Claws zinged past his head harmlessly.

  Crevant tried to stand but lost his footing on the snow, and Vall landed on top of him, driving him flat to the sidewalk like a crushed bug. The Glock had a lockback, its ammunition expended. Good. The fight was even now, vamp to vamp. Vall wrapped his hands around Crevant’s long, skinny neck and squeezed.

  “Who ordered the Brother of the Sun hits on me?” Vall lifted Crevant’s head and slammed it back against the sidewalk as hard as he could. “Who?”

  Crevant smiled, and blood gushed from his mouth with his words. “I did. And I enjoyed it!”

  “Why? Why me? What did I ever to do you?”

  “You never tried to fit in with us from the moment you moved here. You damn Cadians think you’re better than we are.”

  It didn’t make sense. “So for jealousy and spite you want me dead?”

  Crevant laughed and swung his arm, whipping the half-on handcuffs across Vall’s face. In the cold, Vall didn’t even feel it, but it was time to apply more pressure. With one hand still clenching Crevant’s neck, Vall thrust his other hand into the wound cavity in Crevant’s gut. Gurgling screams bubbled from Crevant’s lips as Vall drove his hand upward through the damaged diaphragm, behind the rib cage, to the heart. His hand cupped the cold organ, and it fluttered against his palm like a captive bird.