by Andy Maslen
Chastened, I apologised.
“I’m sorry. Of course. You’d have to declare a state of emergency. Bad for business, bad for tourism.”
“Damn straight,” he said. “Especially given those things run half of Wall Street. There are people way above my pay grade, people who rely on a happy financial community to get re-elected, who feel,” his mouth twisted with disgust, “that we have to find a way to live with ’em.”
A penny dropped. I heard it clink between my ears.
“And when you say people who need to get re-elected, you’re talking about the Mayor?”
“Sure, why not? The Mayor, congressmen and congresswomen, the DA, plenty of powerful people have skin in the game when it comes to the smooth running of Wall Street.”
“But you don’t,” I said.
He held up his mutilated finger.
“See this?” he asked. Then drew the puckered stump along the scar on his cheek. “And this”
“What happened?” I asked.
“I was a sergeant in the ESU. The Lower Manhattan Squad: ESS 1. We got a call from colleagues in the Lower East Side. Tuesday 17th August 1997. About three in the a.m. Some winos on a deserted lot off Mulberry Street were screaming the place down. A concerned resident called it in. Said they could see the whole thing from the window of their apartment. Bunch of naked people were ripping into the winos and eating ’em. That’s what the guy said.
“We turned up in the truck and those fuckers,” he blushed, charmingly, “pardon me, Ma’am.” I smiled and shook my head to show no offence had been given. He continued. “Anyway, those things were still there, chowing down on the winos. Six bodies lying there in a lake of blood and those disgusting,” his mouth clamped tight again and I could see his jaw muscles bunching, “those fucking, evil things were just lapping it, sucking it up into those disgusting funnel things they got coming out of their mouths.
“We drew down on them and shouted the standard warning, but to be honest, I don’t think there was a single man among us who thought they were going to stop. They just stopped feeding and turned to face us. They stood up straight and I don’t mind telling you, I was scared. No, I was terrified. They were hissing, and kinda stalking towards us, head cocked to one side with those long teeth glinting in the moonlight. It was a hot night but I was clammy with cold. I can still picture my weapon shaking as I held it out in front of me.
“We started shooting. We had Glock 17s, Ithaca Model 37 shotguns, Colt AR-15s. A couple guys had their second weapons out, large-calibre revolvers, you know? Smitty Model 29s. Those things’ll put a bear on the ground. You shoot a human being with one, they basically come apart. But the things we were shooting at, we could see we were hitting them, ripping chunks of flesh off them. But it didn’t make any difference.
“We fell back, but we were cornered. Then I heard a whistling sound. Right past my ear. One of the creatures stopped moving. Looked down. It had what I thought was an arrow sticking out of its chest. It shuddered and kinda writhed, then bam! Motherfucker just burst. Like a bag of blood. It was Con and his friends. First time I met them. Three of our guys went down to the vampires, the rest of us picked up scratches, but not bites. When the cutters had finished, the lot was inches deep in blood. They cut our guys’ throats before we could say or do anything. Explained what would happen if they didn’t.
“Then, maybe ten minutes later, when we’re all just leaning against the truck, or sitting on the ground trying to process what just happened, this all-black Caddy Escalade shows up and out jump these Men In Black types. You know, like the CIA with better tailors. They confiscate all our cell phones and tell us to get in back.
“We get driven to an office building in Midtown, somewhere on West 57th, I think. And we get debriefed. And I mean properly debriefed. None of that, ‘It was tweakers in fancy dress’ BS. They gave it to us straight. Told us, now we knew New York’s best-kept secret, we had to keep it that way. Laid out the consequences if anything should ever leak out. And I got a new job. Get this, my official role designation is Nonconventional Threat Taskforce Liaison.
Con interrupted, though I sensed that the captain was relieved to have reached the end of his narrative.
“Jerome keeps us supplied with things we can’t get from regular stores here in Manhattan. Ammunition, mostly, other bits and pieces normally off-limits to civilians; they’re very generous with their time and expertise as well. Which brings me to the purpose of our visit today, J.”
Looking like a man who’d just had to relive a nightmare, which I suppose he had, Jerome puffed out his cheeks and swiped a hand across his forehead, which I had noticed was beaded with sweat.
“Tell me. Bazookas loaded with garlic cloves? Miniguns adapted to fire willow wood bullets?”
“C4.”
Jerome’s eyes widened and his jaw pulled in and down. He folded his arms over his chest
“Say again?”
“C4. I need five M112 Demo blocks.”
“Do I get to ask what for? Beyond the obvious, I mean?”
Con smiled, his blue eyes twinkling beneath those long lashes.
“It was Caroline’s idea, actually. We’ve discovered the entire Manhattan clan of lamia are going to be in the same place at the same time a couple weeks from now. We’re going to take out the fuckers en-fucking-masse.”
Jerome leaned back in his chair and folded his hands behind his head. I watched as a slow smile crept across his face. It started at his mouth and worked its way up to his eyes, which sparkled as the crows feet deepened. He let his head drift back, almost as if he were doing some kind of yoga, until all I could see was the underside of his lower jaw. Con waited and I followed his lead. He looked sideways at me and winked. Finally, Jerome eased his head forward and brought his hands down to rest them on the small patch of desk not covered with paper.
“Let me get this straight. You’re going to take six and a quarter pounds of C4 and use it to blow up every single vampire in New York City? That amount of plastique’ll create a big noise, a lot of destruction and a plume of smoke that’ll stretch higher’n the Empire State Building. You don’t think you might also blow a hole in our carefully constructed media blackout about their existence?”
Con smiled. Now it was his turn to lean forwards.
“Yeah, you’re probably right. Which is why we also need you to run a little,” he paused, “interference.”
Jerome stared at him. The smile had almost gone, although what remained spoke volumes. The captain wanted the problem gone, I’m sure. But he knew something was coming his way he wouldn’t like. He was right. Finally, he growled out a question.
“And when you say ‘interference’, you mean ...”
“We were thinking you could get the whole thing declared a terrorist attack. Give you an excuse to cordon off the whole block when it goes down. We’ll make our excuses and leave in our van, or you could loan us one of yours, then you quarantine the whole place, send in a cleanup team and–”
Jerome’s eyes were so wide I worried the eyeballs might drop out of their sockets.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Just slow down there a minute, OK? You know, we had a little problem with terrorists here just under ten years ago. Maybe you heard of it? Goes by the name of 9/11? Now you’re suggesting we fake up another one as ‘interference’ for whatever vampire shitstorm you guys are planning? The Mayor will have a weapons-grade shit fit.”
“So maybe it’s a gas explosion,” I said. “One of the big commercial ovens in the hotel kitchen has some sort of mechanical fault.”
I think Jerome had forgotten I was there for a moment. He swivelled round to face me but his scowl was retreating.
“That could work,” he said. “Now come with me. Let’s get you guys what you need then you can be on your way and I can hunt out some Pepto Bismol.” He rubbed his stomach and grimaced. “Every time I talk to you, Con, I get reflux.”
59
Notebook of ESU Captain Jerome Stensgaard
, 06/01/11
Today I did one of two things. Either I made the smartest move in my entire military and law enforcement career. Or the dumbest. Only time will tell. Which means two weeks.
So, Con McKay calls and turns up in my office with this British chick in tow. An attorney. Not bad looking. Tall, too. Would have made a great marine. We get the small talk out of the way and then he hits with me his request.
No Glocks this time. No hollow points. No surveillance gizmos or covert entry gear. No. Because that would have been far too simple, wouldn’t it? All he wants – all, mind you – is five M112 demo blocks.
I take Con and his new best friend Caroline (who speaks like the Queen of England, by the way, very lah-di-dah) over to the armory. We talk to Casper Flynn over there who’s on duty and inside of a minute they’re yakking away about where you can get the best Guinness in the five boroughs and I have to remind them why we’re here.
Casper takes us out back to the magazine. To get there we have to walk through the firearms racking and boy, poor old Con’s eyes are out on stalks. He’s practically drooling at the AR15s.
“Do you really need machine guns?” Caroline asks.
As she’s a guest, and a Brit, where they don’t give their cops guns for some crazy reason, I take the time to explain. I tell her,
“These aren’t machineguns, Ma’am. They’re what we call semi-automatic rifles. They fire one bullet for each time you pull the trigger. It’s just you don’t have to manually chamber a new bullet each time.”
I didn’t mention that we’ve actually got a request in for full-auto M16s, and I felt like I was dumbing it down calling ‘rounds’ ‘bullets’, but I figured she needed all the help she could get. I think she understood. But, hey, not my problem.
Ten minutes later, we’re back in my office, Con clutching a box full of M112s to his chest like it was a newborn baby.
That crazy fucking Irishman wants to blow up all the Manhattan vamps in one go. And what’s even crazier is, I believe he can do it. Whatever happens there’s going to be the biggest shit-hits-fan moment in the history of the NYPD. But you know what? I think it’s time. Just recently there’s been too much ‘rationalization’. Too many smooth-talking, Ivy-League-educated aides from the Mayor’s office poking their noses into what we do out here with the cutters.
60
Email From Lily Bax to Ariane Van Helsing, 2nd June 2011
From: Lily Bax
To: Ariane Van Helsing
Subject: Russia victorious
Dearest Ariane,
Since you left for Manhattan, things have been far from quiet. I have been in touch with our counterparts in Moscow.
They have sent two members of their group to help me clean out the remaining filth from London. Sergei and Yulia are very experienced fighters and together we have despatched another thirty or so lamia this week.
With Velds gone they display great lassitude. It has become child’s play to wipe them out. I wouldn’t say the fun’s gone out of it, but certainly the adrenaline is way below its peak.
Before he died, poor Jim showed me how to convert the ammunition for the pistols to hold a few drops of salcie usturoi. I, in turn, showed Sergei, and he and I spent a few enjoyable hours last week manufacturing several magazines’-worth of ammunition. Sergei is Russian Orthodox and insisted on having the bullets blessed, so we walked from Bloomsbury to the Russian Orthodox Cathedral in Ennismore Gardens, day sacks weighted down with hundreds of bullets. Thankfully no police showed any interest in us, although we were carrying our identity documents as you always insist we do when armed.
The Diocesan Hierarch is 40, but looks younger. Apart from a bushy black beard, that is, which gives him the appearance of an Old Testament prophet. His name, or rather his title, is Bishop Peter of Sourozh. He met us under a grand, gold-leaf covered cupola inside the cathedral. He led us to the font, where he scooped up some of the water in a gold jug. He called it a ‘ewer’ – such a charming old word, don’t you think?
Then he led us to a small side chapel, defended from prying eyes by a tall and ornately carved wooden screen, mounted with icons painted in jewel-like colours and decorated with more gold leaf. Once inside, he closed the little gate behind us and emptied the ewer into a large silver bowl. Sergei and I produced the bullets and Bishop Peter motioned for us to tip them into the bowl. We did so carefully, not wanting to scratch or damage the fine metalwork. (Of the bowl, I mean! The bullets will withstand a certain amount of rough treatment.) When they were all submerged, he prayed over them in Russian. Sergei bowed his head and mumbled along with the Bishop. I closed my eyes out of respect for their tradition, but I was thinking about the use we had planned for them.
Do you remember that nest of lamia over in Richmond? The night we captured one of the females to prove to Caroline they were real? Of course you do! Well, we travelled there yesterday. During daylight hours. It was a calculated risk, but we attacked them in their house.
It was Sergei’s suggestion. He said, in his rather charming English, that it was better to take them in a confined space – a crucible – he called it, than to have to chase them down in the open. He quoted what he claimed was an old Russian proverb, though from the look that sped between him and Yulia, I suspect it may have been an old Russian joke.
“A bear can’t turn round in a tunnel.”
As you know, we have never tried it before because they are so fast and so confident on their own territory, but with Velds gone, Sergei felt we should take our chance. After all, he said, we might not get it again.
Oh, Ariane, he was right!
We attacked from the rear of the house, breaking down the door with a sledgehammer. Wielded, I might add, by Yulia, who has a sweet soprano singing voice and a body like an Olympic shot-putter’s! At her first blow, the door shivered into splinters of wood and glass.
Sergei and I were armed with pistols that he had brought into the country with him from Moscow. I asked him how he brought them through customs. He declined to answer, offering a wink and a smile instead. Had he connections with the Russian Mafia? I asked him. Again, he refrained from answering, this time tapping the side of his nose instead. Yulia, whom you would like, I think, opted for a more traditional cutter weapon. I had given them both a tour of our house, including all our stores and the armoury. She selected one of the scimitars. In her hand it looked like a child’s toy, though anointed, it was as lethal as the guns Sergei and I were carrying.
The day was sunny and that would also help us with our plan to exterminate the nest. As we entered the rear of the house – a large, open-plan space with a sloping, shuttered glass roof – the first of the lamia appeared. Seeing us, it hissed and dropped its jaw. Yulia slashed through the cords holding the shutters closed and they sprang back, rolling up with a rattle that startled the creature and made it look up. Which was a mistake.
The beams of sunlight now blazing down through the glass caught it full in the face. With a squeal, it collapsed before shuddering to its death. We were standing well back but still, in that confined space, we were soaked in its blood. Another reason for preferring to attack out of doors. Five more lamia had arrived on the threshold of the room by now and we stood, facing them, bathed in that cleansing fire delivered by the sun, and laughed at them. It felt good, I tell you, good! To stand inside their lair and taunt them.
They were hissing and spitting, extending their talons and making ready to feed, but with the sun protecting us, what could they do? They looked unsure of themselves and tired, as I said earlier. Their musculature was poorly defined and their movements hesitant.
Sergei yelled an old Russian cutters’ curse and then we attacked. He and I began shooting and killed four of the things, but one skittered sideways and leapt for the wall to attack round the shady side of the room. Instead it met Yulia’s blade. She screamed as she swung it and fetched the creature’s head from its shoulders.
We ran further in, relying on their lethargy to stren
gthen our advantage. The ground floor was free of them so we headed up the stairs. Despite her size, Yulia reached the first floor first and booted in the first door she came to. The woman has no fear! She strode in and within seconds had destroyed four lamia. Marching out, face spattered with their remains, she grinned at Sergei, then at me.
We heard the next lamia before we saw it. A male, it had found its way onto the ceiling and was screeching down at us while digging its talons into the soft ornamental plasterwork. It dropped down onto Yulia’s shoulder and reared back before striking. Sergei and I hesitated: the pistols are not accurate enough and Yulia was already moving. We couldn’t risk hitting her. We needn’t have worried. While the lamia had its throat exposed, she whirled the scimitar above her head and removed the top of its skull in one powerful slash. The lamia fell backwards and exploded before it hit the ground. Yulia was by now drenched in lamia blood but if anything it seemed to have sharpened her appetite for killing.
Facing outwards in a triangle, we manoeuvred our way down the hall, kicking open doors and despatching everything within.
After half an hour, we were done. The house stank of blood. We stank of blood. The stairs ran with it; the floors were thick with it. So guess what? With the lamia gone, we decided to make ourselves at home. We showered there!
To celebrate, Sergei and Yulia cooked an enormous meal last night. Sergei seems to know all the places to go in London for Russian delicacies. We began with iced pepper vodka and caviar on blinis with sour cream. Then he produced a baked carp, which he served with pickled cucumbers, potato salad and Georgian champagne (I prefer the French stuff!). I confess that after the fish, my stomach was protesting, but Yulia went to the kitchen and returned with pork meatballs, seasoned with parsley, paprika, lemon and garlic. They were delicious, and I pleaded my stomach before the dessert. It was no use! We finished our meal with plums soaked in brandy and covered in dark chocolate.
