“Compared to probation, the convent was a peaceful, spiritual place. I thought I was safe from evil until the night I saw the demon. I was praying all alone in the chapel when he appeared to me. At first I thought I‘d fallen asleep and was dreaming, but I wasn’t.”
“Did it talk to you? How do you really know it wasn’t a dream?”
“He just stood there, staring at me, like he wanted to remember what I looked like. He had horns and bright red eyes. I started to pray for my soul and I think that made him smile. He reached over and touched my arm, turned around and was gone.
“Still don’t believe me?” Kate rolled up one of the sleeves to her flannel shirt. Burned into her left wrist like a brand was a dark scar that looked like the pad of a finger with a small, triangular puncture about a quarter of an inch above it. “The triangle is the tip of his claw. And you know what else was weird?”
Bishop shook his head.
“He was wearing a business suit. I think it might have been Armani.”
Bishop shut his eyes for a moment. All of this had to be connected in some way. Kids were being kidnapped, most of them runaways. Sister Catherine was running the shelter. Tesslovich was her lawyer, Zaki a benefactor. Mouser was missing, Ariel had tried to kill Tesslovich and failed, and Bishop was the intended victim of a curse just because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
It still didn’t make any real sense. He took a deep breath.
“I think Tesslovich is a demon,” he told Cate. “I think Zaki Kirienko is also a demon, or at least he’s working for them. I think he’s using these kids for some kind of experiment, but I don’t know any of the details. I’m going to Zaki’s tomorrow night because he’s holding a sports match in a private arena on his property. It will give me the chance to look around.”
“Why wait?’ Kate said. “Can’t we call the FBI and get them to raid Zaki’s estate, look for the kids?”
“We don’t have any real evidence Catie. The FBI isn’t going to take our word for it, they need proof. And the biggest reason is we don’t know who the enemy is. There could be demons in the police department, demons in the FBI, demon lawyers, demon judges, demon senators. We don’t know how widespread this is. If we show them we know about them too soon we’ll lose out advantage. I’m pretty sure the kids are still alive. I just need a couple of days to get more evidence. See how bad it really is. You need to trust me on this one.”
“I’m so angry, Frank. And scared. I want to go get them all right now. And God forgive me, I want to kill the people who hurt my kids.”
“I just need a few days, Catie. You can break out the winged helmet and spear after that. If you’re good, I’ll introduce you to an avenging angel I met a few days ago. You two are a lot alike.”
“Isn’t there anything I can do in the meantime? It’s hard to just sit here.”
“You’re not just sitting, Sister Catherine. You’re giving shelter to a whole bunch of homeless kids who’d be disappearing off the streets every night if you weren’t here for them. Keep doing that. I’ll let you know what I find out.”
Bishop leaned out the door, picked up the pile of charts he’d put out in the hall and plopped them back on the chair.
“Hang tight, Cate,” He said.
“God bless, Frank,” Sister Catherine whispered, but Bishop was already out the door.
- 16 -
It was too early to meet Ariel, but Bishop couldn’t think of anywhere else he needed to go, and after seeing Sister Catherine he could use a beer. He parked down the street from the Caf’. The Falcon coughed and spasmed with asthmatic enthusiasm long after he’d taken the key out of the ignition. It was embarrassing that later that evening Ariel was going to see this pitiful piece of junk he was driving.
The energy inside the Caf’ was a bit subdued. It probably had to do with Mouser. Ez was behind the bar as always and pulled a beer for Bishop as soon as he came in the door.
Bishop climbed onto a bar stool and half turned toward the room.
“I miss the kid,” he said.
Ez nodded. “El’s pretty upset. They told her to pick another messenger, but she refused. They told her to let Tesslovich go for now. She didn’t take that very well either.”
“They who?” Bishop asked, puzzled. Ariel didn’t seem like someone who was very good at taking orders. He was surprised someone was trying to give them to her.
“Not my place to talk about who,” Ez said.
“Right.” Bishop would ask Ariel later. She was probably mad enough about Mouser to tell him.
“I stopped by the shelter. Sister Catherine has kids hanging off the walls over there. They’re afraid to be out on the street at night. She needs help. You got anybody who could go over and lend a hand?”
“Speed!” Ez yelled. The bike messenger with the red Mohawk used his foot to drop a battered skate board onto its wheels and glided over to the bar.
Ez shook his head. “The next generation is going to be born with wheels instead of feet.”
“Yo?” Speed said when he reached the bar. Tonight he was wearing baggy cargo shorts that seemed to be losing their battle with gravity. An iPod in his back pocket was attached to the shorts by a long loop of chain and the headphone wire was looped around his neck.
“I need you to pick two of your best delinquents and go to the shelter. The Sister is packing them in and she needs some help keeping things from getting out of hand. Tell her Bishop sent you.”
“No problemo.” Speed pointed at Zoe and another boy who looked like he could take care of himself if somebody picked a fight. They grabbed their boards and followed him out.
“You think they’ll be okay on the way over?” Bishop asked.
“Speed’s a survivor,” Ez told him. “The little one’s tough as nails, and the lunk’s my sister’s kid. He’s a wolf. They’ll be fine unless lunkhead gets distracted by a shiny object and wanders off.”
“Family, huh?”
Ez poured himself a beer. “Luckily they’re not all as dumb as him.”
“So, Cassius.” Bishop finally said to break the silence. “Can you talk about him?”
Ez nodded. “The guy you met last night is Cassius Tiberius Kale. Or, at least, he used to be.”
“C.T. Kale?” Bishop was surprised and impressed. “The robotics guy? I thought he disappeared under mysterious circumstances ten years ago.”
“He did.” Ez spoke to him as if he was slow. “He went underground.”
“There was some big scandal. His company went under at the height of the dot com boom.”
“Kale-Co specialized in micro-robotics, mostly for medical application.”
“Nanobots,” Bishop said with the relish of someone who’d grown up on junk science dished out in apocalyptic scenarios on the Sci Fi channel.
Ez nodded. “C.T. was mostly interested in micro automation. He wanted to build tools that could be programmed to locate, diagnose, and treat disease at the very earliest stages. It’s about materials as well as size. His company developed a programmable, carbon-based bot the size of a molecule with a gold plated polymer shell. It was a major breakthrough, but very expensive to produce on a large scale. He needed a partner with deep pockets.”
“Zaki Kirienko?”
“The very same. Zaki already had several very successful IT start-ups. He’d studied immunology in Europe and understood bio-mechanics and the value of using nano delivery systems as a medical tool. He was rolling in money and he was very interested. But he didn’t want a partner, he wanted it all for himself. Cassius made the mistake of showing him what he really had and Zaki took him apart. He launched a hostile takeover, stole his patents and ruined his company.”
“How do you steal somebody’s patents? I thought once you registered them, they were yours?”
“Cassius didn’t give up without a fight. He blocked Zaki’s takeover even though it threatened to bankrupt him. Finally, Zaki kidnapped Cassius’ wife and son. The price of their release was
the patents.”
“I never heard anything about Kale’s family being kidnapped.”
“Cassius never called the police, he just wanted them back. Zaki let him walk away with a couple hundred million in personal assets and some other patents he didn’t care about. Cassius moved his family to France. Not too long after his wife was killed in what was ruled a one car accident, even though the police report showed that the back of her car had been hit by another vehicle. Then Kale’s son disappeared. He came back here where there were a few people he could trust and went underground.”
“How do you know all this?”
“I used to work for him. He was one of my best friends.”
“Was that before you . . .” Bishop bared his teeth and held his hands up, curled into mock claws.
“I was pack-born, you ignoramus.” Ez growled. “Not bitten. You think werewolves don’t need to earn a living just like everybody else? I went to college. I have a PhD in Bio-Electrical Engineering from Penn State.”
“Sorry,” Bishop said. “It’s just . . .” He waved his hand indicating the dumpy café.
“I’m retired,” Ez told him, dourly.
“I guess Zaki stole your pension fund too, huh?”
“Quit while you’re ahead,” Ez said.
- 17 -
Ariel came in through the Caf’ kitchen. Her hair was in tangles and her cheeks flushed. She was tugging at her coat, resettling it on her shoulders, getting it to hang straight.
She looked angry, but resolved. Like a woman with a plan. He suddenly saw himself from her perspective, cozied up to the bar drinking beer with Ez while some demon was doing God knows what to Mouser. He straightened up and slid off his stool. Ez rested his elbows on the bar and took another swallow of beer. He never seemed to react to Ariel’s temper tantrums.
“Been flying?” Bishop asked.
“I went out over the lake,” Ariel ran her fingers through her hair to take out some of the knots. “I was pretty high up, nobody saw me. I just needed it.”
Ez nodded. Sometimes the beast inside everyone needed to run.
“You ready to go?” she said.
Ez pulled a fat envelope out from under the bar and placed it in her outstretched hand. She tucked it into the inside of her coat and led the way to the street.
Stopping on the sidewalk, she looked in both directions expecting to see Bishop’s car.
“What the hell is that?” she asked when Bishop pulled open the passenger door to a battered orange wreck parked at the curb.
“It’s a loaner,” he explained. “My car won’t be ready until Monday.”
“Oh, my God.” Ariel peered inside. “It smells like feet.”
The floor on the passenger side was full of soda cans, Styrofoam cups and fast food wrappers. There was a greasy wrench on the seat. Ariel grabbed it and started using it to sweep trash out into the gutter.
“Hey,” Bishop said. “That’s littering. It’s an offense against the environment.”
“This car is an offense against the environment. Ugh! Was that a dead mouse?”
“The garage guy told me it’s a classic. Just needs some work.”
“The Titanic just needs some work, this car needs to be put out of its misery before it gets somebody killed.” Ariel threw the greasy wrench on the floor and eased herself carefully into the seat. “No seat belts,” she noticed. “Nice. You can’t possibly think we’re going to drive this car to Zaki’s tomorrow night?”
Bishop turned the key in the ignition. The Falcon bucked and banged and eventually settled down into a gasping rattle as he pulled away from the curb.
“I’m glad you asked me that. I have a backup plan.”
* * *
Ariel listened as Bishop explained the bargain he’d made with Rain.
“This is your old partner, huh? Have you told him anything about what’s going on?”
“He knows there are missing kids. From what he told me, I get the idea there’s a big cover up going on, directed by somebody higher up. Rain doesn’t know anything about demons, or Raptors, or the rest of it. The man’s a sports nut. He took me to the track where Zaki was racing one of his horses. He won a bundle. Now he can’t wait to get into the action out at the arena. I figure that’ll be just another part of our cover. Who’d suspect someone could bet the way Rain bets on a cop’s salary.”
“And how can Rain bet the way he bets on a cop’s salary?” Ariel asked.
Bishop shrugged. “He has a system. He’s good at it. He wins -- always has.”
Bishop pulled into an empty parking space in front of the Seventh Circle. If someone wanted to vandalize the Falcon it was unlikely the damage would even be noticed.
“Don’t bother to lock it,” he said. “You’d have to be nuts to steal this car.”
- 18 -
Timmy Jon was waiting for them in a booth along the wall. There was a different band tonight. The music had a heavy, dragging beat to it and the two couples staggering around the dance floor appeared to be in imminent danger of sliding into joint comas. The band members were all dressed in dusty black, with dyed black hair and black fingernail polish. Their greenish makeup made them look like they’d come straight out of the cemetery to their evening gig.
Bishop looked a little closer. He hoped it was makeup.
The waitress appeared at Bishop’s elbow to take their order. She seemed almost normal compared to the band. Bishop ordered a bottle of beer, remembering Ariel’s warning not to drink anything that didn’t come in a sealed container. Timmy Jon ordered a Grasshopper rather than his usual Greyhound.
“The SPCA shut down the company that distributes canine cocktail bits,” he said. “The bar’s trying to line up a Canadian supplier.” His neon green Grasshopper came in a large martini glass garnished with an insect stuck on the handle of a small paper umbrella.
“Did you get what we needed?” Ariel asked.
Timmy Jon hunched forward. “I took a lot of risks for this, El. If the individual I ‘borrowed’ these from finds them missing before I get out of town there’ll be hell to pay. And I mean that in the most literal sense.”
“How does your source happen to have a drawer full of invitations to the arena? I thought these things were next to impossible to get.” Bishop asked.
“Depends on who you know. Zaki gives his closest associates a few extra invites so they can pass them out to politicians, celebrities and big bettors. I took these off the bottom of the pile. But I’ve got to get out of here, tonight.”
“We’ll keep our half of the bargain,” Ariel told him. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”
Timmy Jon slid a large envelop across the table. “There’s three invitations in there. Special paper, special watermarks and each one has a magnetic strip imbedded in it so it can be scanned on your way in. You’ll also be given a plastic bracelet to wear during the games that can’t be removed until you’re on your way out.”
“If you take it off a signal will be sent to security. Zaki wants to be sure everybody who comes in leaves. He doesn’t want anybody wandering around, getting into places they shouldn’t.”
Ariel pulled out one of the invitations and checked to be sure the other two were identical to the first. She looked at Bishop.
“The bracelet’s going to be a bit of a problem.”
“Stop waving those around,” Timmy Jon hissed. “Gimme a break here, I kept my part of the bargain.”
“You did, T’Jon. Fair’s fair.” Ariel took the thick envelope out of her coat and slid it across the table to the demon.
“What’s in here?” Timmy Jon asked. “It’s what I asked for, right?”
“It’s a round trip ticket to Tahiti and thirty-five hundred dollars in cash.”
Timmy Jon covered the envelope with his hand and shut his eyes for a moment.
“Praise be,” he said and shoved it into the inside pocket of his jacket. “You leave first, I’ll slip out a few minutes later. Can’t be too careful these
days.” He downed the rest of his drink.
Ariel and Bishop made their way to the door. As they went out they failed to see the waitress arrive at Timmy Jon’s table and set a drink in front of him. Timmy Jon frowned. “I didn’t order this.”
The waitress gave him a bright, waitress smile. “Oh, this is from that gentleman over there,” She pointed to a little man in a striped suit sitting at a table in a shadowy corner of the bar. “He told me to tell you, you were going to need it.”
- 19 -
“Do you trust Timmy Jon?” Bishop asked Ariel after they’d gotten into the car.
“He’s a demon,” Ariel said. “Demons only tell the truth when it causes more trouble than lying. But I think Timmy Jon really wants to leave town and the invitations are his way out. I picked the destination because I wanted to know where he was going. That way he knows I’ll be right on his tail if he gave me counterfeit invitations. Still, I don’t know how we’re going to get around the bracelets.”
Bishop pulled the car over to the curb in front of an all-night convenience store.
“What are you doing?” Ariel asked.
“Ez told me Cassius is some kind of computer genius. We’re going to go see him, but I have to pick something up first.”
Bishop got back in the car with a small paper bag in his hand.
“What’s in there?”
“A pint of Jim Beam.”
“You need a drink that bad?” Ariel asked.
“Not me,” Bishop said. “But I was told to bring a bone for the watch dog so he’ll take us to Cassius.”
Raptor: Urban Fantasy Noir Page 17
