Raptor: Urban Fantasy Noir

by Bostick, B. A.

  Brother Gregory pressed up against the banister, letting them pass. “Oh, dear,” he said, mostly to himself. “This is entirely against protocol. Entirely against it!”

  * * *

  The Guardian stood behind his desk with his back to the door staring out the tall windows at the city below. His suit was a muted brown. His hands were clasped behind his back, his arms mimicking Raptor wings.

  Mine are bigger than yours.

  This sort of pose had made Ariel feel small and disappointing before. Now she was just annoyed.

  By unspoken agreement she and Tomas stood quietly, waiting him out. She knew when he finally turned he would act mildly surprised to see they were already in the room.

  But this time there was no surprise, merely annoyance.

  “Both of you?” He said as if disobedience was contagious like the flu. “Tomas, I’m extremely disappointed.”

  “I’m afraid Ariel is right, Sir. There’s much more going on than meets the eye.”

  The Guardian shook his head. “One simple kill—“

  “Not a simple kill,” Ariel told him. “Tesslovich can’t be killed by usual means. He’s been treated with a technology that allows him to regenerate, even after decapitation. He did it after I killed him. He can do it again.”

  The Guardian frowned. “You’re telling me that a demon has discovered a way to sustain his life even when mortally wounded.”

  “Not a demon,” Tomas said. “A biotechnologist named Zaki Kiriyenko. He is willing to sell this treatment to demons on a large scale. Scion from many of the first families are already gathering to bid on it. Tesslovich is either Zaki’s partner or his link to the demon familia. At any rate, he’ll have a lot to gain from both sides. He’s heavily guarded and surrounded by powerful demons waiting to see Zaki’s product.”

  “Tesslovich has been very careful about this,” Ariel added. “The demons have slipped into town a few at a time. Some are already staying with Tesslovich or on the Zaki estate. The big unveiling is tomorrow night in Zaki’s arena, complete with satellite link and surround sound.”

  “If this spreads into the demon population . . .” The Guardian said.

  “We won’t be able to kill them, Tomas said. “They could use this ability to regenerate to overwhelm any opposition and enslave every human on earth. It’s their dream come true.”

  “Coincidently,” Ariel said. “Zaki has also been experimenting on humans. Kidnapping runaways and injecting them with nanobots to see what happens. Eventually the demon bots kill their human host, but not before the host goes insane. I don’t think that was his original intention. I think Tesslovich encouraged him to infect and program the youngest children to go back to their families and wait for some signal to do something to help the demons.”

  “Reports are coming in about missing children being returned unharmed with some story about angels.” The Guardian said.

  Ariel nodded. “One has already killed her whole family. I think she knew she wasn’t an angel. I think she was so damaged she didn’t care.”

  The Guardian had been pacing for the last several minutes. He stopped. “When is this auction happening?”

  “Tomorrow evening.”

  “That’s very little time.”

  “Tomas and I have joined forces with the Deeps. Their people are going into Zaki’s estate through an old subway tunnel built by Old Man Hauptmann back in the twenties. Tomas and I will attack from the air.”

  “Just the two of you?” The Guardian asked dryly.

  Ariel shrugged. “It’s better than none of us. We have a few wolves signed on, but there will be lots of demons. I have no idea if there are other Raptors close enough to get there before this goes down. That would certainly change the odds. The important thing is to try and stop them before it’s too late. That’s what we’re here for right?”

  “Why didn’t you tell me about this before now?” the Guardian demanded.

  Ariel turned and started for the stairs, Tomas close behind. “I tried,” she said. “You wouldn’t listen.”

  * * *

  “That went well,” Tomas said, his voice brimming with sarcasm. “I thought we were going to ask for help?”

  “You don’t ask The Guardian for help. It has to be his idea. If demons win this one it’s going to be his fault. That doesn’t change anything for us, we’re going to try and stop them anyway. Right?”

  “Ours is not to reason why, ours is but to do or die,” Tomas quoted.

  “What?”

  “Alfred Lord Tennyson. Charge of the Light Brigade. Classic Movie Channel.”

  “You mean you think we’re gonna die without The Guardian’s help, but you’re still with me on this?”

  “Right.”

  - 5 -

  Bishop came back to consciousness with a bad taste in his mouth and the mother of all headaches. It didn’t help that he was, once again, duct taped to a chair. He promised himself if he ever met the guy who invented duct tape, he was going to punch his lights out.

  When he finally managed to raise his head he discovered he was in some sort of office. The walls were paneled with wood and lined with shelves of law books, and there was an incredibly tasteless but expensive wooden desk whose top seemed to be supported by naked maenads with clawed animal feet.

  Unfortunately, there was also a medical examination table with a restraining strap hanging from each corner. The ugly little man in the striped suit was standing in front of the table poking through the former contents of Bishop’s pockets and examining his cell phones. His gun, still in its shoulder rig, was tantalizingly close but out of reach for a man whose wrists, torso and legs had been thoroughly taped to a chair.

  “What’s this?” The little man asked, holding up the Kale.net cell phone.

  “I’m on call for the circus freak eradication program. It’s part of the new effort to Make America Great.”

  The little man took a step forward and casually backhanded Bishop across the face with the hand that wasn’t holding the phone. He didn’t bother to look away from the open phone.

  Déjà vu all over again, Bishop thought, spitting a little saliva mixed with blood at the little man’s feet. He missed.

  The little man was pushing buttons on the key pad with his thumb. “Why doesn’t it work?” He asked.

  Bishop shrugged. “Sunspots?” He wasn’t going to tell him that it took his finger print to activate a call. Everyone on his call list was safe, at least for now.

  “This one works.” The little man held up Bishop’s personal cell phone.

  “Yeah,” Bishop said. “Push three. The person on the other end is just dying to meet you.”

  “Who’s El?” Bishop had put Ariel’s name and cell number in both phones, just in case.

  “Tesslovich introduced her to one of your brothers. She tried to teach him to fly but he wasn’t a quick learner.”

  “The Raptorrrrr.” Bishop was surprised that even a person with a thick Romanian accent could roll an R out quite that long and with such venom.

  “I push three, she answers me, yes?”

  “Probably, unless she’s having her nails sharpened or something. You know how women are about their claws.”

  “She answers, maybe I put on speaker phone and she listen to me make you scream and beg Connie for mercy.”

  “Your name is ‘Connie’?” Bishop asked, feigning disbelief.

  The little man drew himself up to his complete height, which was about the same height as Bishop sitting in the chair.

  “Is Constantine, very old, very famous Romany name.”

  “Connie,” Bishop snorted. “In this country that’s a girl’s name.”

  Connie hit Bishop again. Bishop wanted to tell him he hit like a girl, but he was too busy counting his teeth with his tongue.

  - 6 -

  When Ariel and Tomas arrived at Ariel’s apartment building it was full dark. Light was showing through the cracks around the Dog’s Garage door and the sound
of muted activity invited Ariel to knock on the smaller side door so that she and Tomas could bring the Dogs up to speed. An eye appeared briefly at the peep hole, then Ez opened the door.

  “Ez. This is Tomas.”

  “Heard of you,” Ez said, shaking Tomas hand. “You’re the combat trainer, right?”

  “And visiting Raptor,” Tomas said with a smile. “I’ve heard of you too.”

  “Come on in. I guess you’ve already met the rest of the pack.”

  Tomas looked around. The wall on one side of the garage had been rolled open. Inside a shallow alcove, weapons of various sizes and shapes were hanging on wall to wall black peg boards. The arsenal was impressive in both its quantity and variety.

  Dingo stood in a chest-deep hole in the floor handing Ham and Juke artillery that looked very much like Mk32 MGL grenade launchers and possibly a bazooka or two.

  “Hey, guys,” Tomas said. “I never got a chance to thank you for saving my ass last night.”

  The Dogs each raised a hand in acknowledgement, but kept at their task.

  “Holy crap,” Ariel stared at the stash. “I’m glad you guys are on our side.”

  “Tooth and claw is all very well,” Ez told her. “But werewolves have to move with the times.”

  “That’s it,” Dingo said, huffing a box of grenades over the edge of the pit onto the floor.

  Juke reached down and gave him a hand out of the hole. “Is it bite, then shoot, Ez? Or shoot then bite?” He said. “I keep forgetting.”

  Ham tossed a combination automatic weapon and grenade launcher to Tomas. Tomas grabbed it out of the air and began checking it over. “Sweet!” he said. “What’s its range?”

  “Three hundred yards,” Ham told him. “More if you’re aiming down.”

  Juke walked over to Ariel holding a double holster shoulder rig and two handguns. “I modified the rig to accommodate your wings. These have an eleven shot clip filled with demon loads. The loops in the front hold extra clips.” He turned toward Tomas. “I have one for you too.” Ariel tried hers on.

  “Also, Kevlar vests,” Juke said.

  Dingo rooted around in a trunk and pulled out various sizes of black Kevlar.

  “If we jerk the straps tight,” he said. “This one should fit you.” He tossed a vest toward Ariel.

  He looked at Tomas. “You’re more standard issue, so no problem. The back of the vests leave your shoulder blades free in case you need to get a wing on.”

  Ariel fussed with her shoulder rig. “I don’t want to wear a vest.”

  Tomas examined his vest. “Will this stop a knife or a sword?” he asked.

  “It has a layer of titanium mesh between the layers of Kevlar. That should do it.”

  “But . . .” Ariel started.

  “Angel Slayers?” Tomas reminded her, “Plus, Zaki’s security force will probably be shooting at us from the ground. Wear the vest.”

  Ariel bristled at being ordered around, but a look from Ez made her turn her reaction into a shrug. “Fine.” She said. “I’ll wear mine if everybody else wears one.”

  Tomas looked at Ham.” Um,” he said. “Wolves in vests?”

  “Only ‘til the shooting stops.” Dingo dumped an armful of black vests that looked like something a doting pet owner would put on his poodle for a walk in the rain if the poodle happened to be working for Haliburton in Iraq.

  “They’d have to have silver bullets anyway,” Ez said. “Getting shot would slow us down, maybe take us out of the action, but not kill us.”

  “I don’t think Zaki is expecting wolves,” Ham said. “But you never know. He might have munitions for all contingencies.”

  “That’s more than four vests,” Ariel said.

  “Yeah, that’s the next thing. We have two more packs coming in tonight. The Rabid Road Dogs and a bunch that just call themselves ‘The Pack’. That will bring our number up to about twenty-five wolves.”

  “Aren’t The Rabid Road Dogs all lawyers and CPAs?” Ez asked.

  “And you’re an engineer, so what’s your point?” Juke asked.

  “An engineer can take a CPA any day!”

  “Chill.” Ham said. “We’re all wolves and we need all the fur we can get. Besides, I saw the Road Dogs do some pretty severe damage to a bunch of investment bankers at an office picnic one time. Remember, most of them are vets since that kind of service runs in the wolf line.”

  Dingo raised a hand. “I solemnly swear not to growl, bite or pee on another wolf’s bike until we win. Then the pee will be mostly beer.”

  Ariel’s cell phone rang. She fished it out of her pocket. “Bishop?”

  “Not Bishop,” the voice on the other end said. “Although Mr. Bishop is right here and would love to say some few words to you. This phone is using speaker. Please to do that with yours so we can, as you Americans say, fully communicate.”

  Ariel switched her phone to speaker. “Who the hell is this?”

  “Patience, Raptorrr,” the voice said. There was a sound like a sharp, slap, a grunt, then Bishop’s slightly slurred voice yelling, “Fuck you, you little mutant! I’m going to sue your dwarf ass off when I get out of here. Don’t try to find me, El! There’s more imp . . .”

  There was the sound of a chair crashing over and nothing more from Bishop.

  “I think Mr. Bishop has become temporarily unconscious,” the voice said. “And I am not dwarf.”

  “Who are you? What do you want?” Ariel yelled.

  “Revenge,” the voice said. “Long, very painful revenge. First Mr. Bishop, then you Raptorrr. I am professional with knifes, you know. And fists. A man can die, slowly, slowly from many cuts and bruises. It can take days. Sleep well Raptorrrr. We stay in touch.”

  * * *

  Ariel looked at her phone. “First Mouser, now Bishop. I am profoundly pissed.”

  “Zaki has him?” Ez asked.

  “Not Zaki. If it was Zaki Bishop would have said something about kids. I think he’s at Casa Tesslovich.”

  “Who was that on the phone?”

  “A knife throwing, mutant Romanian Gypsy who works for Tesslovich. Bishop and I have tried to kill him twice but he keeps bouncing back. He put a gypsy death curse on Bishop that seemed to have something to do with furniture and a goat head. But mostly he’s mad because I blew his ass out a nine story window after I tried to kill his boss.”

  “Sounds complicated, and a little kinky.” Juke said.

  “Are we going after him? “ Dingo asked.

  “You bet your furry butts we are, but timing is important. We have to wait until the demon express leaves Tesslovich Station. Too soon and we walk in on a bunch of well armed demons. Too late and we miss the party at Zaki’s estate.”

  “Can Bishop last until tomorrow afternoon?” Tomas asked.

  “Revenge is either really fast or slow and deliberate.” Ez said. “I think we have a methodical revenge practitioner here. He’ll draw it out, make it last. Bishop is tougher than he acts. He can make it, but it won’t be pleasant.”

  “And the mutant?”

  “First I’m going to kill him. Then I’m going to kill him again. Then I’m going to set fire to his remains. Then I’m going to scatter the ashes over running water until every molecule of his being sinks to the bottom of the lake to be eaten by snails and fishes.”

  Tomas looked at his sister Raptor. Ariel’s face was all sharp planes, set mouth, jutting chin and cheek bones. It was pale with fatigue, but limned on the edges with an angry scarlet flush

  “Jeeze,” he said. “If we live through this, remind me to stop pissing you off.”

  - 7 -

  “Suzee?” Mouser was sitting wedged in the front corner of his cell where his wall met Susan Elizabeth Morgan’s. His mouth was pressed against a hole in the Plexiglas. “Are you awake?”

  “I can’t sleep,” the small voice said. “I’m too afraid.”

  “Are you warm enough?”

  “I have my blankets and they gave me a pillow. I’
d rather be in this corner where I can hear you than in my bed.”

  “Me too,” Mouser said, trying to convince himself that he was on the floor wrapped in a blanket rather than trying to sleep on the narrow shelf-like bed in his cell because Suzee was five, and he was fourteen and he had a responsibility to comfort her. In truth, he valued her small voice in the darkness as much as she valued his fake bravado and reassurances.

  “Do you think your parents miss you?” Suzee asked.

  “I don’t know who my parents are,” Mouser said. “But I’m sure your parents are doing everything they can to find you. I know for a fact they hired a private detective to help them. I met him. He’s really good. Also, a friend of mine, she’s like a superhero with wings. She defends kids like us against bad angels and evil scientists. I know she won’t stop until she finds us and gets us out of here.”

  “She has wings?”

  “Yes. Beautiful wings. I’ve seen her fly. She’s very fierce and she cares about all the kids who’ve disappeared.”

  “So, she’s a real, true angel?”

  “Absolutely,” Mouser said. “The real thing, with a fiery sword and everything.”

  “I hope she hurries,” Susan Elizabeth said with a quaver in her voice. “I don’t know how long I can stay brave. Sometimes I cry.”

  “I don’t know how long I can stay brave either.” An unwelcome, embarrassing tear rolled down Mouser’s cheek. “Don’t cry,” he said. “We can help each other stay brave. If you can’t sleep I’ll tell you a story. I know a lot of them.”

  “Okay.”

  “Once upon a time in a land far, far away there was a beautiful, brave princess named Suzee . . .”

  - 8 -

  Consciousness came slowly. The pain came right along with it, reminding Bishop why he’d passed out in the first place. He was hoping to do that again very soon, and with minimum preamble. Although his head was still fuzzy and lolling on his chest, he could hear Connie moving around.