Blood Ties

by Robert J. Crane

  “Hey,” I said, “has anyone ever told you that you look like—”

  “Sigourney Weaver?” She rolled her eyes as she cut me off. “That’s getting old.”

  “Sorry, Dr. Slaughter,” I said, barely able to keep in a smile, in spite of the pain and the haze. “Or do you prefer ‘Grandma’?”

  6.

  “I’d prefer not having to come to New York City to visit you disguised as a doctor,” Lethe said, crossing to the window and peering out between the curtains. “I’d also prefer that you don’t get yourself killed in the line of duty, but...” Here she looked back at me, and the anger was replaced with a furrowed brow that hinted at deep concern. “I don’t always get what I want, obviously.”

  “You think I wanted to get ripped apart by a...hell, I don’t even know what that thing was,” I said, shifting in my hospital bed. My back hurt, too, though whether that was from the initial gutting procedure that the yellow-skinned monster had engaged in or something that followed after I’d gone out, I didn’t know.

  “Harry says it’s a Grendel.” My grandmother looked out the window again, which kept her from seeing the wide-eyed look on my face.

  “‘Harry says’?” She turned back in time to catch me blinking furiously. “My Harry? Harry Graves?”

  “On a first-name basis with a lot of Harrys?” Lethe asked, finally doing her doctorly duty and strolling over to me. “Yes, your Harry. He came to us in Texas, told us what was going to happen.” She snapped a glove on her hand and then made a show of taking my pulse at my wrist. Or maybe was doing it for real. “Told us you’d die if your great-grandmother didn’t come help.”

  “Wait,” I said, closing my eyes in order to try and get my brain to process what I was hearing. I’m not sure it worked. “Persephone is here?”

  “I think she wants you to call her ‘Mimaw,’” Lethe said, dropping my wrist unceremoniously and lifting my gown to look at my stomach. It was not pretty. “And yes. She and Harry were the EMTs that revived you at the scene of your...” She stared at my belly, which was just one giant scab, some wet spots still lingering in its middle. “Massacre, I’d say.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, trying to get my head around what was happening. “My boyfriend is conspiring with my grandma and, uh...‘Mimaw’ to save my life?”

  “Someone needs to look out for you,” Lethe said, pressing on my wound.

  I barely held in a scream, and only because I deemed it would bring Holloway and Hilton crashing in. “Hey! That hurts!”

  Lethe raised an eyebrow coolly. “Good. Let it be a lesson not to let a Grendel impale you next time.”

  “Did you even take the Hippocratic Oath? I’m beginning to think you’re not even a real doctor. Though your alias is well chosen, ‘Hell and Slaughter.’”

  “I took the Hippocratic Oath back when it still read, ‘I swear, by Apollo,’” Lethe said with a thin smile. “Which struck me as hilarious, because Apollo was a Grade-A asshole in so many ways. But it doesn’t have an expiration date.”

  “Isn’t Apollo related to us somehow?” I put my hands over my belly in hopes of staving off any more of her probing. “He’s Janus’s dad, and Janus is your brother-in-law?” I frowned. “Nephew-in-law? Something like that?”

  “Janus can kiss my ass, the old bastard,” Lethe said, “but let’s not get bogged down in old times when there’s this to discuss.” She waved a hand over my belly and I recoiled in fear she’d touch it.

  “What the hell is a Grendel and what does it want?” I asked.

  That brought out a frown. “Grendels are a horrific combo of an Achilles, Hercules, and...hell if I know where those bone protrusions come from. I think there was some Mideastern meta that could extend bone claws from their joints, but I can’t recall the name—”

  “Just go with ‘Vanilla Wolverine.’” Reed would approve.

  “Regardless,” Lethe said, now checking my vitals like she was a real doctor, “Grendels have a long history, stretching from the ancient originating myth of the same name. I thought they were extinct.”

  “They probably were,” I said, shifting to try and alleviate uncomfortable internal pressure on my belly wound. “Seamus Heaney seems to have undersold their efficacy in his translation, though. What do you bet the serum brought at least one back?”

  Lethe thought about it for a second. “That seems likely.”

  “What does it want?” I asked. “It trashed that software company, and I doubt it picked a Queens industrial park at random just to get its destruction on.”

  “I don’t know,” she said, dropping her clipboard in front of her like a shield. This disturbed her lab coat, allowing me to see, for the first time, her name tag. It actually did read ‘Dr. Helen Slaughter.’ “And before you ask, neither does Harry.”

  “There’s not much Harry doesn’t know,” I said, frowning. “Is it possible he didn’t tell you because he thinks I need to puzzle this out for myself?”

  “Many things are possible,” Lethe said with a light shrug. “I wouldn’t care to speculate on how truthful your boyfriend is being with me and your ‘Mimaw’—”

  “Texas has really done a number on Persephone. You tell her I said that.”

  “Here’s something he did tell me, though,” Lethe said. “This is the last time we can help you in this.”

  I blinked. “Um. I just got gutted by this Grendel. My partner got killed with one hit, and I don’t think that thing was even trying to hit her very hard because he was holding me up with one hand while he wiped her out with the other like it was an afterthought. And you’re telling me—”

  Lethe shook her head. “We can’t help you. Harry says the FBI has a digital surveillance net around you, that they’re using some outside company for improved facial recognition software. We’re all tagged in it now, which means if we show up anywhere in the FBI’s monitoring web near you after this—”

  “You become an immediate person of suspicion related to me,” I said, covering my face. “Talk about a tangled web. Literally.”

  “Tell me about it,” Lethe said, sitting gently on the bed next to me. “I’m not a fan of this internet business. Like many things, I almost wish it would go away. But then I’d miss streaming ER repeats on Hulu and The Great British Bake Off, so you have to take the good with the bad, I suppose. Unless you’d care to revise this plan of yours that has us operating at a distance...?”

  “No, I don’t want to revise the plan,” I said, almost whispering. “You need to stay out of this and away from me. They have to think I’m alone, that no one wants to help me, that I don’t have any friends left.”

  Lethe just rolled her eyes. “I’m sure they’re going to just discount the fact that your brother and all your friends came flying over to Revelen to save your life a few months ago. What is it they call that? ‘Memory hole’?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m sure it’ll just vanish down the ‘memory hole,’ that little bit of knowledge,” she said, getting to her feet. “These highly organized, highly skilled people you’re being used by, they’re definitely going to conveniently forget something as important as this.”

  “I’m just playing by the rules Harry gave me,” I said, looking her right in the eye. “It’s a tough needle to thread. But I’m trying.”

  She looked back at me, and there was a flicker behind hers, then she nodded. “I know. But I don’t have to like it.”

  “I wish we could skip ahead to the face-punching part of the story, too,” I said. “But we can’t, yet.” I stirred in my bed. “This is the way it has to be, at least for now.”

  “Even if it means you have to face this Grendel on your own?” She made a face. “Because this sounds suicidal.”

  “I guess,” I said, feeling a little air deflating out of me. “Did Harry say I have to face it on my own? No chance it’s just going to slither back to wherever it came from?”

  She shook her head sadly. “No chance of that. But you won’t be total
ly alone.” She pulled back the curtain, revealing an empty bed.

  I stared at the bed. “Was that supposed to be a dramatic flourish? A metaphor for how I really am alone in this? I don’t get it.”

  “No, I was just fidgeting because I’ve run out of doctor things to do and we weren’t done talking,” she said, fluffing the curtain. “Harry said to tell you that you’ll have one chance for help, and you should take it, no matter how little you want to.”

  I bowed my head and closed my eyes. “If I didn’t love him and trust him, I’d punch his handsome face for being so damned cryptic all the time.” Letting out a long sigh, I asked, “But he really can’t give me any insight on this Grendel?”

  “Like I said, you’re on your own,” Lethe favored me with a small smile. “But you’re definitely likely to get through this. He gives you decent odds.”

  “Was that metaphor a subtle reminder of my boyfriend’s former penchant for drinking and gambling?”

  “No. I’m sure you’ve got this, kiddo,” my grandmother said, now almost to the door. “But if you wouldn’t mind a little advice from your elder?” Her smile vanished. “Try not to get hit next time you face the Grendel.”

  “That’s not helpful at all!” I called as she disappeared through the door without another word. “Because I was trying to do that this time,” I muttered, “and we can see how well that worked.”

  7.

  I escaped the hospital an hour before shift change the next morning, sneaking out in a gown after snagging my personal possessions, which consisted of a shattered cell phone and my wallet and FBI ID.

  All of them were smeared with blood. Mine, I hoped.

  I stole a pair of scrubs from a cart in the hallway and wrapped a surgical mask around my face before I left through a service hallway, nursing a limp and severe stomach pains. I trusted my body to fix itself more than I trusted any doctor to do so, and hanging around here waiting to heal wasn’t likely to produce anything but angst from me.

  No phone meant no Uber, so I looked for a cab and flagged one down as the sun started to come up. I was in Queens, though I didn’t recognize the hospital, and wanted to get back to Manhattan before traffic got too insane.

  “Where to?” the cabbie asked with a strong Middle Eastern accent.

  I gave him the address of my walk-up broom closet in Midtown.

  “I remember back when they called that Hell’s Kitchen,” he said.

  “I stay there long enough, they’ll probably start calling it that again,” I muttered as he drove. Thankfully, he didn’t say much. I stared out the window, and as we stopped at a red light, I caught a glimpse of a familiar face hanging out under a lamp post up the cross street.

  Harry.

  He waved as I went by, though I only saw him for about a second before the light turned green.

  How long had he been waiting there just to catch a glimpse of me as I went past?

  I didn’t manage to wave back in time. Hopefully he knew I wanted to.

  Not for the first time, I cursed this whole circumstance.

  Whatever. I had a job to do.

  The cabbie dropped me outside my building and I showered, taking care with my wound, which was still an angry scab the size of a coffee cup just above my belly button. Things weren’t quite right inside me, either, probably owing to the fact that the Grendel had done insane amounts of damage to my innards, but I was upright, walking and angry, and that was all that mattered, at least for now.

  When I was done showering I checked the mirror. There was a message in the steam. Of course.

  I love you.

  “Love you, too, Harry,” I said under my breath, too low for the bugs to pick it up. I wanted to see him in my dreams tonight.

  But for now...

  There was work to do.

  I pulled my usual backup Glock 19 out of my gun safe and strapped it to my hip as my new, albeit temporary, primary. Then I snugged a Glock 43 to the small of my back in a backup holster. It was mid-December, and I wore a leather coat in place of my usual work blazers, allowing me to hide my weaponry more effectively.

  I looked at myself in the mirror by my shoebox apartment’s front door as I prepared to leave. The clock told me that it was five minutes before eight in the morning. I had dark circles under my eyes, but otherwise looked about like I always did. I checked my stomach with a quick press against the wound.

  It was shrinking by the moment, and my belly already felt better.

  I didn’t even need a cab to get to the office; it was less than four blocks away. I tried to ignore the heavy foot traffic (and car traffic) around me in Midtown, ignored the occasional call of “Slay Queen!” and walked like I had a purpose. People mostly got out of my way, because I didn’t walk human speed. I booked it, and I made it to the FBI office in minutes.

  When I stepped off the elevator into the department bullpen, I could almost taste the pall of death that hung over the place. Special Agent-in-Charge (SAC) Willis Shaw’s door was open, though it didn’t look like he was in yet. Neither was Holloway, but Kerry Hilton was at her computer already, leaning against the armrest of her chair, staring off into space. Or at her computer monitor. It was tough to tell whether she was zoned or legitimately reading.

  “Hey,” I said.

  Hilton almost exploded out of her chair like her ass was spring-loaded. When she caught hold of herself she did so with a hand over her chest, breathing in and out quite heavily. “Whoa,” she whispered, “what are you doing here?”

  “I work here,” I said, glancing at Georgia West’s cubicle. It had a wreath of flowers draped over it, and a black ribbon was wrapped around her computer monitor. Hilton must have done that, because neither Shaw nor Holloway were the sentimental types and we were the only four left alive in this office.

  Hilton followed my gaze. “It doesn’t feel like she’s gone. Feels like she’s going to walk through that door any second—”

  I glanced at the open door to the elevator bank. “She’s not,” I said simply, then sat down. “What do we have in the way of evidence for this case?”

  Hilton circumnavigated around the bank of cubicles over to my chair. “Lots, but I’m not sure much of it is going to be of use. That thing, whatever it was—”

  “It was a Grendel-type,” I said. “Kind of an old legend. Never run across one before.”

  Hilton was frowning. “I’ll add it to the case notes. I don’t remember reading about those in the handbook.”

  “You could fill several more books with what the handbook doesn’t say.” I typed my login and password into the computer and waited while it took approximately forever for it to boot up. Stupid FBI network.

  “Anyway, we’ve got a lot of blood, a few bodies, a ton of wreckage, general mess, and some computers,” Hilton said. “Plus a mountain of surveillance footage from the building’s security system.”

  “No idea where it went after it left?” I asked.

  Hilton shook her head. “Retreated into some nearby woods and vanished. NYPD is checking with other businesses in the area, trying to see if it stumbled into their security footage, but so far nothing.”

  “I hate to go all Cotton-Eyed Joe on this thing,” I said, “but where did it come from? And where did it head after it left?” My computer still hadn’t finished booting up yet.

  “Great questions,” Hilton said, threading her way back to her desk, grabbing a notepad and making her way back over. “Critical ones, even. But I have no answer for you. Furthermore, we have no record of this thing before today. Ever.” She leaned in on the edge of my cubicle wall. “How is that possible? That thing killed one FBI agent, nearly got you, and we have nothing?”

  “It’s a real mystery, all right,” I said, reconciling myself to the fact that my computer just wasn’t going to boot up today. “But I think we can assume that just like I used to be able to turn into a dragon, that thing usually looks like a human being.”

  She blinked a few times. “Really?” />
  “It wouldn’t be able to hide if it looked like that all the time,” I said, wishing I could pull up the surveillance footage to see it again for myself. “It’s human most of the time. The Grendel part is a transformative ability. And a hell of one, too.” I shook my head. Man, it would have been nice to have Roberto Bastian back right now. My dragon form could have walloped that yellow sumbitch. I’d have been picking him out of my teeth right now. Not for the first time and surely not for the last, I cursed Rose Steward for being such a damned malevolent ginger.

  “What was this thing after?” I asked. “If we can find out why it was there, maybe we can get to who it was.”

  Hilton nodded, then looked at her pad. “Shaw has the main office doing some legwork on that. So far all we’ve got is that the office in question is a relatively new tech startup, QuantiFIE. Capitals on the last three letters for cuteness or something.”

  I frowned. “As in ‘fie on this’! Like in Camelot?”

  She nodded again. “It’s some sort of data sift company. Highly technical, to the point I don’t understand what they do. Ownership is split right now between the CEO, whose name is, uh...” She paused, eyes glancing at the pad. “Stephanie Sandoval.”

  “Should I know that name?” I asked, unimpressed.

  Hilton shrugged. “I guess not. It’s her first company. Her 302 form is in the system already. Our people caught up to her last night. She claimed not to know anything—”

  “Did our agents believe her?”

  “She seemed to be telling the truth in their estimation,” Hilton said. “But since she hasn’t been allowed back to the office or reviewed security records since the incident, she claims she doesn’t know what the thing did or took there. If anything. But she’s not the only owner, I guess?”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”

  “She’s gone the venture capital route,” Hilton said. “So there are other investors. The primary is that one famous guy, the billionaire dude with the funny haircut—”