Bloodlines (The Guardian of Empire City Book 1)

by Peter Hartog

  To say this guy’s presence was unusual was like saying the sun rose in the west.

  The look he gave me was cool, the expression shifting to something more calculating. It was the kind reserved for idiots and unpleasant meals.

  “Former Protector,” Deacon corrected, offering me a humorless smile. “The Church and I had a come-to-Jesus meeting a while back. We decided to part ways.”

  “You didn’t answer my question,” I pointed out.

  Deacon’s smile widened, never reaching his eyes. He was taking my measure, and it annoyed the shit out of me.

  “How’d you know it was the e-trader?” he asked.

  “What?” I frowned.

  “Your collar,” he said. “How’d you know it was him?”

  The tingling sensation from before returned, rippling along the back of my neck, as if I were standing near a live current. However, my eyes felt normal.

  “I interviewed Murray’s assistant, Glenn Abernathy,” I said slowly, wondering where this was leading. “There was a fresh bouquet of white lilies in a vase on his desk the first day I came by the office. No card attached, and he wasn’t wearing a ring. When I met with the suspect, his office held several images showing where he’d traveled, and most of those accompanied by young, attractive men. Then I noticed one shot of him standing next to an older woman in a garden filled with lilies. Turns out Reynolds’ mom grew them at her home.”

  Deacon leaned back in my chair, hands clasped behind his head. He propped his soaked boots on my desk with a thump. Rainwater collected underneath.

  “You mind?” I glared at the boots. He didn’t move. “Fine. The ’joy in Murray’s system was out of character, although he could’ve hidden the habit. Add in Abernathy, the lilies, and Reynolds’ lifestyle, as well as a limited suspect pool. It didn’t take much to figure out Reynolds’ relationship with Abernathy gave him the access he needed to steal Murray’s key accounts. As for D’Antoni’s, it had plenty of distractions making it easy for Reynolds to spike Murray’s drink and then let the drug do the rest. Motive and opportunity. We done here?”

  “Very logical, Holliday,” Deacon spoke quietly. “But that’s bullshit, and we both know it.”

  “Listen, pal,” I shot back. “I’ve got fifteen years as both a beat cop and homicide detective in the ECPD. I investigate and ask questions, because that’s how it’s done. I pay attention, follow the leads, review the evidence and reports, and sometimes I get lucky and catch the bad guy.”

  “No shit, Sherlock,” Deacon scoffed. “Just like every other dipshit here. But you ain’t like everyone else. They don’t know it. But I do.”

  “I don’t have time for this,” I declared. “Get out of my chair, get away from desk, and leave me the fuck alone. I’m busy.”

  I folded my arms and gave him my best glower. It was like trying to melt spell-forged steel with a candle.

  “No need to get so riled up, Holliday,” Deacon replied mildly while rifling through the text on my screen. The details of the Dose article reappeared, scrolling along like some abstract painting. He flicked the holo-window away with a lazy wave of his hand, then turned to regard me.

  “What did you see back there?” he asked.

  “Excuse me?” My face flushed with anger.

  “You heard me.” Deacon’s intense dark eyes bored holes into mine. “What did you see?”

  “Who the fuck are you?”

  A cold lump settled in my stomach. I glanced over my shoulder, wondering if anyone on the floor had noticed our exchange.

  “They’re all busy, and don’t give a shit about you,” Deacon said. “Don’t fuck up this opportunity, son. It’s the best chance you’re gonna have to get out of this shithole.”

  Chapter 2

  “I’ve read your file, Holliday,” he stated with a hard stare. “You were hot shit before Internal Affairs tore you a new hole seven years ago. But they never did pin anything on you, did they? Then came the booze and drugs. Or were you already fucked up by then?”

  My face went slack, and I stared at the chipped paint on the wall behind Deacon. Bitter images of the past flooded my mind, from a time when I took care of my appearance, the clothes I wore, and the people I once called friends. Don’t get me wrong, I was also young and stupid and no one’s angel. I’d just pissed off the right people at the wrong time. And I hadn’t been the only one. A lot of other cops had lost their shields after that shit show. IAD and the DA’s office had been thorough. Mostly.

  “Don’t really matter.” Deacon shrugged. “You checked into rehab, put your life on hold while you got your shit together. Toed the line and followed department policy. When you got out, you’d been exonerated and reinstated, even kept your shield, which is a fucking miracle by itself. But the backlash to the department sent you packing, which is how you wound up here. Lucky you.”

  “Ancient history, pal,” I replied, folding my arms.

  ECPD had been embarrassed by the investigation. Despite my reinstatement, something had to be done to salvage their precious public image. Mayor Harold Samson wanted heads rolled, so I was elected one of their fall guys.

  At the time, it seemed a proper penance. The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune buried Hamlet. They nearly buried me.

  “But that ain’t the whole story.”

  The hair on the back of my neck stood on end. A faint buzzing rattled my ears. My body trembled, but not from any chill. Sweat formed on my brow.

  My chest tightened as I experienced a very old and familiar agony. Deacon observed me with hooded eyes.

  “You want to tell me what happened?”

  “You seem to already know.”

  “Humor me.” Deacon’s voice was iron and stone.

  “Fine.” I wiped my nose, then ran a jerky hand through my hair several times. I paused, my lips struggling to form the words. Deacon sat motionless, a grim specter awaiting judgment. “She…Kate…she’d broken the bathroom mirror. Punched it, because her knuckles were cut. I found empty goldjoy syringes by the tub. She’d taken three full hits. And she just lay in that tub, in that bloody water. I couldn’t wake her. I tried, but she wouldn’t wake up. And the blood…the blood was everywhere. She’d slashed her wrists with the glass. I was too late. There was nothing I could do. But I couldn’t let her die alone. I couldn’t. The glass covered the floor. I picked up a piece of it, and I…”

  Everything came out in a rush. I couldn’t stop myself, somehow compelled by Deacon Kole. I stood there lost to the memory of that night, reliving each awful moment. But I couldn’t finish it, either. Despite whatever power the former Protector held over me just then, the memory hurt too much. I hurt too much.

  “Kate Foster was pronounced dead at the scene,” Deacon said after a moment, his voice cool and calm. Whatever compulsion I’d been experiencing had disappeared. “Lucky for you one of the facility’s attendants had come by to check on her. He called it in, and between the onsite medical staff and the EMTs, they kept you alive long enough to get you to the hospital.”

  I rubbed my arms, noting the worn and frayed cuffs. I pulled back one to stare at the jagged marks on my wrist, consumed by a terrible loss.

  And Kate.

  In five minutes, this stranger laid bare a part of me that I’d buried for years. Nobody at the 98th cared about me. I was the pariah who was damn good at filing their paperwork. My past was old news. Faded, but not forgotten. However, no one here knew what had transpired the day Kate died.

  No one except Deacon Kole.

  “How do you know all of this?” I hissed, my mind awash with memory and pain.

  “Because it’s my job.”

  “I-I don’t understand.”

  “Wake the fuck up, Holliday.” Deacon leaned closer, pressing his fingers against my desk.

  “What’s happening?”

  “Look at me,” the Confederate commanded. I met his hard gaze. “When you met James Reynolds at his office, from that very moment, you knew he’d murdered Murra
y. How did you know?”

  I stood still, afraid that if I moved, every little secret I’d kept over the years would spill out in a mad rush.

  “How did you know?”

  “Because—"

  “Because you looked upon his soul,” Deacon supplied.

  “No,” I replied, resigned and bitter. “Because I saw he didn’t have one.”

  Deacon studied me with a passionless expression on his worn face.

  “I ain’t never met a dead man walking before,” he said quietly. “Well, not like you, but I reckon there’s a first time for everything.” The Confederate stood up and maneuvered around my desk. “Interview’s over. Let’s take a walk.”

  “What?” I asked, shoulders bunched as tension ate at my every nerve.

  Without answering, he moved from my chair, turned the corner and strode down a side hallway off the main floor. I followed, shambling like a zombie from a bad horror holo-movie. A few strange looks came my way, but I ignored them.

  A shadowed hallway greeted our approach, a section of empty offices designated for a new racketeering unit that never panned out. He proceeded toward a square of light at the far end, then stepped into the shadow of an open doorway.

  I hesitated, glancing over my shoulder.

  “He ain’t waitin’ all day, Holliday,” the former Protector called out before stepping inside.

  Doubt crowded my mind. Behind me, the dull roar of the 98th beckoned, a familiar buzzing that spoke of dead ends and old routines. I sucked in a breath, then crossed the distance and into the office. Deacon closed the door behind me, and leaned against it, arms crossed. Stark white paint covered the walls, with boring slate gray carpet on the floor—the cheap, durable kind. The office included an empty workstation and two chairs, but no holo-tech.

  A white-haired man wearing a charcoal suit and navy dress shirt unbuttoned at the top sat behind the desk. He was past sixty, clean-shaven with deep shadows beneath intelligent, wintry eyes, and sunken cheeks. A plain gold wedding band encircled one finger. His gnarled hands rested atop a thin yellow folder, a classic nod to the old paper-pushers from a bygone age.

  Curiosity overcame the emotional muck slogging my brain. My heart rate settled to something short of cardiac arrest. The hint of fresh coffee and cigarettes hung in the air, though neither was present.

  “Bill Mahoney,” I said, registering surprise. “What are you doing back in town? I thought you were retired.”

  “Technically, I still am,” he replied, studying me for a moment.

  His was a grandfather’s voice, gravelly from hard years of smoking and drinking.

  The older man gestured for me to sit.

  Captain William “Bill” Mahoney was a legend. He had handled all ECPD’s high-profile cases. The man got shit done. Entire classes were taught at the Academy devoted to his old case files. I would’ve sat through all of them twice if my instructors had let me.

  Mahoney’s final case was the “Midnight Murders,” a run of brutal serial killings that involved young women. All the victims had been sexually assaulted before their throats were slit. Medical examiners determined their time of death was around midnight, hence the name. Bill spent two years working the case.

  The last victim was an ECU student named Cheryl Dwyer. During a random goldjoy bust, the narcs found her body stashed inside the basement of a vacant house in Bedford Stuy. Once Dwyer was identified, Mahoney and his team went to her home in Queens. There they discovered she had an unopened birthday present sent from her English Lit professor, Mark Madsen. On a hunch, Bill dug deeper into Madsen, and then the pieces fell into place.

  Madsen had led a cult of whack-job fanatics who worshipped the professor like he was the Prince of Darkness. Dwyer had been a cultist for a short time but wanted out. Madsen didn’t take it well and made her an example to the others.

  Mahoney arrested Madsen before a full classroom. Social media exploded with videos of a furious Madsen stabbing an officer with an antique dagger. Forensics found traces of Dwyer’s DNA on the blade, and that was that. Later that year, Madsen was electrocuted on live holo-vision. Before he died, he vowed vengeance on Bill and his family.

  Three months later, Mahoney came home to find his wife and son murdered in the same manner. The subsequent investigation came up with nothing. They presumed the murderer was a protégé the ECPD had missed. Eventually, the case was closed. No suspects, and no arrests.

  But Bill couldn’t let it go. He continued his own private investigation, and a lot of folks downtown thought he’d lost more than his family that night. Eventually, he turned in his sidearm and badge, packed his bags, and left Empire City faster than you can say “Fuck this, I’m outta here.”

  That was more than ten years ago. Speculation was, he’d traveled east to get as far from here as possible. But I’d always wondered. Forensics never discovered how Madsen had removed the evidence from every crime scene. And top that off with Mahoney’s family murdered from beyond the grave, in the exact same manner?

  My money was on magic, and not the good kind.

  I knew better than most. A shard of broken glass had taught me that.

  Madsen had performed sorcery, the same foul magic the ancient poets scribed about. Mahoney couldn’t prove it, but Madsen had manipulated the Nexus Point energy in ways that baffled the imagination. To me, magic was the only answer that made any sense.

  None of that, however, explained why the captain was here, or what he wanted with me.

  “And you’re late.” Mahoney drank in Deacon with a hard look. “What the hell happened to you?”

  “Got sidetracked,” Deacon huffed.

  Mahoney’s brow rose, sparing a pointed glance toward the leather jacket Deacon wore.

  “Had to teach a banger a lesson on my way over here,” the former Protector chuckled, admiring how his arms protruded from the shorter sleeves. “My umbrella broke over the fucker’s head, so I took his jacket.”

  “You know, there’s this wonderful invention called public transportation,” the older man sighed. “Gets you places without walking all over creation. And they’re enclosed, so that way you stay dry and comfortable, and still get to your appointments on time.”

  “Yeah, and then the woman that banger assaulted would be dead,” Deacon shot back. “Y’all can keep your fucking transit pods.”

  He removed the jacket and dumped it to the floor, favoring his right side. Underneath, Deacon wore a plain black t-shirt, torn in places and covered with grimy splotches. His arms were lean and muscled, with faded tattoos along his upper arms, although I couldn’t make out what they were. An ugly bruise covered the underside of his right forearm, along with a few cuts and dried blood. A fine silver chain hung at his neck. As he stuffed it beneath his shirt, I spied a silver lemniscate charm attached.

  Strange it wasn’t a cross or a patron saint. Confederates weren’t known for quitting the faith. Had Deacon managed to leave behind more than just his job? I couldn’t imagine the Church of the Tribulation taking that snub well. Birmingham’s intolerance of everyone other than their own usually ended in stakes and fire.

  Mahoney produced a pair of tortoise shell frames from an inner pocket and settled them on his nose. He opened the folder and sifted through a variety of documents, many of them bearing the official seal of the mayor’s office. He reviewed the papers, withdrew a single page, and returned the rest.

  “Tom, I’m heading up a newly-formed Special Crimes Unit, and I’d like you to be a part of it,” Mahoney said without preamble, removing the glasses and placing them atop the file. “You’ll have jurisdiction over the entire enclave. The purpose of this taskforce is to solve the unsolvable and inexplicable by any means necessary.”

  “Okay, I’ll bite,” I said, my emotions settling as the gears ground in my head. “What’s the catch?”

  “You say anything to him?” Mahoney addressed Deacon.

  “Didn’t want to steal your thunder,” the Confederate replied.


  “Right,” Mahoney said, eyes glittering, then turned back to me. “The catch is you won’t be official ECPD anymore, although you’ll still have your chip and full access to EVI. You’ll lose your seniority, all your benefits, vacation time. Everything.”

  I raised my eyebrows, but the captain continued before I could interrupt.

  “As far as everyone else at the 98th is concerned, you’ve been transferred somewhere else doing none of their goddamn business. In the beginning, only the mayor, DA, and a consultant will know your purpose. You’ll report to me, and me only, acting under my authority.”

  “Okay, but this sounds more like a job for the ECBI,” I pointed out. “Won’t we be stepping on their toes?”

  “No.” Mahoney grimaced as if he’d just swallowed day-old puke. “I’ve already been down that road. They aren’t equipped to deal with the things that I want Special Crimes to handle.”

  “Such as what, exactly?” I asked.

  “Things that require more than a badge, a pair of handcuffs and a warrant,” Mahoney replied, fierce heat coating his words. “Things that laugh at the law, thinking they are above, or beyond it. Things that don’t give a damn about you or me.”

  “You mean things like Mark Madsen,” I said.

  He exhaled like a balloon with a slow leak.

  “Something like that.”

  “Fair enough,” I conceded, “but there must be dozens of guys that are more qualified. Why me?”

  Mahoney exchanged a look with Deacon.

  “Thirty-one, actually,” the former Protector drawled. “Took me two years to narrow the list down to five. The other four were too fucking incompetent.”

  “And I’m not?” I leaned back in the chair. “Tell that to Joan Flanagan.”

  “For the last six years, you’ve done a helluva job burying yourself in this shithole,” Deacon stated. “In that time, you’ve worked twelve cases, and every single one ended with an arrest and conviction. Nobody’s that good, yet here you are.”