The Vigiles Urbani Chronicles- Year One

by Ken Lange

  As if that weren’t enough, Alexander confirmed that the good father had left through a secret passage within the rectory that had taken him through the sewers. They were able to follow him for a couple of blocks, but after that he’d gone topside and they’d lost his scent—something about the air smelling of scorched earth had interfered with their ability to track him any further.

  My conversation with Alicia Sanders hadn’t gone well either. She’d reported the painting, some jewelry, and a few other items stolen about three weeks ago. According to her, there’d been a rash of burglaries in the area, and the police were investigating the matter. Thanks to the number of people lying to my face recently, I double checked with Baptist, and it turned out she was telling the truth. The upside was the UCD would be able to piggyback off the open cases, allowing us to match the items in our inventory against the list of stolen goods. While that wasn’t earth-shattering news, it was positive…sort of, anyway. If the NOPD caught a break, we might be able to find out who was stealing for the Gotteskinder. And recovering the stolen items got Baptist some brownie points with Vice. Which he needed, since he was taking over Hotard’s position as captain of the UCD in a few weeks.

  With my face in my hands, I craned my neck side to side and resisted the urge to let loose a long string of profanities. I nearly jumped out of my seat when my phone rang. The screen read Unknown.

  “Hello?”

  Duncan’s weird double voice came across the line. “Good afternoon, Gavin.”

  I blinked. “Duncan? How’d you get this number, and my name, for that matter?”

  Annoyance filled his voice. “The priest has a great deal of information about you.”

  Sitting up straight, I said, “It seems you have me at a disadvantage then, because I know little to nothing about you. Do you even have a name of your own?”

  He chuckled. “Duncan will do for now.”

  “Okay, Duncan. Do you have Alfred?”

  He made a sniffing noise. “I do.”

  Well, that solved the mystery of the priest’s vanishing scent. “May I ask why you’re calling?”

  Duncan didn’t answer for a moment. “I understand that you’ve recently come into possession of some items I need.”

  That was news to me. “What would that be?”

  “A set of blueprints you took from the church and a lantern.”

  I wasn’t sure why he wanted the blueprints, but he wasn’t about to get his hands on them. I’d need to search for the lantern when it was cataloged in Elmwood. “To be honest, I’m not sure where they’d be or if we even have them. As you can probably guess, we’ve taken quite a few things from the church at this point. Can you tell me what the blueprints are for and what the lantern looks like? It’d help me narrow my search.”

  Frustration crept into his voice. “It’s the design for the room where we met. As for the lantern, it’s made of solid gold, inlaid with rubies with panes of crimson glass. I’m betting you’ll know it when you see it.”

  “Why do you want them so badly?”

  He growled. “That’s not important. What is, however, is that I have the priest, and you want him. Bring me what I’ve asked for, and I’ll let you have him.”

  I shook my head. “No, you’re going to need to give me a bit more incentive. Why do you want them?”

  Duncan paused. “The room was designed to be a gateway between my realm and yours. As for the lantern, it’s a container that can be used to house my essence. Simply put, I want to go home. So, by giving me what I desire, you’ll get rid of me, rescue the child, and get the priest. How’s that for incentive?”

  Well, shit. “That’ll work. But how do I know you’ll hold up your end of the bargain and not take the boy back to Muspelheim with you?”

  Duncan let out a chuckle. “You’ve heard of my homeland…good. As for your query, you don’t, but it’s the best chance you have to be rid of me.” Pausing, he said, “As a show of good faith, I’ll answer the question you had yesterday.”

  If he was willing to part with information, I was willing to listen. “Okay.”

  Disgust and resentment swam through his tone in equal measures. “I was brought here to kill you.”

  The answer stunned me into silence for several seconds. “Really?”

  His tone hardened. “Yes.” There was a smack of flesh hitting flesh. “Alfred here was to lure you into the room, which went according to plan. After that, however, things went sideways due to some serious miscalculations in setting the actual trap.” Stones shattered in the background. “The priests orchestrated this whole scenario to put me into this specific body. They knew it’d get your attention and when it did, they wanted you helpless, but as you know, that wasn’t the case.”

  I leaned forward and placed my elbows on the desk. “Clearly. Since you brought it up, how’d they manage to stick you into Duncan?”

  He huffed. “They summoned me in the room, trapped me inside the lantern, and transported me to the hospital. Under the guise of giving the dying child his last rites, they carved glyphs into his flesh, and the rest is history, so to speak.”

  I frowned. “You’re telling me they went through all this…just so they could kill me?”

  Duncan let out a bitter chuckle. “That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

  The more I learned about Alfred and the Gotteskinder, the less I wanted to save the guy’s life. Thing was, he had information, and that was something I needed desperately. “I see.” Not completely, but I was definitely getting an inkling of their true nature. “I’ll need some time to find what you’re asking for, but when I do, where do you want to meet?”

  Duncan paused. “We’re at the Lafayette Cemetery in the corner closet to Sixth and Coliseum… Are you familiar with the spot?”

  Sitting up straight, I nodded. “I am.”

  Life had a way of twisting in on itself sometimes. In a weird coincidence, he was in the same cemetery where we’d interred Robert Broussard’s remains after his untimely demise.

  He huffed out a breath. “Good. Bring me what I’ve asked for, and the priest is yours. As for the time you wanted, I’ll give you an hour. Don’t be late.”

  As soon as the line went dead, I hustled across the room to grab my swords then decided against them. I didn’t want to chance Duncan turning the blades to slag if he decided to go nuclear on me again. Laying them on the desk, I crossed my fingers and hoped for the best.

  A moment later, I teleported to the opposite corner of the graveyard. Keeping low, I moved across the cemetery using the above-ground graves and headstones for cover. It took a little longer than I would’ve liked to get into position, but it ensured that Duncan and Alfred wouldn’t spot me. I peeked around the corner to find the boy stuffing the padre’s broken body into a mausoleum marked Schmitt.

  That certainly wasn’t part of the deal. Then again, the jinni seemed to be more a letter-of-the-law kind of guy. He hadn’t, after all, guaranteed that the priest would still be breathing.

  A part of me really wanted to be pissed off, but that wouldn’t do anything but put me at a disadvantage. So, taking a deep breath, I charged. When I was within three or four feet of him, I dove, catching him in the small of the back and slamming his face into the cement tomb.

  There was a wet crack as his skull bounced off the corner, and his back bent weirdly as I twisted, taking him to the ground. Fire burned in his eyes, and the flat of his hand caught me in the chest hard enough to knock the wind out of me and force me off him. He got to his feet in an instant and drove his fist into the side of my head, causing me to see stars.

  I rolled to the side as my body armor encased me. Kicking out, I caught Duncan in the chest, pinning him between my foot and the stonework, sending cracks up the wall. He brought his hands down and batted my foot aside.

  Duncan grinned. “You’re fast. Much faster than any I’ve encountered in this world.”

  Getting to my feet, I shook my head. “Is that supposed to be a complimen
t?”

  He shrugged. “Take it however you like, but it is an accurate observation.”

  I gestured at Alfred’s corpse. “He isn’t exactly in the condition you implied he would be.”

  He smirked. “Your fault for assuming.”

  Cracking my knuckles, I said, “Still, seems a bit underhanded.”

  He waved a hand at me. “Did you bring the things I asked for?”

  I shook my head. “Nope, but then again, I never agreed to your terms.”

  Laughing, he said, “Touché. But that leaves us in a bit of a quandary, because I need those items.”

  Not trusting the guy, I kept a healthy distance. “To go home?”

  He wobbled his hand back and forth. “More or less.”

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  Duncan sneered at me. “It’s nothing for you to worry about—at the moment, anyway. We’ll educate you properly when the time is right.”

  Odd choice of wording…or was it? “You intend to bring others of your kind back to this world…don’t you?”

  His lips twisted into a malevolent smile. “Maybe, but you’re either going to give them to me, or I’ll burn your world to ash.” Red flames enveloped him as he stepped toward me. I waved my hand, and a wall of ice hit him, extinguishing the flames. He stumbled back, shaking his head. “Impossible.”

  “Keep mouthing off, kid, and I’ll turn you into an ice cube.”

  Fear danced in his eyes. He turned and dove into the crypt. When I stuck my head in, I found a small hole in the floor that led into the sewer system. While I really wanted to follow him, the opening wasn’t big enough for me.

  Leaning over, I scooped up the recently deceased Alfred. While I couldn’t get any information from him in this state, I knew someone who could. In an instant, my world became a sea of blue. After the flames dissipated, I was standing in Lazarus’s office.

  He blinked. “Ah, Gavin, you have a dead body in your arms. Care to explain?”

  I grimaced. “About that…”

  Once I’d brought him up to speed, he closed the office door and summoned a pair of silver manacles for Alfred’s hands and feet. According to Lazarus, the magic within the restraints made the spirit more…compliant.

  Lazarus lowered the blackout shades and turned off the lights. He closed his eyes and moved his hand down in a slashing motion to rip a hole in the fabric of reality. Stepping forward, he touched the corpse, and Alfred stepped through the tear.

  He was confused at first then his gaze fell on me and he went still. Lazarus moved between us to get a closer look at the specter.

  Lazarus glanced back at me. “This could be problematic.”

  “What’s that?”

  Lazarus pointed at the weird, glowing symbols skittering across Alfred’s ghostly flesh. “I’ve never seen anything like it before, and I’ve got no idea how this will affect his ability to answer our questions.”

  I shrugged. “One way to find out.”

  Turned out Lazarus had been correct to be concerned about them. From what we could gather, they were supposed to stop anyone from even summoning him through the veil…but obviously that hadn’t worked as intended. It did make Lazarus’s hold on the man tenuous at best. Which made questioning him significantly more difficult.

  Over the next three hours, we got several of our questions answered…but there were loads of others that he’d refused to help with. The real roadblock came when Lazarus pushed too hard and the strange markings burned off a piece of Alfred’s soul. Each time this happened, his ability to compel the spirit weakened. Finally, he allowed Alfred to return to his place beyond the veil.

  Chapter 7

  May 3rd

  The morning traffic heading into Metairie was stupidly heavy. Even though I didn’t suffer from road rage, the locals were doing their best to jump up and down on my frayed nerves. People walked into traffic, cars refused to use their turn signals, and my personal favorite was someone making a right-hand turn from the far-left lane. What should’ve been a thirty-minute trip took a little over an hour.

  The lot was full, as usual these days, due to the influx of new centurions. Which meant there were a lot of vehicles stuffed into a small area. Thankfully, Gabriel had had the foresight to mark a couple of spaces for those of us who worked here regularly.

  Taking a few calming breaths, I centered myself against the chaos that awaited me inside. At any given hour, there were at least sixty people training, filling out paperwork, or god knew what else. Once the centurions completed their training, they either returned home or were shipped out to different hot spots around the world. Their main objective was to act as backup to the vigiles spread across the globe and ensure things ran smoothly. Thankfully, Gabriel and Alexander were handling the day-to-day interactions with the recruits, which allowed me time to do my actual job.

  When I approached the glass double doors, they swung open and a man on either side stood at attention as I passed. I wasn’t a fan of the new protocols, but it’d been this way since the conference ended. One day, I was going to have to ask Alexander how he’d convinced the holdouts and garnered such loyalty from the other weres.

  I stopped in my office long enough to drop off my bag before heading to the loading dock to see if they’d found anything. Sam, Alexander’s second, spotted me the moment I walked in.

  She offered me a warm smile. “Come to check on the progress?”

  I shrugged. “Yes and no… Mostly I need to keep busy. Got something I could help with?”

  Snickering, she gestured at the long stretch of tables in front of her, with several people at each. “I think we’ve got it covered.” She touched my elbow and guided me toward a table that was nearly empty. “But I have a few things that might be important.” She pointed at a stack of papers. “I’d start there. They’ve got the same weird inscriptions Alexander told us about.” Holding up her phone, she said, “We’ve been using the pictures he sent us as reference.”

  Well, duh, I should’ve thought of that before handing everything over to Andrew. “That was a great idea. Too bad I didn’t come up with it.”

  She gave me a wry smile. “That’s why you have us around. Now, have a seat and see if anything strikes your fancy.”

  Two hours later, I was still reading and sifting through alternate designs for what I had to guess was the lantern. Many of the pages were marked aborted, failed, or inconclusive. It would appear the final version of the thing wasn’t here or hadn’t turned up yet.

  I laid out all the sketches in front of me to compare them. Maybe by seeing what they’d added or subtracted, I could figure out the evolution of the contraption. If there was a clear pattern, it’d help Andrew decipher the meanings of the symbols faster. Shockingly enough, it didn’t take long to find the variances between them. I snapped several photos and sent them to my uncle.

  Alexander strolled over about noon and patted me on the shoulder. “Any luck?”

  I shook my head. “Not really.” Gesturing at the papers in front of me, I sighed. “It looks like they’ve spent decades, perhaps even centuries, trying to figure out how to make these symbols work for them. Which means I was a target of opportunity.”

  He arched an eyebrow. “How did you come to that conclusion?”

  Handing him the pages, I shrugged. “They’ve been in development hell for decades. I’m betting this is their latest test model, and it was pure happenstance that it worked. Since I only joined the Archive a year ago, it’s unlikely they had me in mind when they were creating it.”

  He rifled through the pages. “Good point.” Frowning, he asked, “Were you able to dig up anything more about the jinn?”

  I grimaced. “Nothing new. It seems most people have had enough sense not to mess with them.”

  Alexander chewed on his lip. “That’s unfortunate.”

  I sighed. “Tell me about it.”

  A low rumbling growl cut through the air. I jerked my head up. Sam was standing at
a nearby table, stiff as a board, with her fists clenched.

  She picked up a handful of papers and stalked over to us. Coming to a stop right in front of me, she slammed her hand down with them underneath.

  Fury and indignation swam through her voice in equal measures. “You need to see this.”

  Not wanting to provoke her further, I simply nodded, and she slid the pages toward me.

  The item that had her so worked up was an intricate set of blueprints of a house from twenty-seven years ago. Shrugging, I glanced over at her, and she pointed at the far corner at Heather’s address—or at the time, Henri’s.

  Anger coursed through my veins.

  Were the Gotteskinder responsible for Henri’s disappearance? In that moment, I wanted nothing more than to find every member of this godforsaken cult and beat them until they answered for their crimes. It took me a few seconds to regain control of my senses. It wouldn’t do anyone, especially Heather and her family, any good if I lost my shit. After studying the page, it hit me that the symbols there were very different from the ones at the church. Was this the first set of glyphs they’d tried or was this something else entirely?

  After several minutes, I glanced up. “Was there anything else in there that might have some connection to this?”

  She shook her head. “Not yet. But we won’t stop looking until we find everything there is to find.”

  Resisting the urge to hit something, I blew out a long breath. “Thanks.”

  She looked me in the eye. “Henri was always kind to me. To us.”

  I nodded then got to my feet. “If anyone needs me, I’ll be at Andrew’s.”

  Alexander gestured at Sam. “We’ll be here searching. If anything comes up, I’ll get in touch right away.”

  I nodded again. “Thanks.”

  As the two of them walked over to Sam’s station, I grabbed a few things off the table, including the designs for Henri’s house. Blue flames enveloped me, and then I was standing in my uncle’s living room.

  Andrew froze in his office chair and slowly lifted his head. “That’s going to take some getting used to.” He gestured at the papers in my hand. “Did you find something?”