The Vigiles Urbani Chronicles- Year One

by Ken Lange

  Come to think of it, I didn’t know what type of pizza she liked either. Sure, we’d had it a few times over the last year at my uncle’s, but mostly we stayed home and cooked.

  I shrugged. “Hopefully, someone will eat them.”

  In the kitchen, I grabbed a roll of paper towels and some paper plates. There was no reason to mess up a bunch of dishes. A few minutes later, Heather stepped into the dining room, looked at the open boxes, and sighed. “It’s a good thing Isidore’s on his way over, otherwise one of you two would be eating that funky thing at the end.”

  I pointed at the margherita. “Hopefully this is pretty decent. I’m always skeptical when there isn’t any meat on them.” Turning to Gabriel, I asked, “Where did you get them?”

  He grinned. “Pizza Delectable.”

  Heather perked up. “The place over on Piety?”

  He nodded. “Yep.”

  She frowned and looked at the pepperoni pizza. “If there was ever a time to try such an atrocious thing, it would be now.”

  Furrowing my brow, I asked, “Huh? Why?”

  She grinned. “They’re supposed to be amazing. I’ve never heard of anyone who’s been there who didn’t love the place.”

  I shook my head. “I’ll take your word for it. But you’re right…it does look pretty decent.”

  Gabriel chuckled. “Agreed.”

  I handed Heather a paper plate. “Isidore’s on his way over?”

  She grabbed a slice from every box, save the pepperoni. “Yep. He wants to ask you a few questions about Kevlin before meeting up with Dean.” Leaning in, she bumped her shoulder against mine. “I think he really just wants to get away from Andrew’s foul mood. He’s been stuck on the phone with the Pentagon.”

  I blinked. “Andrew can just pick up the phone and talk to someone there?”

  She gave me a curious look. “Ah, yeah. He is the Governor of North America, after all.”

  It shouldn’t have surprised me, but it did. “Okay… And Isidore wants to talk to me about what exactly?”

  She shrugged. “He wants to know more about Kevlin before he escorts him to the nearest exit.” She pointed at the pizza. “Now, I suggest eating something while we wait.”

  Fifteen minutes later, the doorbell rang, and I promptly got to my feet to answer it, which didn’t sit well with Gabriel, but he’d get over it.

  To no one’s surprise, Isidore was standing there.

  He waved, inhaled deeply, and smiled. “Is that pepperoni?”

  I stepped back and waved him in. “It is. Come on in and help yourself. How are you this afternoon?”

  Passing me in an instant, he headed straight for the bar and opened the box. With disbelief on his face, he shook his head. “It’s untouched. How can that be?”

  Gabriel recoiled in horror. “It’s greasy, messy, and has one note.” He gestured at Heather and me. “The three of us have a more refined palate than you do, apparently.”

  Isidore snorted. “Unlikely.” He scooped up a plate and put two pieces on it. “Now we can get down to business.” He waved at the table. “Is it all right if we talk here?”

  I let out a long breath. “Sure, why not?”

  He took the chair next to the end. “What can you tell me about Commander Kevlin?”

  Truth be told, I didn’t know much. “Almost nothing. He showed up about twelve months prior to me being sacked and sent home.”

  He grimaced. “Can you at least tell me if he’s the level-headed sort, or if he’s a fighter?”

  I laughed. “When it came to me, neither. He’s more of a I’m-going-to-surround-you-with-guards-and-have-you-walk-yourself-out kind of guy. Why do you ask?”

  Isidore swallowed a bite of his food. “Just trying to figure out if he’s going to be trouble. Andrew’s given me explicit instructions to have him on the next flight out of town. So, I’ll be escorting him and his people to Belle Chasse Naval Station and waiting to make sure they board the transport that’s flying in.”

  I leaned back in my seat. “Well, that’s convenient.”

  He shook his head. “Not really, but it’s all being handled.”

  That didn’t sound ominous at all. “While I don’t care for the guy personally, I don’t know that his career should be damaged by this…incident.”

  Isidore gave me an easy smile. “No worries. We’re using the line that his presence is unintentionally interfering with one of our cases. They didn’t even blink an eye. They’ll ship him back to wherever he came from, and no one needs to be the wiser. As long as he doesn’t fight it. If he does, the fallout’s on him.”

  That was a nice way of saying that if he pushed back, they’d ruin him at best, and drop him in a deep, dark hole at worst. And yes, that would be worse than death.

  I nodded. “Sounds fair enough. But if he gives you shit, get in touch with me before calling Andrew. I might be able to talk some sense into the guy.”

  Isidore nodded. “I can do that.” He thumbed over his shoulder. “If you guys really aren’t going to eat that, mind if I take it with me?”

  I chuckled. “Not at all.”

  He finished his pizza and tossed his plate in the garbage. “I’ll be in touch.” He grabbed the box. “You guys have a nice afternoon.”

  I got up and walked him to the door. “Thanks. I’ll take the lull to track down a few leads on the Gotteskinder and/or Duncan.”

  Isidore smiled. “Good luck. Once this is over, I’ll be happy to lend a hand.”

  Waving, I said, “Thanks.”

  Heather slipped up beside me. “I’m off to do some research on Mr. Smith.”

  I kissed her on the cheek. “Okay, let me know how things go.”

  She grinned. “Sure thing.”

  Once she and Isidore were out the door, I turned to Gabriel. “Mind if I leave you here for a bit?”

  He shook his head. “No. But I’d be remiss if I didn’t ask where you were going.”

  I gestured out toward the Tucker. “Elmwood…I’d ask if you wanted to join me, but I’m betting the answer is no.”

  He frowned. “You’d be right. I’ll clean up and enjoy the peace and quiet. Which is more than I can say for you.”

  Patting him on the shoulder, I chuckled. “True.”

  Chapter 11

  It was nearly dusk when I pulled into the lot at Elmwood…the exceptionally empty lot. I threw the car into park and sat there for nearly a minute, trying to figure out what the hell was going on. Normally, there would’ve been at least a couple of folks roaming around, but that wasn’t the case this evening. Having my ass firmly planted in the driver’s seat wasn’t going to help me understand what was happening here, though.

  Cautiously, I got out of the Tucker and made my way to the entrance. When I got there, no one pushed the door open. Frowning, I turned to the keypad, entered the code, and made my way inside the facility. Fifteen minutes later, I’d made a complete sweep of the building… Nothing. For the first time since I’d started coming here, it was vacant.

  I pulled out my phone and dialed Alexander, but there was no answer.

  “Weird.”

  Pocketing the device, I headed to my office. There on my desk were several large stacks of papers with a note on top. Alexander and the others were helping Isidore get Kevlin out of town this evening. At least they’d been kind enough to leave me what they’d found before vanishing. Not knowing what else to do, I pulled out my chair to sift through the massive amount of work that lay before me.

  About halfway down the first stack, there was a spiral notebook that was conspicuously blank. When I ran my fingers against the back side of the page, it felt smooth, but there was a strange scent emanating from it. On a hunch, I grabbed a handheld black light out of my drawer before flipping off the overhead. A moment later, the pages glowed to reveal a lot of text written in code and several drawings that completely baffled me.

  Eventually, I came to a page with the words Lake Creek Mall, I-10 Service Road New Orleans scrib
bled in the margin. Someone had gotten lazy. Thank the gods above, I’d caught my first break in the case. Closing the notebook, I glanced around and smiled.

  While I hadn’t fully appreciated the emptiness of the building earlier, it was starting to dawn on me that it was a good thing. Because now that I had something to go on, there wasn’t anyone around to argue with me about going to check it out or demanding to accompany me.

  With the way traffic was this evening, it took about thirty minutes to get to the Read exit and another fifteen to find a place to park that wouldn’t get me spotted right away. A few months ago, the hard part would’ve been scaling the fence and crossing a hundred yards of open asphalt. Now, that wasn’t such an issue.

  Blue flames surrounded me, and seconds later, I was standing next to the rear entrance, which was conveniently unlocked. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to board up the windows and bar the doors, aside from this one. That meant that someone other than me had a use for it. Hopefully, whoever owned this place hadn’t bothered to alarm it. If they had, this would go bad very quickly.

  Taking a deep breath, I pulled the door open and stepped inside. Thankfully, there wasn’t a blaring siren to announce my arrival. In my book, that’d be a plus. I ran my hand around the frame to check for contacts but didn’t find any. Two things working in my favor now.

  From the way the place looked, it’d likely been left to rot after Katrina—a lot of things out here in the east had never recovered from the storm. But there were signs that it hadn’t been totally abandoned. Such as the door being easy to open, and not squeaking…at all. The most telling factor, however, was the neat little trail through the grime that led upstairs.

  Between the sun being well beyond the horizon and the boards on most of the windows, there was very little natural light inside the structure, but I let my eyes adjust to the darkness with the aid of the Grim. Off to my left on the second floor, I found the faintest sign of life.

  While the outline was vague, it was still human or at least humanoid…the peculiar bit was the holes throughout their form. Something had damaged the soul…and it was advancing, leaving only darkness in its wake. At the current pace, it wouldn’t be long before there wasn’t anything left of them. Kur, myself, and the Grim were confused by the oddity.

  A shiver ran up my spine as I scanned the rest of the building. Simply put, the place was a wreck. The flood had destroyed the walls. When the waters receded, the sheetrock had mixed with the mud and muck to be left in heaps throughout the mall. That would’ve been bad enough, but obviously time and nature weren’t finished picking the carcass clean. Skylights had been broken, ceiling tiles had fallen, and insulation lay scattered about the place at odd intervals. It’d be years yet, but, eventually, the building would surrender itself to the elements.

  I’d been in a lot of abandoned buildings in my life, but most of those had been destroyed by man and his thirst for war. There was something humbling about witnessing the power and persistence of Mother Nature…even if this was a bit perverse.

  There was a strange sensation about the place that made it come across as unnatural. So much so that there weren’t any other living creatures around. You’d have thought that rats or other scavengers would’ve been waiting to feast on the soon-to-be-corpse upstairs. But they weren’t. I’d learned at an early age that anything nature didn’t want to reclaim was probably something to stay away from. Yet, here I was, following the path up to the second floor.

  At the top of the landing, things changed considerably. The floor below me was a complete and utter mess that’d purposely been left to its own devices. Up here, a six-foot section of walkway that led around the floor had been cleaned, allowing access to the old shops. My inquisitive nature nearly got the better of me—I wanted to go for a stroll to see what was going on—but it was probably best if I focused on the living…as they wouldn’t be that way much longer.

  According to the sign above the opening, this place used to be a Shoe Show. Now, it was an empty space containing a hospital bed with an unconscious, elderly man hooked up to a number of different machines at the far end of the room.

  Eyeing them, I frowned. They had power…but the mall certainly wasn’t wired for that any longer. Cocking my head to the side, I tracked the cords to a battery bank in the corner. From there, several heavy-duty cables wound up the wall and through a hole, which, judging by the pile of cement dust on the floor below, had been drilled recently. I would’ve laid good money on there being solar panels on the roof that kept the bank powered down here.

  Frowning, I started moving over to the bed to get a better look at the dying man. Which was easier said than done. Every step toward him made my legs feel heavy. The air coalesced into something near solid, making it difficult to breathe. Sweat poured down my back as I forced myself closer and closer. Finally, I leaned heavily against the bedrail, panting and attempting to catch my breath. Shakily, I raised my arm and wiped my forehead with my sleeve.

  It took a few seconds to right myself, but eventually, my breathing evened out and I got my first good look at the man. His bones were sharp under his overly thin flesh, his veins visible where the transparent skin wasn’t charred to a crisp and flaking off. I expected the wounds to be bleeding, but they weren’t. Instead, it was as if whatever was eating away at him was cauterizing them in weird geometric patterns as it went. He didn’t have eyebrows or hair of any kind on his head, arms, or face… His sunken eyes were closed, and he was so eerily still that the only movement came from the fluid dripping steadily into his IV.

  The IV bag was fairly new, and given how much solution was in there, it’d been changed recently. Probably within the last few hours. A chart hung at the end of the bed.

  I slowly made my way down there to pick it up. The first line read: George Allen, condition terminal.

  So, this was the ailing priest Alfred had told me about. After all his lies, I’d thought his existence was just one more of Alfred’s fairy tales. Turned out, not everything he’d said was completely full of shit. Which more or less sucked. Because now I had to reevaluate the rest of our conversations to see if there were any other nuggets of truth hidden in the crap he’d fed me.

  I flipped through the file.

  According to the notes, George had been the one handling the lantern during the process that had merged Duncan and the jinni, and whoever was overseeing George’s treatment believed he’d been exposed to a large dose of unknown radiation or power…he wasn’t quite sure what to call it since it wasn’t something he could quantify.

  They’d tried a new round of drugs to combat the effects that were killing George at an ever-accelerating rate. The new medication, however, hadn’t slowed the process in the slightest.

  The room suddenly became warm, tiny waves of energy emanated from George, and I turned to look at the man. Huge mistake. In that moment, an intense flash of orange surged out of him, rocking me back on my heels. The brilliance of the light burned my eyes, and I clamped my hands over them. Seconds passed, and they stopped hurting. Slowly, I opened them, and the world came back into focus. Several lights on the machine ticked on and it pumped drugs into the tube. A moment later, the monitor blared, and Father George died.

  A cool breeze moved through the room, and the heaviness surrounding me melted away. On a hunch, I took a step to the right. Whatever had fought against me earlier was no longer there. The world had somehow righted itself with George’s demise. I walked around the bed and turned off the alarms.

  Anger bubbled under my skin. This man’s friends had abandoned him here to die in the dark, alone. I picked up the chart and read through it again and found an interesting line: hadn’t worked for the others. They’d known he didn’t stand a chance, yet still chose to leave him here like garbage. Disgusted, I hooked the chart onto the end of the bed and made my way out to check the other stores on this level.

  There were three more corpses on this floor, with room for at least two dozen more. Whoever t
hey were, they’d died a long time ago—all that was left of them was bones. All three corpses were missing their patient files. Which meant the good Father had been important, or they’d just forgotten it when they left him here. Probably the latter, since they clearly didn’t have any loyalty to their fallen brethren.

  The more I learned about the Gotteskinder, the less I liked them.

  I pulled out my phone to take photos of the equipment, bones, and anything else they’d left here. With luck, something would lead me back to these assholes.

  All in all, it took me a good half hour to catalog everything. When I finished, the last thing I wanted to do was trek through this depressing place again. More than anything, I wanted to be anywhere but here, but I’d brought the car, so popping home, or to the office, was out of the question. Still, that didn’t mean I had to walk back through this shithole.

  With a thought, blue flames enveloped me, but a tugging sensation kept me where I was. Odd. I moved out of the room and tried again. This time, after my world turned blue, nothing held me back, and when the flames vanished, I stood next to the Tucker.

  While that was a great thing, it also meant that I needed to search the place again…this time for glyphs. An hour and a half later, I plopped into the driver’s seat more than a little perplexed. As far as I could tell, they hadn’t carved a single enchantment into the walls, I-beams, or roof. Shaking my head, I closed the door and forwarded the address, along with the serial numbers from the medical equipment, to Lieutenant…soon-to-be Captain Baptist.

  With luck, he’d have something for me by morning. I thought about going back to Heather’s, but I needed to test a theory at the church first.

  Twenty minutes later, I pulled up in front of the cathedral. Like at the office, no one was here. Once Alexander surfaced, we’d have to talk about this disappearing act. For now, I strode into the bowels of the church to the room where the Gotteskinder had held Duncan.