The Vigiles Urbani Chronicles- Year One

by Ken Lange

  Pointing at his broken face, I said, “You’ve got a little something…well, all over.”

  The bricks had cut deep gouges into his flesh, and blood freely ran onto his chest.

  Then a less-than-fun thing occurred: all his wounds healed and disappeared.

  He closed the distance between us and struck out with a jab that landed solidly against my chest. Staggering back, I blocked the next blow and brought my knee up into his gut. When he doubled over, I punched him in the ear, and he hit the ground with a nasty crack.

  Phineas kicked back, catching me in the stomach, sending me skidding across the room into the opposite wall. He stalked over to me, shouting several different curses in Hebrew along the way. When he was close enough, I spun around to take his legs out from under him. He went down with a thud.

  My boot landed hard against his chest and bounced him off the nearby wall. He latched onto my leg, pulled himself up, and used his head as a battering ram against my chin. I staggered back while he hammered his fists into my chest. I brought my arms up to block the onslaught. Using my height against him, I pushed him back several inches before driving my elbow into his nose, breaking it.

  He grimaced as he reset his nose. “Give up already. You can’t win.”

  The bleeding stopped, and the bruises on his face faded before my eyes.

  I sighed. “Thing is, I can. If you continue to force the issue, I’m going to hurt you.”

  Ignoring me, he stepped forward and aimed another punch at my head. I moved to the side, caught his arm and snapped it at the elbow. Spinning him around, I smashed my arm into his chest, lifted, and hurled him to the floor. The impact cracked a number of the floorboards, not to mention several ribs.

  He didn’t move for several seconds, and I thought he was dead, but then he let out a small groan as air returned to his lungs. I knelt and removed the bracelets. They’d made sure he would live, but now playtime was over, and he needed to take it down a notch.

  Chapter 27

  It’d been my original plan to bring Phineas in on my own to prevent my people from being exposed to anything potentially dangerous. But now that he was slightly broken and having a difficult time breathing, I thought it best to phone a friend—or two, in this case. I sent a text to Alexander and Captain Baptist. With the two of them, I was confident we’d be able to handle what was left of the situation here without any further bloodshed. Okay, I was more hopeful than anything, but the odds were in my favor.

  Alexander was the first to arrive. He stood out on the sidewalk for several seconds before walking up to the door, sniffing the air the entire way.

  Opening the door, I waved him in. “Everything all right?”

  He shook his head. “Did you kill someone?”

  I chuckled. “No. Phineas is alive, if slightly bloody, in the living room. Why do you ask?”

  He hesitated. “How bloody?”

  I shrugged. “Broken nose, busted lip, couple of broken ribs…that sort of thing.”

  Alexander frowned. “So, not a total mess?”

  Confused, I asked, “No…what’s up?”

  He inhaled deeply. “All I’ve been able to smell since getting here is stale blood…lots of the stuff.”

  I waved him in. “Any chance you’re wrong?”

  He grimaced. “Doubtful.” Stepping over the threshold, he stumbled and put his hand to the wall to keep himself upright. “What the hell?”

  I grabbed his shoulder, but it was all I could do to make sure he stayed on his feet. “What’s wrong?” Then it hit me. “Oh shit, I guess he wasn’t kidding about the charms on the place.”

  All the color left his face and he held tight to my arm. “No shit.”

  It took me a minute to help him over to the sofa, where he sat and took several deep breaths.

  I went to the kitchen and got him a glass of water. “Here. Drink this.”

  He sipped it for several seconds then nodded. “I’ll be all right.” He trembled. “This place is creepy as hell.” Flexing his fingers, he nodded. “I’m starting to feel…better. Not good, but at least I’m not going to lose my dinner. Probably.”

  I patted him on the back. “Good.”

  Baptist parked in front of the house.

  Gesturing at the door, I said, “Sit tight. I need to warn Baptist.”

  Alexander simply nodded.

  I hurried out front to meet him. “Evening. Thanks for coming.” I thumbed over my shoulder. “You should be warned that there are some serious enchantments on the house. Alexander isn’t coping well with them.”

  Baptist nodded. “I’ll be fine.”

  I arched an eyebrow. “You sure?”

  He smiled. “Da. Let’s see if we can’t get the two of them out of there. I’m sure Alexander, for one, will be thrilled to be anywhere else.”

  I chuckled. “Probably.”

  Baptist swept past me and stepped into the house. There he paused and glanced around. “This is very strange. It’s unlike any sort of magic I’ve encountered before.”

  “That doesn’t sound promising.” I moved up beside him and pointed into the living room. “Phineas is in there.”

  Baptist moved into the next room and lifted him with one hand. “Time to go.” He reached over and helped Alexander to his feet. “Would you mind escorting our prisoner to the precinct?”

  Alexander stifled a dry heave. “If it means getting out of here, not in the slightest.”

  We helped the men outside, and as soon as we were in the yard, Alexander promptly puked into the grass.

  Wiping his mouth, he stood up and let out a long breath. “That’s better.” He gave Baptist a curious look. “Gavin said he needed to warn you about the enchantments. Aren’t you human?”

  Baptist glanced at me. “You didn’t tell him?”

  I shook my head. “It’s not my place to tell your secrets.”

  He smiled. “Thank you. But since the doctor knows, he’ll tell Henri, who’ll tell Kim…it’s going to get out.” He turned to Alexander. “I’m a Domovoi.”

  Alexander blinked. “I thought they were a myth.”

  He shook his head. “As I’m standing here, we can both agree that I’m real.”

  Alexander frowned. “True.” He shivered. “As for your secret getting out, it won’t be from me.” He reached for Phineas. “I’ve got it from here. Thank you for getting me out of there.”

  Baptist nodded. “Not a problem. I’ll send my people a text and let them know you’re on the way.”

  Alexander gave him a slight bow. “Thank you.” He didn’t bother with the niceties as he perp-walked Phineas to his old Scout and tossed him into the backseat.

  Stepping up to the driver’s side window, I said, “Alexander.”

  He turned to me. “Yes?”

  “I’d appreciate it if he isn’t too busted up when I see him next.”

  He nodded. “Understood.” Alexander turned the ignition and idled off down the street.

  We made our way back inside the house and Baptist gestured at the stairs. “Have you had a chance to check the place out yet?”

  I shook my head. “Not really. The best I could do was a cursory once-over while I waited.” Grabbing Phineas’s keys off the table by the stairs, I said, “There were a couple of locked rooms, but I’m hoping these will help with that.”

  He eyed the keys and nodded. “Sounds good.” He pointed down the hall. “I’ll check down here since you clearly have designs on the upper level.”

  I let out a long breath. “I have to admit, I’m curious what he’d feel the need to lock up.”

  Baptist nodded. “I’ll be up shortly.”

  After climbing the stairs, I passed what had to be the master bedroom on my way to the sealed doors just down the landing. It took a few seconds of fiddling with the keys to find the correct one, only to discover a very ordinary looking office-slash-library, even if it was a massive thing.

  Against the far wall sat a large desk made from some sort of
hardwood that’d been stained a deep brown and polished to a glossy finish. All four walls were lined with books from floor to ceiling, which was some thirteen feet high. And that was it.

  Well, that was anticlimactic. I was half tempted to try the next room instead, but that would’ve been less than thorough on my part.

  Taking a deep breath, I forced myself to stay and at least rummage through the desk. I was about halfway across the room when the knickknacks caught my attention. What I’d originally mistaken for a model skull turned out to be the real thing. Someone had taken a great deal of time to carve an intricate pattern across its surface and inlay the lines with tiny script.

  When my hand landed on the back of the chair, a chill ran up my spine. It took my conscious mind a few seconds to pick up on what my subconscious was telling me. Even though it’d been stretched out and sewn together, the leather was made from dozens of faces…human faces. Not wanting to touch it any more than necessary, I used my foot to push it to the side. I would either kneel on the floor or find a chair not made of people to sit in if this took too long.

  To the side of the skull were several canine teeth, which I was going to assume were from weres. I glanced back at the chair… Someone had killed enough weres to make a chair and god knew what else.

  Forcing myself to move on from the grisly collection, I focused on the desk. The first drawer contained several handwritten journals, which I quickly rifled through before placing them on the desktop. There were a number of files in the next—he had one for me, Andrew, Heather, Isidore, and several others.

  On the other side, he had a stack of cash, a fake passport, and enough paperwork to create a convincing change of identity. Finally, in the center drawer, there were pens, paper, and a single key in the clip tray.

  I pocketed the key and made my way around the room, slowly taking in all the book titles. It was a library devoted to torturing and killing those with power, mostly weres and sorcerers.

  A soft rap on the door told me that Baptist had finished downstairs. “Find anything?”

  I frowned and gestured at the desk. “Unfortunately.”

  His gaze fell on the chair. “Is that—”

  “People,” I finished for him.

  He suddenly didn’t look well. “That’s…unnerving.”

  I pulled a book called Gutting Werewolves and Other Pests. “The library is equally fun.” Opening it up, I stopped at a sketch. “This one has a step-by-step tutorial.”

  Anger flared in his eyes. “That’s fucked up.”

  I nodded. “Couldn’t agree more.” I pointed at the wall. “The kicker is, I haven’t even gotten to the next room.”

  He frowned. “That’s not promising.”

  “Yeah.”

  We spent another fifteen minutes going through the library only to find that the titles, and the contents, got darker.

  Frustrated, I thumbed out to the hall. “Let’s go see what sort of fucked-up shit he’s got next door.”

  Baptist sighed. “I’m not sure I want to know.”

  I shrugged. “You can stay here if you want. But I have to know what we’re dealing with.”

  He gestured at the room around us. “I’ve got a fairly good idea what type of man he is.”

  Nodding, I said, “Point taken. But I’ve got to know. It isn’t as if we can send random people through here. The house strips them of their powers, and god knows what else they’ll find that’s equally dangerous.” I pulled out the bracelets Phineas had worn. “Like these, for instance.”

  He frowned. “What are they?”

  “Hell if I know, but they made him strong, fast, and heal so quickly that having his face gouged open by some bricks didn’t faze him.”

  His expression darkened. “Okay. I’m going to regret this, but let’s see what’s behind door number two.”

  After unlocking the door, I pushed it open, and wished I hadn’t. The floor was tiled white in one-inch squares, while the walls and ceiling were lined with stainless steel. A large wash basin and a bunch of metal shelves holding an untold number of preserved specimens dominated the perimeter of the room. In the center, right above an industrial drain, stood what could’ve been a dental chair—if they came with restraints for the neck, arms, hands, torso, legs, and feet. Next to the chair was a set of gruesome tools that varied in age from the early nineteenth century to modern scalpels.

  The medical equipment hardly looked like standard fare. If I had to guess, they’d had these things custom made to cause the most amount of pain possible before death. While I’d thought the library was awful, this…this was significantly worse.

  Near the rear of the room, a metal ladder went up to a small entry that led into the attic. What was curious was the inaccessible six-by-three-foot metal door in the ceiling next to it. Something about it made my skin crawl.

  Even so, I climbed the ladder, pushed aside the access panel, and made my way into the attic. When I turned, I froze. Not far away, a man was strapped to a metal stretcher, with ancient padlocks holding the restraints in place. A half-dozen tubes running out of him were slowly bleeding him dry. An IV kept him hydrated, and the thing down his throat appeared to be his source of nutrition.

  It took me several seconds to work out what was going on. Phineas was using this man’s blood to power the glyphs around the house. That was why they were so powerful, and why it’d affected Alexander so badly.

  Baptist gasped when he climbed in after me. “What in the name of god was he doing here?”

  I pointed at the tubes dripping blood into silver containers. “Powering the house.”

  Baptist nearly vomited on the spot. “We’ve got to get him out of there.”

  I reached into my pocket and walked over to the unconscious man. The key I’d found in the desk fit the locks. I wasn’t sure what the odds were that we’d be able to get him out of here safely, but we had to try. We disconnected him from everything but the IV and tube running down his throat, and Baptist found the lever to lower him to the floor below. I helped carry him out to Baptist’s cruiser, and he took him to Touro. I did the only thing I could and called Kim to let her know what we’d found.

  Chapter 28

  May 9th

  I spent the next several hours rummaging through the douchebag’s office. While there were more than a few things that pissed me off, I did find some things extremely educational. As I’d suspected, the asshole was a stickler for documentation, especially when it concerned the Gotteskinder’s activity within the city. Turned out, this trait wasn’t restricted to him—his entire family appeared to be meticulous note takers.

  His great-great-grandfather, for instance, had a journal that chronicled the founding of the organization. According to his account, Jacob’s lover was brutally murdered in their home while Jacob was away at university doing research.

  The man’s sister, Chandra, had traveled to the university to tell Jacob of her brother’s demise at the hands of a powerful werewolf. He was enraged, and with some coaxing by Chandra, he’d become hellbent on destroying all the weres, along with every other person with abilities. My guess was the sister was Chandra Raghnailt. The thing that bugged me was, why?

  The only answer that made sense was that the Black Circle had wanted to create an additional buffer between themselves and the Archive. While they hadn’t been interested in a direct conflict at the time, they’d used the Gotteskinder to weaken our defenses. It was clever, and horrific.

  One of the most interesting tidbits of information was that while they had one goal—the eradication of anyone with supernatural powers—there were two schools of thought on how to proceed. The first were the hardliners that made up the majority of the Gotteskinder. They were devoted to their cause but would only use subterfuge and assassination to accomplish their goals. While it’d proved effective in some cases, it wasn’t putting much of a dent in the Archive itself.

  The second group, called Das Leuchtfeuer, wanted to step up their efforts and bring the wa
r to our front door. Unlike the others, they were willing to use any weapon available to them. Which meant they’d employ anyone who hated the Archive, use enchantments…hell, I was betting if they ever got their hands on a nuke, they’d throw that into the mix as well. There wasn’t anything these guys wouldn’t do to accomplish their goals.

  Thanks to these two different approaches, the Gotteskinder had always been fractured, but things had taken a decided turn for the worse thirty years ago. That was when Phineas’s father agreed with the core beliefs of the Gotteskinder and refused to use anything his family had created to fight the ongoing holy war. Even going as far as to try to destroy the magic protecting the house.

  Phineas was home on Christmas break from medical school. They’d argued, and when his father had gone to sleep that night, he’d injected him with an untraceable poison the Gotteskinder had perfected. He’d then spoken to the others in Das Leuchtfeuer and convinced them they needed to step up. They created Hirtenlicht, bought the house, and started gathering the tools they believed were needed to go on a full-scale assault.

  In order to repair the damage his father had done to the house, he quietly sought the help of an enchanter. Not long after, Ruth Miller showed up at his doorstep, alleging to be a friend of his great-grandfather. She claimed to have fixed the sigils around the home, but to make the repairs complete, he’d need to acquire a were.

  She’d strapped him into the contraption we found in the attic. He was to be slowly bled out to power the new glyphs around the structure. This process would have to be renewed every thirty years to ensure maximum protection. She’d promised to return at that point to perform the blood ritual again.

  The more I learned, the angrier I became.

  On a positive note, Phineas had just as many files on the opposing faction as he had on us. Obviously, he distrusted them nearly as much as he did the Archive, and while the files were a few years out of date, they did, however, contain an address at the edge of the Quarter: 859 Dumaine. I’d have to pay them a visit soon to see if anyone was home. If they were, they’d need to be relocated. Whether that meant a cell or a body bag would be totally up to them.