The dwarf sighed with obvious relief. “We dealt with them handily—well, you did most of it, I’ll grant you that—but it wasn’t quite easy, was it?”
Taylor opted to not respond to this. Instead, she remarked, “My computer may well have been damaged in the fracas. It will need to be repaired as soon as possible. When we finally meet Moswen herself, I can handle the combat side of things, but in the meantime, I’ll need you to keep my tools in top condition.”
He nodded. “I don’t look forward to meeting this…woman in the flesh, especially not if she has three times as many servants with her at the time.”
“She may,” she admitted. “But the idea, I suspect, is that she intends to meet me first.”
Chapter Eleven
Moonlight Detective Agency Offices, Bushwick, Brooklyn, New York
“Uh-oh,” Remy said as their Uber driver pulled up.
Conrad made a low sound in his throat. “What, sir?”
He dismissed the question with a few flaps of his hand as he didn’t feel like discussing it in front of the driver. The man had been kind enough, thus far, not to ask perfectly understandable questions as to why Conrad was half-naked and barely covered with rags when he’d first climbed in, and had taken them to a twenty-four-hour department store so Remy could quickly buy some replacement clothes. There was no point in pushing the man’s tolerance any further.
Now, the driver parked next to the office and let them out. They thanked him and watched him drive away into the night.
The building was one of the only extant businesses within half a block. As such, it had a distinctly lonely and even eerie look about it at night when its lights stood out glaringly against the general blackness.
In the few parking spaces available to the front and side of the office were Taylor’s black Tesla, as expected, along with a black SUV.
“Okay,” he began and indicated the latter vehicle, “the ‘uh-oh’ was in reference to that right there. No one who works for us drives a goddamn SUV, and no one except Taylor and maybe Volz ought to be here at this hour. So yes, maybe it’s only a customer.”
The lycanthrope frowned and nodded. “Do you think we should go in?”
“Well, yeah,” he retorted. “I’m merely saying be careful and stuff. Ugh, I hope it isn’t the feds.”
It was, unfortunately. As they pushed through the front doors, Remy was half-shocked and half-relieved to see Senior Special Agent Kendra Gilmore of the FBI standing in the middle of the floor and directing two of her usual henchmen, plus a couple of agency medics.
He sighed, ran a hand through his hair, and waited for the inevitable debriefing.
Fortunately, the agent who approached him was one he recognized, a guy named Mortensen and Gilmore’s right-hand man.
“David Remington, also known as Remington Davis,” the fed greeted him. “I was under the impression you worked the day shift. Who is this?” He looked at Conrad, then back at Remy, which suggested that he did not expect the lycanthrope to introduce himself.
“Oh,” Remy began, “he’s Conrad Warfield, my new bodyguard. Can we come in? What the hell happened here?”
The agent seemed to have made a mental note of Conrad’s name and facial features—he probably intended to do a background check on him later—but was already turning back to the scene. “An attack,” was all he said.
“Wow.” Remy sighed. “Really? I would never have guessed, what with the blood everywhere and these guys zipping the body bags. Sorry, it’s been a long day.”
Fortunately, Mortensen was already ignoring him as he returned to helping mop up the carnage.
Taylor stood beside Gilmore while the others loaded corpses onto a cart, and Remy caught the end of their conversation. The agent did most of the talking.
“…will continue to keep the NYPD off your backs, but there’s not much we can do if they arrive on the scene before we do. Particularly now that the chief of police has taken a personal interest in your prior ‘disturbance’ here.”
The vampire’s eyes registered that she noticed Remy approaching, but she kept her gaze on the agent. “Yes, I understand.”
“So,” Gilmore went on, “next time you plan to self-defense the living hell out of Neith’s drugged-up hitmen, you need to let us know ASAP. Or better yet, flee the scene and let us deal with it.”
“I will try,” she responded, “but the nature of ‘surprise attacks,’ such as this one, means that, by definition, I may not have time to call you before preventing myself and my staff from being killed.”
The woman sighed. She was a tall, fortyish woman of mixed heritage, both professional and reasonable, and had thus far proven willing to bend the rules while working with Moonlight Detective Agency on the Moswen situation. Still, being technically a cop, Remy never felt entirely confident that she wouldn’t turn on them once she decided that they’d bent the law a little too far.
She also was not among the initiated. The agent still believed that Moswen was a mortal gangster and that her minions were merely hopped up on drugs.
“Don’t push your luck,” Gilmore chided. “We’re running out of time to take care of this whole mess before the NYPD, not to mention my superiors, start asking too many questions.”
Her subordinates had finished gathering the bodies and now, with a curt nod, she turned away from Taylor and walked toward the door.
Remy waved to her. She inclined her head briefly in his direction but didn’t bother to speak to him. Which was something of a relief, even if it suggested that she thought him far less important than Taylor.
He clapped and rubbed his hands together as the feds disappeared out the front entrance. “So, what did we miss? Pizza? Karaoke?”
The vampire appeared to be dwelling on various inner thoughts and only half acknowledged him. “Moswen’s thralls,” she replied in a low voice. “No one is seriously hurt.”
Conrad, examining the extensive damage to the walls and desks as well as the copious bloodstains, added, “Except them, it would seem.”
Remy looked askance at him. “That’s what usually happens when people try to kill Taylor. I thought you knew who she was.”
“I do,” he replied softly.
He ignored him and approached her. “We had a little excitement ourselves which culminated in an unpleasant but useful discovery. Or a couple of them, really.”
Taylor’s eyes regained their brightness and fixed on him. It seemed she’d finished whatever mental calculation she was doing. “Oh? Have a seat, then, and tell me. You look like you could use a glass of water, by the way.”
“Water,” he muttered, “isn’t exactly what I had in mind, but I’ll take what I can get.”
She turned away from him and shouted toward the back office. “Alex, get Remington a glass of water.”
A few vague mumbles came in response and the Australian, who looked like he’d stepped in from a day job as a graphite miner, shuffled toward the break area. The water cooler, miraculously, had not been damaged in the scuffle.
The vampire looked at Remy. “I think you’ve had enough adult beverages lately. It’s still an improvement over the past, but don’t allow it to creep back up on you. You were doing quite well with your experiment in sobriety for a while.”
“Yeah,” he grumbled. “I’ll be fine.”
Alex hurried to his side and handed him a plastic cup filled to barely below the brim. He thanked the man and drank half the water in one swig. “Conrad, how about you finish the second half?”
“Thank you, sir.” The lycanthrope accepted the cup.
The investigator took a deep breath before he began his account of all he’d discovered.
“First of all,” he stated with an emphatic motion of his hand, “the main, most important conclusion. Surrly has moved into the drug trade, and the shit he’s dealing is so bad even I wouldn’t have touched it at my worst.”
Her eyes widened noticeably, and a tremor of tension went through her. She must hones
tly not have expected to hear that. “Go on. Start at the beginning, and don’t leave out the details.”
Remy continued and paused occasionally to let Conrad confirm what he’d said or add his own two cents’ worth. He had, after all, played a major role in saving his ass and helping to advance the investigation.
“And so,” he concluded, “we finally called another Uber—in Conrad’s name this time, in case someone was looking for me, specifically—and hitched a ride all the way back here. We stopped to get him new clothes on the way since he Incredible-Hulked his old ones while transforming. Somehow, I half-expected that you were dealing with something else this whole time, although I didn’t figure it would be another mook assault.”
Taylor took a moment to assimilate all he’d said. She closed her eyes and moved her head slowly from side to side.
“I almost can’t believe it,” she said in a soft yet grim tone. “Surrly never impressed me as being the most upstanding of persons. He can be greedy, callous, and stubborn, and his ‘lending firm’ has its fingers in a few badly stained pots. But I quite honestly would never have guessed he’d be both this stupid and this…immoral.”
Remy saw the muscles along her jaw tighten and there was a slight shift in her demeanor. He immediately recognized another of the subtle signs he’d learned to interpret since meeting her. It meant she was contemplating someone’s destruction.
“I really have only two rules for the preternaturals in this city,” she went on and her voice deepened. “Do not fuck with humans, and do not fuck with me. By selling new, preternatural-specific drugs to mortals, the cartel is breaking the first and barely toeing the line of the second.”
He stroked his chin. “Well, they fucked with me an hour or so ago, which is almost the same thing as fucking with you, so I’d argue that they pissed all over both.”
She half-nodded. “They had to expect that there would be horrible side effects of that kind and that it would garner far too much attention. Hideous mutations and unnatural deaths amongst humans are exactly what our community doesn’t need.”
Scratching his ear, Remy mused, “Is there any community that does need those things?”
To his surprise, Conrad made a snorting sound—probably an aborted laugh—only to immediately regain his composure.
“Be quiet, Remington,” Taylor snapped. “Some of us are too busy dealing with serious issues to tiptoe around the minefield of every possible smartass remark you could think of.”
He shrugged. “I’ll concede it’s one hell of a big minefield.”
Paying him no heed, she drummed her fingers on her arm. “Dwarves have always had a problem with avarice, but this is a step too far. The cartel has completely lost its mind in the name of profit.”
She paused for a few more seconds to think and then looked at him. “Now, then. You have—once again—done good work in unraveling a criminal conspiracy, but also managed—once again—to draw undue attention to yourself. After your little escapade earlier tonight, you’ve effectively doubled the number of people who want your heart on a plate.”
Remy blinked. “I hadn’t quite looked at it that way, but now that you mention it…”
“The cartel will come after you,” the vampire extrapolated. “They’ll probably try to claim plausible deniability of my involvement since they don’t want me coming after them, so they’ll content themselves with simply murdering you when they think I’m not paying attention and then say they assumed you acted outside my orders.”
“Nonsense.” He scoffed. “If they killed me, you’d totally kick their ass…right?”
Frowning, Taylor said, “Before we get into that, let’s prioritize keeping you alive.”
“Fair enough.” He straightened his tie and noticed his palms were sweating again. Rather than wipe them on his pants, which had taken enough abuse for one night after running through cold mud, he plucked a couple of tissues out of a nearby box.
“With Moswen and her servants,” the vampire continued, “we at least have Alex to provide us with some warning of when they’re about to strike. Dwarves are not usually subtle, but Surrly’s cartel has run clandestine operations for some time now. They could attack you at any unguarded moment. Considering all of this, I’d say the time has come for you to swallow your pride and take residence at my house until the worst of the danger has passed.”
Remy groaned. “Not this again. It’s really not fair to spring an argument on me after a day like today.” He was half-tempted to simply give in to her urgings, only to avoid having to bicker with her.
His pride, however, would not allow him to do that.
“Remy,” said Taylor, “you must understand that—”
“I understand,” he burst out, “that after all the progress I’ve made toward self-sufficiency, putting myself in your care would be a step back. Yes, yes, maybe it would be the ‘safer’ option, but there’s also the future to think about. If I do this now, how much easier will it be next time? Do you expect me to rely on you forever?”
She actually leaned back a few inches at that and must not have considered such a notion.
“No,” she responded. “I do not expect—or want—you to live off my largesse. But that is not exactly what I’m offering. This isn’t secondary-school emotional drama, Remington, and it isn’t office politics, either. It’s strategy. We are at war, and it’s easier for us to win if we all stay alive.”
He rubbed his eyes. “Okay, I grasp that but wait. I propose a compromise. One more day. Give me another twenty-four hours to see if I can resolve the whole dwarven cartel problem. If I can discover where they’re based, we can effectively strike at them before they can retaliate.”
There was a long and fairly intense silence while the vampire considered this.
“And,” he added, “if that works, I can continue with my plan to beef security up at my apartment. Which ought to suffice against a couple of Moswen’s thralls.”
Before either of them could say more, Conrad interjected.
“No matter what,” he stated with a smile, “I’ll continue to protect him as per our contract.”
“Thanks, Conrad,” Remy conceded. “Good point. See? He will be there to help if strictly necessary. And if I can’t deal with things on my own by tomorrow night, I’ll accept your invitation.”
“Deal,” said Taylor. “Of course, I’ll hold you to those terms. Don’t try to renege.”
He snorted. “I’m a poker player. I would never.”
The vampire smiled but it faded abruptly as though something had just occurred to her. “Where is Riley?”
“Oh, hell.” He sighed. “She wandered off in human form at the party. That was the last I saw of her. She’s been doing that lately—flirting with every guy she sees, getting them to buy her shit, and then mysteriously disappearing to the colony. She’s probably fine.”
He wasn’t so sure, though.
“Well,” she replied, “please check on her in the morning. And take her with you, for your own safety.”
Remy agreed. “I think it’s time, though, that Conrad and I got going. I need to pass out.”
“Very well.” She looked a little tired herself. “Where do you plan to start looking for the cartel? Certainly not at Surrly’s Lending. At this point, that would either be a dead end or a trap.”
He paused, already halfway to the exit. “Yeah, yeah, I won’t go there. Let me think it over on the drive home and I’m sure I’ll have a brilliant plan in the morning.” He waved goodbye and reached for the door, Conrad a few paces behind him.
“Wait,” Taylor called. “Come to think of it, Surrly did say a few things, over the years, which implied that he was not, himself, the leader of the cartel.”
The investigator stopped and cocked an eyebrow. “Oh? Well, that’s intriguing.”
“An upper-middle manager, an underboss or caporegime of sorts, and his company was certainly a valuable asset,” the vampire continued, “but ultimately, I always suspe
cted he was taking orders from someone else.”
Chapter Twelve
Port Morris, the Bronx, New York
Starik Grayhammer stood near the edge of the wharf and watched the passage of the sun as it slid above the far horizon. Its journey was reflected over the waters of the Atlantic and the increasing light it gave off as its angle shifted mirrored the waxing of his own anger, which he pictured as a great, fiery ball that cast its illumination over everything around it.
The two groups of dwarves certainly seemed to sense this, given the way they all secretly cringed in fear. He could tell. Their stony-faced facades did not deceive him.
“How much,” he asked and paused deliberately, “of my merchandise was washed away?” He did not address the question to anyone in particular.
Surrly, of course, was the one who answered. He stepped forward, cleared his throat, and tried not to hang his head. “About a quarter of it, my chieftain,” he stated. “No more than thirty percent at most. Perhaps as little as twenty percent. My men were able to save the majority.”
The leader looked at his subordinate’s head. It looked oddly small and fragile. Then again, Starik was the largest known dwarf in New York and possibly even the largest in North America. His height would have been considered “average” by human standards, and his muscular bulk gave him far more weight and mass.
“Twenty percent,” he rumbled and enunciated each word in precisely the way he did when he still had control of his temper, “is not what I would call little. The Order demands detailed explanations for any unexpected loss over five percent.”
His normal speaking voice had often been compared to the sound of distant thunder, and he’d always taken that as a compliment. It went well with his appearance. In addition to his size, he also had both hair and a beard that reached almost to his waist, richly black but shot through with iron-colored streaks. His eyes, beneath his heavy and jutting brow, seemed to change color from black to deep grey, depending on the light.
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