A Girl’s Best Friend (Moonlight Detective Agency Book 3)

by Isobella Crowley

  “I heard most of that,” she said in a soft voice. “They’re coming after us again, aren’t they? I wish we didn’t have to keep fighting them but…well, it makes me think how there are more important things to focus on than…” She trailed off and gestured toward the mall.

  “They are indeed coming for us.” He adjusted his tie and steeled himself. “And, no offense, but this time, I think we need even more backup.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Brooklyn Heights, Brooklyn, New York

  Senior Special Agent Kendra Gilmore stood with carefully schooled calm. She breathed gently but deeply while her mind worked to assess the situation and tease out every possible thing that could go wrong.

  They had already eliminated most of the worst-case scenarios. And, critically, they’d narrowed it down to only this one building, with measures already in place to prevent any suspects from escaping.

  The biggest problem that still remained was one simple fact—they had no goddamn idea exactly what they might encounter in there.

  She turned to her right-hand man. “Mortensen,” she began, “do we have the okay from Officer McLarty? I at least have the impression that he can be relied upon.”

  Currently, she only had access to the five core members of her team. Any more than that would have attracted more scrutiny than she was willing to tolerate right now. They were the best, but for an operation like this, it meant that they had to bring along the NYPD for backup and support.

  In her experience, New York’s finest were generally quite good but there were always a few potential bad apples. The FBI was also not yet ready to share all the details of the situation with the city authorities. There were simply too many complications.

  Mortensen checked his personal device and nodded to his boss. “Yes, ma’am. They’re only waiting on us.” A compact sub-machine gun, one of the newer and more accurate models, hung on a strap from his shoulder. It was loaded and the man might well need it.

  Agent Villareal caught her eye. “Do you think that other guy…I forget his name, K-something, is actually gonna pull through for us?”

  She frowned. “Honestly, I don’t know. But the idea is for it to never come to that, anyway. He’ll be our last resort.”

  The apartment structure before them—one of the smaller of Brooklyn Heights’ old brownstones—would have been nice once, charming and possibly even upscale since it seemed like the kind of place that would have attracted the hipster-yuppie types. But it was currently abandoned and had fallen into disrepair.

  Sweeping the building would be tough. But, on the plus side, there were only two directions that anyone within might be able to escape to—the sides. The rear of the edifice lay against a high dividing wall that effectively cut off any attempt at escape on foot.

  The only way to clear the wall would be to leap out of a third- or fourth-story window. The jumper would plunge into a concrete-lined drainage ditch that was halfway filled with ice-encrusted water.

  Therefore, Officers McLarty and Konstantinos and the two extra cops they’d each brought with them, only had to watch the front, left, and right. And based on the layout, Kendra considered the right the most likely point of egress. Hence, McLarty was there.

  Konstantinos had seemed irritable and half-distracted, in addition to the fact that he was getting old and counted the days till retirement, no doubt. He’d been given the left side, where the suspects would have to crawl out of a bay window lined with broken glass. Or break through another, still-intact window.

  Kendra double-checked her pistol. It was a 9-millimeter, seventeen-round semi-automatic, unflashy but reliable. Villareal carried one too, as did Agent Mgaywa. The fifth member of the team, Agent Gennaro, carried a pump-action police shotgun.

  Between that and Mortensen’s SMG, they ought to have sufficient extra firepower for anything short of a small army or someone in heavy body armor. Neither of which, based on the intel, was even remotely likely.

  McLarty had also promised that they could have a SWAT team with assault rifles there inside five minutes if necessary. She had thanked him but inwardly, could only think that far too much could happen in five minutes.

  “Okay,” she stated, “we’re going in. Villareal, you take the door, Mortensen on point…” She quickly reviewed the rest of the procedure with them, and they ran one last visual check on the building via the camera drone they had hovering around the upper floors’ windows.

  Villareal flung the door open, and Mortensen aimed his gun and went through with Mgaywa behind him. Soon, the rest of them filed in. The lobby was clear.

  Working tightly as a unit, almost a well-honed machine, they proceeded through the first floor, everyone knew their role and executed it properly. She was proud of her team. They’d been together on at least two dozen sweeps like this before and they all trusted one another. There were no weak links.

  Still, with the rising tide of drug-related violence, she sometimes wondered if it was all truly worth the risk.

  Technically, this was simply a missing-persons case. The likely perpetrator had crossed the New Jersey state line, which allowed the FBI to get involved. Then, something about it had caught Agent Gilmore’s particular attention—rumors that a new street drug might be involved.

  One of the individuals was a young man of about twenty-six named Lawrence Hull, a career petty criminal although he’d been out of trouble for the last year or so. The other was a girl of nineteen named Mari Singh. It officially assumed that Mari had eloped with Lawrence romantically and may have been in danger of getting hooked on drugs, sold into prostitution, or simply held in what would probably be an unhealthy or abusive relationship.

  Kendra suspected more than that was going on, though. She already knew for a fact that there were recent occurrences in New York City far beyond what most people could imagine.

  The sweep completed, they congregated around the stairwell leading up, still alert.

  Mortensen nodded to her. “First floor’s clear. Not a single living soul.” He grimaced. “Or a dead one. Nothing at all except a few dusty footprints, which might be two weeks old by now. It’s hard to tell.”

  The building was eerily silent. She chin-gestured to the staircase. “Three floors to go yet.”

  She would much rather have started on the top floor and worked their way down to flush any suspects out to be caught at ground level. The NYPD had waffled and hemmed and hawed about loaning her a helicopter, not to mention that the noise those things made could have potentially sent the suspects fleeing even before they could begin their operation.

  They ascended and promptly moved through the second floor. The results there were the same. This time, however, as they finished and moved toward the stairs, she thought she could hear something up above them—barely, but definitely something.

  The third floor started out equally uneventful although again, the suggestion of a strange noise lay beneath the surface of what her ears could detect. It might have been the building itself creaking as they infiltrated it or her imagination and her nerves. That had happened before but she and her team were not in the business of leaving things to chance.

  “Clear,” Gennaro said of his sector.

  Kendra, in another room, though, had found a mostly empty syringe. A slight residue, white and faintly luminous, coated its interior. She left it where it was, for now, intending to come back and put it in a sample bag on their way out.

  It was far too dangerous to even try to carry with her when combat might still be a possibility. She’d seen that stupid mistake committed before.

  There was now only one apartment remaining on the third floor. She posted Mortensen at the stairwell on the off chance that someone might try to get past them and escape to a higher or lower story, while the other four congregated near the door.

  When she was about to give the order, they heard something within. This time, there was no doubt that it was a voice. It was loud enough that the person making the sound could n
ot possibly have even tried to be stealthy, yet it had a strangely muffled quality to it.

  Weirdly, it almost sounded like someone trying to speak but unable to form human words.

  Sharp glances passed between the operatives before Gennaro, armed as he was with the big scary shotgun, kicked the door down.

  Something burst out and tackled him and the two sprawled in an ungainly heap.

  “Shit!” Villareal exclaimed.

  All of them sprang into action, their guns up, and barely resisted the urge to simply spray bullets in the general direction of the chaos. Three or four other forms, all gleaming with a strange whiteness, barreled out of the apartment.

  Before Kendra could seize control of the situation, one of them was practically on top of her.

  She fell back two steps but kept herself firmly balanced as she tried to get a bead on the fast-moving shape. The druggie who attacked her was dressed in rags. His flesh seemed oddly bulging and chalky-looking and his veins gave off a slight radiance the color of fresh snow.

  A wall loomed behind her back, and she squeezed off a single shot before the mutated attacker’s fist came toward her face.

  She ducked and rolled and knew the bullet had struck true because blood already ran down the junkie’s chest. But a single 9-millimeter round was clearly not enough.

  The man’s foot lashed out, brushed her side, and jarred her off-course. Suddenly, he loomed over her, his face twisted with animalistic fury and hands contorted into claws.

  A shotgun boomed and the junkie screamed and staggered aside, blood flowing from a huge hole above his hip. Gennaro stood with his weapon smoking.

  Kendra bolted toher feet and gestured at the rest of the battle. “Help them.”

  The two of them plunged into the melee.

  There were at least six or seven in total and besides the one Gennaro had eliminated, two more had fallen. But the mutants were relentless, and all five of the team were slowly driven back toward the stairwell.

  The instant she had a clear shot, Kendra unloaded half her magazine into the chest and head of one of them. The woman rattled and convulsed as she fell back through the doorway of an empty room.

  Beside her, another one launched from a wall and landed beside Mortensen. His SMG raised in the same moment but somehow, the mutant was quicker. The clawing, whitened hands snatched the gun and hurled it savagely against the wall. It discharged a single shot, which ricocheted down the hallway.

  The two combatants engaged at the same time. Mortensen stepped in and aimed the heel of his palm toward the attacker’s chin while he moved his feet to trip the enemy as soon as the blow was struck. Simultaneously, the mutant simply lunged.

  The agent fell with the other on top of him and the crazed druggie seized his head to batter it against the floor.

  “No!” Kendra cried, surged forward, and brought her knee toward the mutant’s face. Her patella drove into the attacker’s cheek and jaw and he toppled and mewled in pain. His jaw hung half-broken and teeth spilled from his mouth. He rolled over backward and somehow, vaulted to his feet, his eyes burning with primitive anger, ready to return the favor.

  She raised her pistol and fired two rounds into the mutant’s upper face. His forehead caved in and he toppled with a wet thud and twitched.

  Gennaro’s shotgun had intimidated two of them into temporarily backing away. In the ensuing pause, Mgaywa and Villareal both fired on another one and dropped him where he stood.

  One of the two backing away snarled and swept in at Gennaro from an angle. He punched him in the side hard enough to make him yelp and hurled him into the wall.

  Mortensen, by now, had retrieved his weapon, made sure it wasn’t jammed, and raised it. He opened fire on full auto to shred his fellow agent's attacker with a dozen rounds before he stepped in to help corral the rest of them.

  More shots were fired and suddenly, when it seemed the last two of the augmented derelicts would fall, one of them seized a long piece of the splintered door and careened into the midst of the agents. He howled and swung the wooden blade around his head to force Kendra away from the others.

  The second one grasped her by the throat and thumped her against the wall.

  A strangled cry escaped her as the air was thrust violently from her lungs. Already, she could feel her throat and windpipe burn with pain. Her vision began to go out of focus and she’d dropped her pistol, but her left hand fell to her belt and drew her knife.

  She forced herself to remain calm—even though the mutant opened his mouth to bite her throat—took a split second to think, then aim, then strike.

  The blade sank hilt-deep into the man’s armpit. His arm fell away from her throat and he stumbled back and shrieked in pain. She yanked the blade free and stabbed again, then a third time into the torso.

  As her attacker thrashed into the hallway, Mortensen and Mgaywa both circled and opened fire. Their guns crackled and the mutant fell almost instantly.

  Finally, it was quiet. All their ears rang.

  “Jesus,” Villareal gasped.

  Kendra coughed, massaged her throat, and fought the pain back as the ability to breathe returned to her. She blinked through the tears and examined her surroundings. No member of her team was dead. Gennaro was limping, though. The strike he’d taken had internal bleeding written all over it.

  “Get—” She gasped. “Medics—Gennaro. We need to—finish, fourth floor—”

  Two of the cops waiting outside had already entered the building to aid them after the racket of the firefight, and they escorted the injured agent out to get him into urgent care. They also noted the bodies of the mutated junkies. A major cleanup operation was forthcoming.

  Mgaywa took Gennaro’s shotgun. Everyone else reloaded.

  “Ma’am,” Mortensen inquired, “are you okay?”

  “Yes,” she replied. Her voice had returned somewhat to normal by now although it was a little husky and painful to talk. “Come on.”

  The fourth floor was empty and for that, they all gave thanks to whatever powers they might have believed in. One fight with these…people had been more than enough.

  Soon, the flashing lights of even more official vehicles glowed outside on the street as body bags and cameras and first-aid kits were brought in. And, of course, someone located the discarded syringes and bagged them for analysis.

  Leaned against a wall for a moment’s breath, Kendra wiped some of the blood and sweat from her face.

  This was not the first time they’d seen this. Only two days before, they’d tangled with another ill-fated junkie who shot himself up with this awful shit, and he’d been almost as violent and deranged as these. With five against one, they’d assumed they could take him alive, but he had jumped out a window and broken his skull and spine on the pavement below.

  She only thanked God that it hadn’t happened someplace crowded.

  But things were getting worse already. This was the first time they’d been outnumbered. And either the potency or the quantity of the drug was greater today than anything they’d encountered previously.

  Snow White was in the early stages of becoming an epidemic. It had spread upstate, into New Jersey, and probably into Connecticut as well.

  Kendra Gilmore had seen some horrible things in her time, but this essentially took the cake. She could almost understand why some people had begun—unwisely—to whisper that the drug was supernatural in origin. Almost.

  More likely, it contained an obscure bioluminescent agent that caused the odd glow or maybe even a radioactive isotope. Some poor bastards would put anything in their bodies if they thought it’d get them high.

  Snow White’s bizarre nature reminded her of what she’d heard previously about how agents of Moswen Neith’s crime syndicate had, it seemed, augmented their physical abilities with the use of experimental drugs stolen from the Israeli government.

  They didn’t have the evidence yet but she would not be surprised in the slightest if a link between the two tur
ned up.

  “She’ll pay for this,” she said through gritted teeth. A paramedic glanced at her but continued his examination of Mortensen.

  Agent Gilmore, for her part, pulled her phone out and relocated to a side room, where she could have a little more privacy to talk to one of her contacts.

  Taylor, however, did not answer the call.

  “Where is she?” Kendra wondered. “She hasn’t replied to anything lately.” She looked out the window at the lights twinkling all over New York’s myriad buildings and wondered how many other drug houses were convening groups of addicts to commit mass suicide.

  The agent turned away. For all Taylor’s reputation as someone who looked out for this city, she’d made herself awfully scarce while the whole town seemed to be falling to shit.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  A Hidden Location

  Her servants, so gratifyingly numerous now, milled around and cringed and chattered amongst themselves in barely contained dread. They could feel the power of her pain and anger. For the moment, she ignored them.

  Moswen walked as normally as she could. Taylor had torn a large strip of muscle from her left calf, which made it difficult. There were also deep, gouged bites in her neck and ragged slashes along her chest, back, and arms.

  The smaller, younger vampire may not have possessed Moswen’s great strength, old-world wisdom, or intimidating bearing of regality, but she had fought with the ferocious tenacity of a cornered animal.

  She would never have admitted it out loud, of course, but she had underestimated her opponent. Stupid beasts could sometimes make dangerous foes. Taylor was an animal, one which Moswen was now, more than ever, determined to hunt and kill.

  One of her thralls, a female collected from a homeless shelter by two other thralls, crept forward, fearful for herself but also legitimately concerned. “Mistress, are you all right?” she asked and her hands trembled over her chest.