Goddammit. He punched wildly at the woman, only to encounter thin air before she reappeared behind him. Goddamn everything.
He rolled forward and barely dodged a lightning kick she’d aimed toward his neck.
“I only want the statue!” he cried. “Give it to me. She’ll fucking kill me otherwise.”
Taylor paused for the space of about a heartbeat, and Alex poised himself across from her, ready to fight again if he had to.
“You’re not from around here,” she stated. “You don’t belong. And she will not even have the chance to kill you.”
She advanced and he suddenly felt his bowels turn to liquid and his bladder to ice. He had to get the hell out of there, and now.
He jumped back without looking and relied on his enhanced strength to save him if anything was in the way. His only thought was to flee from the vampire.
A tiny part of his mind suggested that Taylor might have already ripped him in half if she was determined to end his life and that it was possible she was simply trying to intimidate him into surrendering.
The notion was easily dismissed. The cold, merciless determination she projected did not inspire him to take any further risks.
Alex dropped partially to one knee, pretended to be even more badly injured than he was, and slid his right hand out of sight as she glided toward him on the left. His fingers crunched concrete and gathered residual dust and gravel from the street.
“Fuck you!” he snarled and hurled the detritus at her face.
It worked—or, at least, as well as he needed it to. She hadn’t expected such a cheap move and she stopped and almost fell back a step as she raised a hand to her eyes.
In the second it took her to recover, he had already bolted.
He sprinted, loped, scrambled, and stumbled. Concrete and asphalt blurred beneath him. He bowled through trash cans and lampposts, hurdled moving cars which honked or screeched their brakes, ricocheted off brick walls, and even crashed through the windows of vacant apartments. Quite simply, he did whatever it took to put as much of the city as he could between himself and his opponent.
At first, Taylor pursued him and he caught fleeting glimpses of her lithe form hopping from shadow to shadow or stopping to ascertain where he’d fled. But soon, she fell behind.
Once his desperate, brute-force retreat gained him a lead, he slowed enough to leave a less obvious trail.
Somehow, he didn’t think she would prioritize him. If he kept moving, she would be content to return to her lair with her prize.
Alex worked his way south and soon reached the East River. He crossed it to stop on Roosevelt Island before he continued into Brooklyn and from there, to Queens. Finally, he arrived at his shitty motel. It had never occurred to him that he’d be so grateful to see the place.
Now, I need to make sure I didn’t sustain any terminal injuries in that shitshow and find a way to stop Moswen from killing me remotely in the meantime. And think up some final, insane ploy that will satisfy her will and save my arse. No problem.
Chapter Thirteen
Bushwick, Brooklyn, New York
Agent Kendra Gilmore paused on the curb and studied the façade of the Moonlight Detective Agency’s relatively modest office building. The sun had set about an hour before. Somehow, she suspected the place might look even humbler during the day. In the gloom of evening, though, it commanded a modicum of respect.
“So,” Agent Villareal queried, “what level of cooperation do we expect here, ma’am?”
She considered the question. “Uncertain. Open hostility is unlikely. They’ll probably try to dodge giving us real answers, though. Keep an eye on things and let me do most of the talking.”
While she had originally considered bringing her entire team, that would look too much like a paramilitary occupation of Ms Steele’s office. Instead, she’d only selected Villareal, Mortensen, and Gennaro, and Mgaywa would wait in the car. Four federal agents seemed like enough to get the point across.
They pushed through the front doors, noted the security cameras, and found themselves in a small but brightly-lit, reasonably cozy reception lobby.
“Hi!” a woman greeted them. “Nice to see you guys. I hope you didn’t have trouble finding the place. My name is Roberta Diaz, but you can call me Bobby. Everyone does.”
Kendra smiled curtly. “Not at all. Finding the place, I mean.”
Ms Diaz, she saw, wore a barely professional top that exposed at least half of her impressively large, round breasts. She also saw out of the corner of her eye that the gazes of her subordinates were drawn toward their hostess.
The woman had arrayed several trays of snacks and drinks on a long table against the wall. Crackers and cheese, deli meats, veggies and dip, and sliced fruit were placed within easy reach next to a bowl of bright red punch and a stack of plastic cups. A folding table and chairs were a little farther ahead on the open floor.
“Help yourselves.” Bobby gestured toward the refreshments.
The three men glanced at Kendra. She nodded and they smiled and dug in before they almost immediately turned in the general direction of the young woman’s chest.
Kendra looked, instead, at her face. “Thank you for the hospitality. May I ask if Ms Steele is ready to speak to me?”
“Sure.” Bobby pointed down the hallway. “She’s in her office, right over there. You can go and talk to her whenever you’re ready.”
“Good.” She smiled faintly and scanned the floorspace around her. Another office opened toward the side of the building. It probably belonged to Steele’s assistant, she assumed. A maintenance closet and a unisex restroom carried signs denoting their purpose. Security cameras monitored them from the corners of the ceiling.
She exchanged a quick glance with Mortensen, who had at least joined her in examining their surroundings before he allowed himself to become entranced by Bobby.
“So,” Gennaro quipped to the receptionist, “how is it, working here? This neighborhood’s better these days, isn’t it?” His gaze appeared to have been stuck somewhere in her cleavage.
Nodding and hoping this wasn’t all a trap, Kendra walked toward the big office in the back. She whispered, “I hope this doesn’t take too long,” into the microphone hidden in her lapel, which was a signal to Mgaywa that everything was fine so far.
She rapped on the door. “Hi, it’s Agent Gilmore. Ms Steele?”
“Come in,” a soft voice replied.
Kendra turned the knob and stepped inside. The office beyond was furnished in a tasteful, comfortable, and unremarkable style, with a jasmine plant and a decent print of some abstract modern art piece. The bizarre scene at the Guggenheim flashed again in the agent’s mind.
A nice faux-leather chair faced the desk. She seated herself and looked across at Taylor.
The vampire kept her face on the pleasant side of neutral as she watched Agent Gilmore sit. She avoided turning her head since she wore an earbud, albeit a well-camouflaged one. Remington had wanted to participate in the interview, but she felt it better to keep it one-on-one.
She’d compromised, though, by allowing her partner to listen in on the conversation with an earbud of his own. Of course, if the other agents broke down the door of his office and discovered what he was doing, he’d be entirely on his own and she would claim she’d never have permitted such a thing.
Now, however, she focused her attention on her guest.
Gilmore was a tall, healthy-looking, mixed-race woman with curly light-brown hair tied back. Her face had a youthful appearance that made it difficult to judge her age. She could have been anywhere between twenty-nine and forty-nine in human years. Her demeanor suggested a subdued toughness and an intelligent, determined competence.
Being mortal, she was not in Taylor’s league but she was probably someone to be respected.
The vampire smiled. “It’s good to see you, Agent Gilmore. Bobby ought to keep your team entertained so we can speak for as long as you feel is necessary. A
nd we intend to cooperate with your investigation to the best of our ability, so your man in the car can come in and have refreshments, too, if he wants.”
Her visitor did not react in any obvious fashion. She had good control of herself. “Thank you, Ms Steele. I noted that you had an impressive system of cameras in place. That’s always wise for any urban office, I feel. Especially since you handle cases for such wealthy clients. I heard some of them even pay in cash.”
Taylor nodded. The agent had probably done her homework although, in part, her words were a bluff to see how she would react. She would quickly learn that she was not the only one with a poker face.
“Of course.” She folded one red-nailed hand over the other on the desk. One of her nails was a little chipped from cutting through the glass of the Guggenheim’s skylight.
Kendra was the first to continue the conversation.
“Now, then. As I briefly mentioned, I am investigating the individual who attacked your employee in Times Square. I might like to speak to him at some point. For now, though, I’d be content simply to know if you have any information that might be of use to us. We understand that your clients expect confidentiality and we’re not interested in their affairs beyond any bearing they might have on our current cases.”
“I see,” she acknowledged. “Yes, my clients pay well to have their privacy respected since we often help them with highly personal matters. However, I certainly don’t want anyone else attacked the way my assistant was. Perhaps, then, we can exchange enough information to be of mutual benefit.”
A minor flicker of irritation passed over Gilmore’s face, probably because she had implied that her small, private company had the right to demand quid pro quo from a federal agency.
Taylor was unsurprised, therefore, that the woman moved quickly to establish dominance by playing one of her bigger cards.
“Perhaps,” the woman said. “We believe the Times Square attacker may be connected to—or even the same person as—the individual who burglarized the Guggenheim Museum. Eyewitness reports of the perpetrator’s methods and abilities seemed far too similar to be a coincidence.”
The vampire adjusted her expression to look grave and concerned. Inwardly, she almost laughed. Both of them knew exactly who had perpetrated the Guggenheim heist. She was almost starting to like the agent now.
Remy whispered into her earbud. “Crap. They’re onto us. Does that mean they think you’re the one who put on the ski mask and kicked my ass?”
Ignoring his foolish commentary, she merely said, “You may be right. We still don’t know who the Times Square attacker is or if they’re connected to the cases we’re working. May I ask why the FBI is taking an interest in these matters?”
Gilmore’s face suggested, subtly, that she was almost starting to like Taylor, too.
“Well,” the agent began, “I’ll be frank with you. We believe that both these incidents may be connected with a dangerous overseas syndicate.”
Taylor cocked an eyebrow. “Overseas, you say? I was under the impression that your bureau only dealt with domestic matters.”
She nodded. “Our prime suspects, currently codenamed Ein Avdat after a canyon west of the Dead Sea, are based in Israel. However, their activities have fallen under FBI jurisdiction for two reasons.”
“Do tell.” Secretly, she was fairly confident she already knew, but hearing Gilmore confirm her suspicions would be useful.
“One,” the agent explained, “some of their activities have affected individuals with dual US-Israeli citizenship. We are allowed to investigate crimes committed against American citizens who happen to be living abroad.”
Taylor made a show of widening her eyes as if this surprised her. “Interesting. Yes, I believe I heard something to that effect, come to think of it.”
“And two,” Gilmore went on, “as you might have guessed, certain suspicious activities connected to Ein Avdat have been traced here to New York City.”
“I did guess,” she quipped and allowed herself to smirk a bit. “Perhaps you’re not allowed to tell, but I’ll ask anyway. Do you have any idea who this Ein Avdat person, or group, or whatever they are, may be? And what their motive is?”
The agent tensed slightly. Most humans wouldn’t have caught it, so again, Taylor had to admit that the woman was good at keeping control of her reactions. Still, between her vampiric senses and many, many years of experience, the telltale markers were apparent.
“I cannot,” the agent stated, “divulge all the information, as I’m sure you can appreciate. Suffice it to say that they are very likely to be some element of organized crime. Israel has at least sixteen extant criminal families, some of which have ties to operations in other countries, not least the US.”
This was mostly review for Taylor, but she wasn’t up to date on all the details of human international mobs. Learning more about them might help point her in the appropriate direction to investigate what ties these groups might have with the preternatural.
Gilmore continued her spiel. “In the 1980s—slightly before my time, really, and probably before yours too—a New York affiliate of the Israeli Mafia perpetrated a massive jewelry heist in Manhattan. Following that, around the year 2000, the Abergil crime family was implicated in trafficking seven million dollars’ worth of ecstasy pills into the US.”
“That is disturbing,” the vampire remarked. “Although international crime never seems to go away.”
“Exactly. Many of the top criminals there have killed each other in feuds, by now, or been arrested by the Israeli police, but someone always comes along to fill the void. We believe that Ein Avdat may be the next big player on the scene, and we intend to stop them before they can gain a foothold in New York—or anywhere else in America.”
She seemed to hesitate before she elaborated further. “Ein Avdat is suspected of involvement in several murders in Israel, and one of the victims was a dual US citizen. They’ve also drained the wealth of prominent families in both countries. It’s possibly outright theft, but we think extortion is more likely. The evidence suggests that they’re building up a power base to expand in New York City and beyond.”
Taylor had not, while examining Gilmore, detected any clear signs of deception. The woman was telling the truth to the best of her ability. Of course, she was withholding all but the broadest information but she wasn’t flat-out lying.
That meant the human authorities assumed this was a mundane criminal matter. Someone higher up the totem pole might suspect preternatural involvement, but the agents working the case thought they were dealing with regular mobsters.
She leaned back in her chair and affected a friendly and open attitude. “I admire your dedication, Agent Gilmore. We are in slightly different lines of work but have a shared commitment to uncovering certain dark secrets that may threaten innocent people.”
Gilmore smiled with legitimate good humor. “‘Dark secrets’ sounds fairly melodramatic, but given the name of your agency, I suppose you have appearances to keep up. Seriously, though…” Her demeanor hardened. “How much do you know about what’s been going on lately, if I may ask?”
This, the vampire realized, was an opportunity. By divulging her knowledge of some of the case’s stranger and more esoteric aspects, she’d be able to gauge the woman’s reaction and determine how much further she could confide in her.
There was also the possibility that Gilmore might decide to reveal more of her own information once she knew Taylor was aware that this was no ordinary investigation. Full confidentiality might be a moot point.
She opted to play hardball. “I know there are rumors going around of criminals with ‘superhuman’ abilities. The unidentified assailant in the Times Square brawl, so they say, had strength and speed beyond that of any normal person. Multiple eyewitnesses, with no connection to one another, all said the same thing. I even heard that similar rumors have been filtering out of Israel.”
The agent tensed again and leaned forward. She
decided to keep pushing.
“In fact,” she went on, “some of what people have been saying is so strange and disturbing that my clients in the case even mentioned they wanted to avoid alerting the regular authorities if possible. Perhaps they’re simply being paranoid, but it’s the kind of thing that screams ‘coverup.’ According to them, anyway.”
Taylor smiled and looked Gilmore straight in the eye.
Remy whispered into her earpiece, “Are you sure you know what you’re doing? Christ, I don’t want to get arrested again, especially if you’re in jail too.”
The agent, meanwhile, fidgeted in her seat. She must not have expected this. “I see you are well-informed, Ms Steele—at least when it comes to rumors on the street.”
She laughed softly. “People do talk a lot, don’t they? I only hope I haven’t put my own life in danger by revealing all that to a federal agent. But you don’t strike me as being here on a mission to silence anyone who knows too much or any of that other Men-in-Black, mindwipe kind of nonsense.”
The other woman did not respond but waited for her to continue.
She did so without hesitation. “No, Agent Gilmore, I think you’re truly out to catch the criminals. And based on that, I think it would be best if we openly exchanged information. Worked this case together, even, you might say.”
The woman chewed a lip as she thought about it. “I will agree to that in a general way, although I may have conditions. I’ll get back with you on those. Also, I can’t promise that people above me in the hierarchy won’t give you a certain amount of grief if you ruffle their feathers.”
She paused and Taylor knew she was about to add something else of significance.
“I will say,” she ventured, “that my team was keeping an eye on the Black Cat Idol at the Guggenheim prior to its theft because Ein Avdat seemed interested in it. We don’t know why. Possibly for its monetary value or maybe for sentimental or even esoteric reasons. Criminals are often superstitious. In any event, we estimated it would make good bait. However…”
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