Shadows of Deceit (A Series of Shadows)

by Mell Corcoran

  Once Dillon composed himself he proceeded to slowly and carefully open the door just a crack. He stood listening and waiting for what seemed like an eternity. She finally stepped up behind him and poked him hard in the ribs again, making him wince and give her a dirty look. Lou simply flailed her hands, dramatically gesturing for him to hurry up. Not the least bit pleased with her, Dillon crouched low before he opened the door wide then cautiously edged his way out of the room and into more darkness. Lou didn’t need to crouch quite so much to get down to his level, it was more of a bend at the waist then a crouch. He didn’t look back, instead he gave her a hand signal directing her to follow him to the left. The floor creaked severely after his fourth step causing him to freeze in place and signal for her to hold. They waited for another eternity until Dillon was sure nothing was stirring as a result of his misstep. They finally reached the end of the hall which put them at the top of some stairs that most likely led down into the warehouse. Dillon once again gave Lou the hold signal then followed up with one that indicated she should wait where she was. He looked back at her to make sure that she understood. Lou nodded in the affirmative and decided it was a good time for her to draw her weapon, just in case. It took only one step before he vanished from her sight, into the blackened stairwell and for some reason she found it appropriate to hold her breath. Far off to her right, down the hall from whence they came, Lou saw a flicker of light, almost like a spark from a lighter. When she turned to look, she couldn’t see or hear anything at all. Just black. She shook it off as reflection from a car’s headlights, hopefully Callahan’s. It had to be since she couldn’t see or hear a thing. Lou turned her attention back to the stairwell and Dillon had yet to reappear. She stood still and tried to be patient.

  More than a few minutes passed and Lou was not comfortable waiting anymore. She made up her mind that she was going downstairs too. As carefully as she could, she lifted her foot quietly to make the first step down when something out of the corner of her right eye caught her attention again. Unfortunately, it caught the back of her head before she had time to turn to see the blow coming. The impact sent Lou flying forward. She proceeded down the stairs in an elongated somersault. A crisp thud was heard as her forehead made contact with one of the steps while her legs flipped up and over her body. Despite the involuntary acrobatics, Lou caught a glimpse of a silhouette following her tumble down the stairs. Undoubtedly it was the silhouette of her assailant. Acknowledging she still had hold of her weapon, she made a split second decision to take a shot at him before she broke her neck or otherwise lost consciousness. As her body completed yet another revolution, she anticipated her assailant’s position, aimed and squeezed the trigger. The bright muzzle flash lit the stairwell and in that instant, Lou saw the man before her body contorted once more, flipping and smashing down the last few stairs until finally she landed.

  Lou wasn’t certain if she lost consciousness after her skull bounced like a ball on the concrete floor. There was no time to think about it. Fortunately, it was not as black as as it had been in the stairwell but her vision was blurry and the pain in her head was acute to say the least. It was when she tried to sit up that she realized it wasn’t just the headache she was going to have to deal with. Her right leg ripped with a pain that almost made her cry out loud and her ribs felt like one or two were surely bruised, if not cracked. It was her chest, however, that made her panic a little. She felt like the skin had been flayed off of her and hot molten lava had been poured over the wound. Surprisingly enough, Lou still had her gun in her right hand so she checked herself with the left. Her kevlar was still in tact and when she stuffed her fingers underneath the neckline and felt no blood, she decided that was a definite good thing. Though logic dictated it wasn’t possible, she felt an overwhelming sense of relief that she hadn’t ripped her old wound open during the fall. Everything else she could live with. Suddenly her attention was drawn to a loud crash off to her right and she struggled against her blurred vision and the darkness to try and see what was going on. Despite the searing pain, she forced herself up and gimped her way closer to the noise. As she approached, she heard another crash, then the sound of someone’s wind being knocked out of them. Panic rose once again as Lou thought of Dillon. She tried to stay low as she moved through a doorway and into what she assumed was the main expanse of the warehouse. Finally, small shafts of light filtering through one of the broken windows confirmed her location and the dim glow from the street lamp outside gave at least some vague illumination. It was just enough to enable her to see a body go flying past her. As quick as lightning, she saw Dillon run by, following the airborne assailant. He never stopped moving but he turned his head towards her and ordered her to stay. She was all too happy to oblige him but she was too far out in the open where she stood. Lou moved to the right and plastered herself against a wall that was partially veiled by shadows. From her vantage point she could see the silhouettes of her assailant and Dillon exchanging blows, kicks and what she could only describe as a pile-drive. She had deduced that the taller shadow was Dillon and was grateful that he was the giver of said pile-drive, not the receiver. Lou’s vision was still blurred so she was reluctant to try and take a shot at the attacker but she had to do something. She reached for her phone to call for back-up but thought twice about it. What if there was something in the warehouse she couldn’t see? Some overwhelming evidence that would expose the Sanguinostri? Lou suddenly felt helpless and paralyzed. It made her furious. She rubbed her eyes and crouched her stance, squinting hard to get a solid fix on Dillon’s opponent. She surveyed the area and could vaguely see oil drums and crates sprawled all over the place. Carefully and quickly, Lou moved around to the right of the fight, trying to position herself as close as possible without falling into the fray. She thought she saw Dillon note her position but she didn’t have time to think about that. Based solely on the fact that Dillon had yet to put the man down, she knew their foe was Sanguinostri. Dillon was not going to be able to keep up the fight forever. Lou had to help him somehow. She managed to wedge herself through a stack of crates readying herself around the corner from the fight. She held her gun close to her chest, wrapping her left hand around the right for stability, making sure her finger was steady and ready to squeeze that trigger. Once she came out from behind that crate, she had one chance and one chance only.

  Lou took one last deliberate and deep breath through her nose then exhaled out her mouth, disconnecting herself from her pain. It was now or never. She pivoted on her left foot and swang out from behind the crate. “Down!” She yelled to give Dillon some warning. Lou then unloaded her Glock into the sole figure that remained standing in her line of sight.

  Fifteen bullets ripped into the man that had cracked her on the head and sent her flying down the stairs, one already in him from when she fired on her way down. He didn’t drop. Lou blinked once, twice. The dark figure just stood there. Silence wrapped around her after the explosion of gunshots temporarily made her deaf. She knew, in theory, Sanguinostri were tough and capable of fully functioning with wounds that would normally be fatal to good old fashioned human beings. This was not something she expected at all. Lou saw Dillon in her peripheral vision, scrambling for something on the floor. His body twisted and she saw the muzzle flashes from his own weapon as he too emptied into the man. Lou felt a rumbling in her chest and saw one of the bay doors opening. She was momentarily blinded by a flashlight as it panned towards her, then Dillon, then the assailant who should have been on his knees at least. Lou blinked again and got a good look at him as he glared at her. He was young, maybe twenty-one if she had to guess, choppy blond hair and a wide nose. His eyebrows were thick and he had grease smeared across his face. He was too well dressed to be a bum or even a street thug. He wore shiny black loafers with thick soles and a belt that was the same shiny leather. His jeans were dark blue, very new looking save for a bit of dust and dirt, probably from the fight. His crisp white dress shirt was torn at the collar but was ot
herwise pristine. It seemed like an eternity he stared at her, his face awash with utter hatred and loathing. She had never seen him before in her life but when she finally got a good look at him, much like it was with the face of Albert Von Messenbach, the man that had sliced her open just under two months ago, Lou knew she would never forget this face either.

  “Do not move!” Agent Callahan shouted from the open garage bay, snapping Lou out of her trance. “Do not move asshole! I am warning you!”

  At that moment, several of Callahan’s agents flooded into the warehouse, charging at the assailant. He turned his gaze from Lou, paused briefly on Dillon, then smirked, actually smirked at him. Before she could get her bearings, Lou heard someone else yelling.

  “No!” Dillon howled. The man looked to Lou like he was turning away from the oncoming agents but before she could even think of blinking again, he darted out of view and vanished. She couldn’t see him anywhere.

  “No! Get him!” Dillon shouted again. “Don’t let him get away!” But it was too late. He was gone.

  It was either the first blow to the head, or the repeated thumps from the fall down the stairs, or perhaps both, but what happened in that warehouse next felt as though Lou was watching a movie and not actually living it. Six of Callahan’s seven agents took off after the assailant while Callahan and the seventh man did a sweep of the building. Dillon had rushed to Lou’s side to make sure she was alright and was clearly horrified when he saw that she was not. Lou didn’t remember falling to the floor after she unloaded her weapon on the strange blond man. Dillon carefully scooped her up in his arms and carried her towards the open bay door. Her ears were ringing severely but she could hear him trying to reassure her while in the distance she could hear Callahan yelling to his men.

  “What the hell happened?” Lou asked him as they approached a stack of pallets.

  “We will go over that in a minute, let me take a look at you first.” Dillon’s voice trembled with anger despite trying to assume a calm and soothing tone.

  “Shit, I appreciate the lift but watch the ribs, would ya?” Lou tried not to cry out in pain but when he set her on top of the pallets, the shift in her torso was so painful that her eyes began to water.

  “Tell me where it hurts?” He looked directly into her eyes, inspecting their reactiveness.

  Lou snorted. “Where doesn’t it? I feel like I was stuffed in a cement mixer for a week.” As Dillon ran his fingers over her skull, Lou’s vision started to clear and she finally got a good look at him. “Holy crap! You’re shot!” She bellowed when she saw the blood oozing from the gunshot wound in his shoulder. “Did I do that?” Lou hadn’t heard any gunshots besides her own and Dillon’s nor could she recall seeing their attacker with a gun.

  Dillon chuckled. “No, you didn’t do that. You hit the right target.” His fingers ran over the first lump on the back of her head and she recoiled, sucking in breath from the pain. “Tell me exactly what happened after I left you on the stairs.” He demanded.

  Lou quickly went through the course of events as best as she could remember. From the flicker of light in the corner of her eye to when she got up off the cement floor and heard them fighting. Dillon concluded that Lou had in fact lost consciousness since she didn’t remember hearing any other gun shots besides theirs. Dillon had taken two bullets before the struggle with the unknown man ensued.

  “What the hell are you worried about me for! You need a doctor! We gotta get those bullets out of you!” Lou tried to get up off the pallets but the pain in her leg seared up her thigh, through her hip, up her spine and made her head throb even more. “Crap, I am so sick of pain.” She announced through gritted teeth.

  “I know, I’m so sorry Lou!” Dillon looked as though he were about to cry. An odd contrast to such a huge and toughly built man.

  “Why are you sorry?” Lou was puzzled. “You think he wouldn’t have cracked me if you had stayed with me on the stairs? You know damn well he would have taken that shot and I would have just pulled you down with me.”

  Dillon cocked his head sideways. “Lou, have you seen the size difference between us? I would have blocked your fall which would have stopped you from getting so damned beat up!”

  “Maybe.” She smirked. “Or maybe he would have just shot me twice and you two would still be beating the crap out of each other while I bled to death. We can do this all night, going through possible scenarios. It’s a waste of time and no one’s fault but that asshat’s. We need to figure out who he is.”

  “We will, but you are not going anywhere right now.” Dillon placed his hands gently on Lou’s shoulders as if to hold her in place. “You sit. Callahan has a med team on the way.”

  “Just wrap me up and I’ll be fine.” She insisted as she noticed Callahan and two of his agents approaching. “Half a dozen Advil would be nice though.”

  “He got away.” Callahan told them. “He had a boat at the end of the dock. North of here. We should have been more prepared.”

  “That’s my fault.” Lou admitted. “I jumped the gun, so to speak. I never imagined we were going to run into...” It occurred to her just then that Callahan’s agents might not be Sanguinostri so she stopped herself in mid sentence.

  “They’re all ours, Detective.” Callahan read her apprehension and eased her concerns. “The majority of my team is Sanguinostri and fortunately, I told the civilians to take off before I got your call. The med team that’s on the way is ours too so no worries.”

  “OK then.” Lou felt relieved. “Who the hell was that? It never occurred to me we would run into a Sanguinostri here. Who the hell is he?”

  “I have no idea.” Callahan shook his head. “I have never seen him before and I gotta tell you, I’ve made a point of learning the faces of all our people in the area. This guy is not from around here and he is one quick bastard.”

  “We need to find out who he is.” Lou was repeating herself at this point.

  “We will, but we have some issues here that need dealing with, pronto.” Callahan informed them as the private ambulance pulled up to the open cargo bay. “Let these guys get you two patched up first, then I’ll show you what we’ve got here. We need to get some light in here anyway and I need to call in another team to secure the area. We don’t want this incident going public.”

  The medical team was followed by two large black SUV’s and Lou watched as the other bay doors were cranked open and agents hauled in flood lights and set them up around the building. Meanwhile, one of the medics checked Lou’s head and confirmed what she already knew, she had a concussion. She tried to make light of her injuries but apparently the Sanguinostri medic had the gift of being able to read a person’s pain so he politely suggested that she shut up. He knew she was lying. Another medic was working on Dillon next to her and she glanced over just in time to see the woman shoving forceps at least two inches deep into his shoulder to retrieve the first of the two bullets he had taken. Lou knew he would be fine and probably healed by the morning but watching the procedure and Dillon’s lack of reaction to what must have been very painful, she gained a new respect for him.

  The medic working on Lou pulled her attention back when he told her to remove her vest so that he could examine her chest and ribs. Lou really didn’t want to. She was afraid of the damage he might find. Reluctantly, she gave in and stripped off the vest then fumbled to pull her t-shirt off without passing out. She was wearing a sports bra that looked more like a cropped tank top than an undergarment, but Dillon still blushed and turned his back so as to afford her some privacy. It made Lou laugh in spite of the pain.

  “If you are going to be my partner you better toughen up, big guy. Not like there is a lot of room for modesty in our line of work.” She grinned at him but he wouldn’t turn back around.

  “I understand but this was our first date. I’m not that kind of guy.” Dillon’s joke made Lou and both medics laugh.

  While Lou’s medic examined her chest and listened to her lungs and hea
rt with his stethoscope, Lou fished her cell phone out of her back pocket. Sadly, it had been irreparably damaged, most likely during her fall. The face was shattered and the frame was cracked, there was no power at all. Lou was Principate and protocol dictated that she needed to report the situation to the Aegis Council immediately. However, she remembered the entire Council was on assignment in Cuba and she had no idea if they were back yet. The next option was to call Frank. Calling Max was not on her list of options. Lou had already decided she was going to stall that conversation for as long as humanly possible. No matter how the situation was spun, he was going to freak out and so was Lou’s mother. Only a few days back on the job and Lou already had a concussion, bruised or cracked ribs and one seriously tweaked leg. This was not going to go over well no matter what, and it was her own fault.