Operation WetFish, Vampire Detective: Ultimate Omnibus Volume 1 of 4 (Operation WetFish, Vampire Detective Ultimate Omnibus)

by Adam Carter

  “That’s not good,” Gordon said.

  Larry roared and charged, like a primitive stone-beating ancestor of the man he was. The man was large and potentially dangerous, but Thompson had fought people like him before and if there was one type of opponent she had always been taught was the easiest to defeat, it was the man who considered himself her physical superior.

  She let him come, raised her left leg, her knee bent, and her foot caught him softly in the belly. In the same moment she reached out, grabbed hold of his arm and, twisting her body, she used the lever of her upraised foot to toss him several metres to the side. It was more a move to unnerve an opponent than to perform any real damage, but Thompson had an ally literally at her side. Larry was flung headfirst into the lake and disappeared with a loud splash.

  “Thanks for the good time, my real man,” she said and turned to face Patrick Gordon.

  She barely had the time to register what he was holding before thunder tore through the park and Thompson was catapulted from her feet. Her shoulder exploded with a rain of red fire, and she landed harshly on her back. Her heart was racing, her body convulsing, and she fought the shock she knew was seeping through her body. If she went into shock she would die.

  Thompson rolled onto her side, supporting herself by her non-wounded arm. Her hand covered her shoulder where blood seeped through, the sticky warm substance running through her fingers and spattering her face. Thompson had been shot before, she forced herself to remember. She had been shot before and she had dealt with it. Closing her eyes, she fought through the pain and shock and screamed at herself that she had to move.

  She was barely upon her feet when she felt a fist slam into her gut and fell back to her knees. One of the brothers – it must have been Harry because he wasn’t dripping wet – was standing over her, a look of surprise upon his face as Gordon approached with his gun. “Didn’t know you even had one,” Harry said.

  “A spine or a gun?” Gordon asked impassively. “I lost everything to people like her, Harry. She’s not walking away from this. And when I get back, I’m dealing with that Lorenzo too.”

  A flitter of doubt crossed Harry’s face then, although Thompson knew it would not be enough to save her. At this point it was kill or be killed, and the secrecy of WetFish was destroyed either way. She figured Sanders would much prefer her to come out of this alive than these guys, and it was an assessment with which she could agree wholeheartedly.

  Thompson drew her knife quickly and stabbed out, but Gordon saw the flash of metal and gave a shout. Harry jumped back and the knife barely even nicked him. Anger flashed across his face and he kicked out savagely, his foot lashing Thompson’s face and sending her mind reeling. She could taste blood in her mouth as she hit the floor, and she could no longer feel the knife in her hand. Forcing herself onto her stomach, she scrabbled for the treeline, but Harry grabbed the back of her jacket with two meaty hands and hauled her into the air, tossing her towards the lake. By this time Larry had extricated himself from the water and was swearing viciously. Thompson fought for her feet once more, and Larry was upon her as soon as she rose. They went down in an uncontrolled heap, biting and tearing, both trying to land punches but neither succeeding.

  Something struck her from behind then and she hit back with her elbow, smashing Harry’s nose. He cried out in pain and she used the moment to try to deal with Larry, but he seized his opportunity and punched her across the jaw. Thompson staggered, refusing to go down, and she saw Gordon out the corner of her eye and knew he was likely still waving around his gun. She dropped, kicking out with a sweeping motion, taking Larry’s legs from under him, before pouncing back to attack Gordon directly. But Harry reacted first, encircling her chest from behind with his great bear arms. He raised her from the ground and Thompson struggled, but he was too strong and her shoulder was crying out in pain. She kicked back with one foot, aiming for the man’s knee, but struck instead against a sturdy thigh. She tried to worm one arm loose even as she kicked him again, but nothing was working.

  Thompson suddenly gasped as she felt a wet, sickly burning in her side. It was not just pain, it was too pure to be pain, but she had felt this sensation before and knew within a single second her body would be wracked with agony.

  Harry released her and she felt to the floor, her hand upon her side where her life’s juices pumped vigorously. Standing over her, Gordon was holding her combat knife, stained with her own dripping fluids. There was no emotion upon his face; no anger, no satisfaction, no regret, no glee. He was a statue, his life destroyed by one night’s folly. And he was willing to take revenge for that one night. Thompson had miscalculated. She had taken Larry Jones to be the most dangerous of the six men. The leader, the idiot, the shaven-haired hooligan who acted out of ignorance and hatred for something which probably deep down scared him. But Larry was nothing but a stereotype. The real danger had been the man who had lost everything to his own stupid beliefs. The man who had nothing left to lose and who had placed the blame of that fateful night at the wrong door.

  The greatest enemy was always the most intelligent, and as Thompson stared fearfully into those cold, calculating eyes she knew she had made a terrible mistake.

  The only thought that made things worse was that if she had trusted Foster, the statistician, she would likely have realised this beforehand.

  Harry had backed off several steps, uncertainty etched upon his face now. Thompson was hacking where she lay, blood flecking her chin. She spat a ream of crimson phlegm and fought not to choke on her own death. “We have to get out of here,” Harry said.

  “I got things to do to her yet,” Larry said, his cold bath not having abated his carnal desires any.

  “Oh man, we gotta go,” Harry said and ran.

  If Larry had felt betrayed by the others abandoning him, it was as nothing at seeing his own brother fleeing. “Harry! Harry, come back here!”

  “I’ll leave you to it,” Gordon told Larry, his stone eyes never leaving Thompson’s crumpled form.

  “You’re running too?” Larry accused.

  “Contrary to what you may think, I really don’t want to see whatever you’re going to do to her, Larry. Just make sure you get rid of the body afterwards.”

  For the first time Thompson registered that Gordon was wearing gloves. There was nothing to place him at the crime scene, whereas Larry intended to leave his DNA inside the victim. It was the difference between the obvious foe and the dangerous one.

  Gordon vanished into the night and Larry came for her then. She struggled to move, but every slight motion was agony, as both her shoulder and side sent waves of torment through her. She was choking once more upon her own blood, and as she watched Larry struggling with his trousers a cloud began to cover her mind. It wasn’t much of a relief, because she knew if she lost consciousness she would never awaken, but at least she would not feel anything he did to her, perhaps not even be alive for it any longer. Thompson ceased fighting, and allowed herself to drift into eternity.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  She had no preconceptions about religion, although Thompson had always believed she led a good life. Her father had drummed into her the values of the Catholic church, about how God loved her and respected her and how He had chosen for her to be born to him out of so many other parents she could have been given to. She had never worked too hard in school, although her grades were far from bad. Her real education had come from the soldiers, from Corporal Daniel Stewart, who had taken it upon himself to be the big brother she had never had. She had led her life as best she could, in order to please these two great men. But her father had told her she was condemned, she was unnatural, she was part of the very disease he had joined the army to stamp out. In her father’s eyes the country needed to be protected from insurgents, and everyone needed to conform to some ancient belief in the nuclear family. The fact was Thompson also believed in the merits of the nuclear family, even though she knew she would never have one of her own. The last
thing her father had said to her was that she was an aberration, and it had played upon her mind ever since.

  Now she was dead and it was dark save for one single light, and she knew she was in Hell.

  There were no demons, no fiery brimstone. There were no terrible screams, no serpents, and no clowns. (Thompson hated clowns.)

  There was only one thing framed in the single light, one thing which made Thompson realise she was in Hell.

  From two metres away, Detective Sharon Foster waved happily at her.

  Thompson closed her eyes once more. Her shoulder was stinging and her side still hurt so she guessed she must have still been alive after all. “What happened?” she asked.

  “I came anyway,” Foster replied. “I know you didn’t want me here, but we’re partnered on this one and Sanders doesn’t like his officers abandoned in the field by their partners.”

  Thompson was certain Foster could have said that in far fewer words. And said it a little less preachy. “And I’m not dead because?”

  “Because I happened to be trained to treat injuries.”

  “You never told me you had medical training.”

  “You never told me you do, but I assume you do, since you have just about every other military training that’s out there.”

  That was true. Thompson examined the dressing about her shoulder. It was even done decently. She looked across towards the lake and saw the crumpled body of Larry Jones. She could see even from this distance that the man was dead, and had to assume Foster had been responsible for that as well.

  “That one was me,” a male voice said, and Thompson saw Baronaire detach himself from the shadows. His face was stern, serious and concerned. “How you feeling?”

  “Better than I was feeling when I got shot and stabbed.”

  Baronaire handed her knife across. “We didn’t find the gun.”

  “Gordon still has it then.”

  “Gordon?” Foster said. “Yeah, he’s a nutcase by the looks of things. He lost everything and he’s one of the quiet ones as well, you know? And you’ve always got to watch the quiet ones.”

  Thompson winced as she rose to a sitting position. “No chance of you proving dangerous then, Foster.”

  Foster didn’t understand and Thompson wasn’t about to explain it to her. “Baronaire, help me up.”

  Baronaire did so without comment. Neither of them liked the feeling of weakness, and he wouldn’t chide her for asking for help. “I got to him in time, by the way,” he told her quietly. “Before he did anything, I mean.”

  “I owe you one, Charles.” She looked back to Larry Jones. She could not see how he had been killed, but there was such fear in his eyes she could almost believe he had died of fright. “How are we going to explain him?”

  “Leave that to me,” Baronaire said. “You worry about the other five.”

  “Whoa, hold on a moment,” Foster said, rising to her feet also. “You need to rest, Thompson. You’ve suffered two really bad injuries, you can’t just run around hunting people down all over again.”

  “Don’t plan to run, Foster. I have a bike.”

  Foster placed her hands upon her hips. “Not laughing.”

  “Why do you care all of a sudden anyway?”

  “I never didn’t care, Jen. You just have it in for me because I can look at this objectively. This isn’t about justice for you, it’s about revenge.”

  “Revenge?” Thompson asked. Foster was wrong. It wasn’t about revenge; it was about standing up for a minority. She could see Baronaire understood this and once again was grateful he was even on the team.

  “You want some advice?” Baronaire asked.

  Thompson bit her lower lip, her eyes narrowing. It had been a long time since she had asked for anyone’s advice, although she was grateful Baronaire was offering, rather than just assuming she needed it. For Baronaire to even make the offer, however, meant he thought she had handled this wrong. That meant he was agreeing with Foster, and even Thompson wasn’t dense enough not to know what that meant. There was a chance Foster had been right all along.

  “Shoot,” she said.

  “For one thing you shouldn’t have taken the assignment,” Baronaire said, “but that’s beside the point. Sanders should never have given it you, so there’s plenty of blame to lay around.”

  “Any advice in there, Baronaire?”

  His smile was tight. “You can’t do this. Six people, it’s just not going to happen. Whatever you do, the media will pounce on you. Larry Jones will disappear, I’ll make sure of that. His body will never be found, and people will think he just moved away. One of the six vanishes, no one’s going to care. They’re just going to assume he’s running scared.”

  Thompson folded her arms. “You think I should let them go.”

  “Let them go? God no. I think Harry could easily disappear along with his brother without too many eyebrows being raised, but Jenkins, Porter and Searle left with Lorenzo. I think you should concentrate on the others.”

  “And let Jenkins, Porter and Searle get away with it?”

  “Jen, no one’s saying things have to happen quickly. It’s been a year since Smith was hospitalised, what’s another few months? Take out Harry and Gordon and leave the others for a year. Wait until the media frenzy has died down. Then when they turn up dead it will be as a sideline, a note on page twenty-seven that people will only glance at. And in the meantime they can live in fear in the knowledge that you’re coming for them. Remember, they don’t know whether you survived tonight, and they have no way of finding out. Let them run scared, Jen. They’re not worth all the hassle.”

  “And if in the meantime they put someone else in the hospital?”

  “Are they likely to?”

  Thompson looked away. “No,” she said truthfully.

  “Then let them go. For now.”

  “Uh, excuse me?” Foster said. “I get Harry and all, but why go after Gordon? Why not leave him ‘til later too?”

  “Because Gordon’s dangerous,” Baronaire said, something primal entering his eyes then. “And because he shot and stabbed a police officer. And for that he’s going to die.”

  Thompson could not help but feel a warmth flow through her. It was good to have Baronaire by her side once more. “What about that Matheson woman? With the TV show?”

  “Finished filming that this evening,” Baronaire told her. “It’ll be quite the show when it airs.”

  “So you’re with me on this one?”

  “If you’ll have me.”

  Thompson hugged him, and she could feel by his sudden rigidity that she had startled him. “Right,” she said, pulling away. “Which one first?”

  “The least dangerous,” Baronaire said. “I’ll meet you at the Jones residence. I have to get rid of this body.”

  However Baronaire intended on doing that, Thompson knew it would not slow him down. He would likely still be at their destination first.

  *

  The two women did not speak during the journey. They took Foster’s car, Thompson relenting that it probably wasn’t the best of ideas for her to get back onto her bike with such injuries. A light rain had started, making the night even bleaker, and Thompson spent most of the journey staring out the window. It was approaching midnight and there were few people on the streets. She saw a woman fighting the wind and rain with an umbrella and had a sudden thought of Baronaire’s girlfriend. Rachael would probably be working tonight, out in this foul weather, likely hating every moment of it; while Baronaire himself seemed to revel in the darkness and the rain. Anyone else would have seen them as a strange match, opposites even. But the fact was they both worked their best at nights, it didn’t matter whether they loved or hated it. They just got on with their jobs.

  That was what Thompson should have done. Instead she had allowed it to get personal, and she had screwed up because of it. She was lucky she wasn’t dead, but then this wasn’t the first time Baronaire had saved her life. He was like her own pe
rsonal guardian angel. Always watching, always stalking those he loved. It was a comforting thought, albeit a little creepy.

  “I’m sorry about what I said before.”

  Thompson almost didn’t realise Foster had spoken, and looked to her with a bland expression. “You mean when you called me unnatural?”

  Foster did not take her eyes from the road. “It was dumb, OK? I ... I didn’t mean you were unnatural. I just ...”

  “Foster, you’re digging a hole there.”

  Foster sighed. “I’m trying to apologise.”

  “You did apologise. You just didn’t mean it,” Thompson said flatly. “And that’s OK,” she added before Foster could wade in with another argument. “I accept there are people like you out there in this country of ours. People who think they’re just and pure and hold no prejudices about anyone, but who are only lying to themselves. It’s what Jenkins, Searle and Porter are like, so why should they be alone?”

  “I’m not like them.”

  “Course you are. A few drinks inside you and a ringleader willing to start a fight, you’re exactly like those men, Foster. But I’m OK with that, and I’m not even being sarcastic. I get there are people like that, I do. I’m just glad people like you are on the decline.”

  Foster said nothing.

  “I asked Baronaire earlier,” Thompson continued, “what he thought things would be like twenty years from now. Tolerance but no understanding, he said. I think he was wrong. We’re tolerant of the naughty kid in school, we’re tolerant of the family uncle who always tries to pinch your bum, we’re tolerant of the vandalism being done to someone else’s car simply because it’s not our own. People are tolerant of bad things, and expressing love is never a bad thing, Foster. I think more and more people are beginning to understand that.”

  “So what do you think the country will be like in twenty years, Detective?”

  “I think there’ll be more understanding. The same level of fear and nervousness from idiots, probably, but then you can never eradicate that. But I think there’ll be understanding. I think one day it will be cool to be gay, Foster. I think the twenty-first century is where young people stop being hippies or yuppies. I think in twenty years I’m going to be trendy. And you’re going to be a dinosaur.”