by JE Gurley
I could see where this was going and decided to put an end to it. “I cannot allow you to place yourself in danger.”
She smiled. “That is why you will be nearby heavily armed, to protect me in case my plan fails. I do not wish to die. I want to publish the existence of this creature in the scientific journals. To vindicate my father,” she added. “To do so, I will need proof.”
I began another protest. She stopped me cold by holding out her hand palm forward.
“I have decided. You cannot stop me. If we cooperate, we can capture the creature. Think of the lives we might save.”
I could see that she was determined, but then she had been after the creature a lot longer than I had. My personal desire ran toward killing the creature rather than capturing it, but I would try it her way. “Alright, but at the first sign of danger, you’re out of there.”
She hesitated. “Here is the tricky part. The creature has excellent night vision. He will be able to see any officers stationed on the rooftops or nearby. They must be called off. You will need to wear a thermal disguising cloak to reduce your heat signature. I happen to have one I have used for just such a purpose. If I fail, you may get only one shot,” she added.
I laughed. “I see you’ve been planning this for a while. Have you just been waiting for a fool like me?”
Her face went pale. “I have tried this twice before,” she admitted reluctantly.
“And?” I prompted, dreading her answer.
“Men died each time.” She quickly added, “But they did not follow my recommendations. If you do so, you will survive.”
I shook my head in awe at her audacity. “Lady, you play awfully quick and loose with people’s lives, but it just so happens that I want this creature badly. You play the staked goat and I’ll be the big game hunter.”
She smiled at my tiger hunting reference. As I finished my beer, a voice in the back of my head told me that the black SUV with two men in suits and shades parked down the block had been there since we had arrived. I had watched it pull up as we went in to order. Neither man had gotten out of the truck. They seemed content to sit and watch. The SUV looked identical to the one parked out front of Sasha Sattersby’s apartment. Who were they and were they watching Joria or me? As we rose to leave, the SUV cranked up, pulled into traffic and passed us by. Neither man looked in our direction. Perhaps my imagination was running wild. Who would want to tail me?
****
It took the rest of the day to get things prepared. First, I had to convince the captain to go along with our plan. He complied much easier than I would have thought. His desperation was showing. City Hall must have been on his ass big time. However, he flatly rejected Joria’s volunteering as bait.
“No way in hell I’ll let a civilian,” he glanced at Joria, “especially a foreign national place herself in danger. I’m all for trapping the creature, but we’ll use a female officer for the bait.”
I agreed with him on Joria’s participation but knew she would seek out the creature on her own. I felt keeping her close at hand would be safer for her. “Need I remind you,” I said, “that Ms. Alvarez is the closest thing we have to an authority on the creature. Without her input and assistance, I doubt this will work.”
He glowered at me a minute before nodding his head curtly. “Okay, but if anything happens to her, I’ll have your ass back in a uniform so fast you’ll get nosebleed.”
An apartment was easy enough to finagle; the department had several safe house locations. Joria indicated an area near the Sattersby penthouse and not too far from the monastery. We secured a top floor apartment with a balcony. Joria was certain that if she exposed herself often enough on the balcony, she would draw the creature’s attention. I knew she would draw mine. She was older than the other victims were, but unless the creature had some special sense, she would easily pass for early twenties in low light.
One question bothered me. “How do you intend to capture this Chupacabra if it does appear?”
She showed me a short metal canister attached by a hose to a compressed air tank. “With this.”
I was skeptical but helped her assemble what she called a ‘net cannon’, basically, a metal tube powered by compressed air that could fire a metal mesh net over the creature by remote control, capturing it. We secured the net to the metal railing of the balcony with a half-inch steel hawser, short enough to allow her to retreat to safety inside the apartment and allow me a shot at the creature if her trap failed. I admit I was gravitating towards shooting the damn thing even if the net worked. To hide the net cannon, we hid it beneath a patio table and draped a cloth over it.
Inspecting our handiwork, she smiled. “We make a good team,” she said, stepping closer to me. Her perfume drifted to my nostrils, enticing but not overbearing – delicate, like her. “Perhaps after we capture the Chupacabra, we can, uh, get together.”
I gulped. She was propositioning me and I liked it. “To compare notes,” I said.
She giggled. “Sim. Yes, we will compare notes.”
Just as I was summoning the courage to lean over and kiss her, one of the uniformed officers walked out on the balcony. He took one look at the situation and grinned. I stepped back from Joria and confronted him. “What is it?” I growled.
“We’ve picked out well concealed spots on the roofs, Detective. Just keeping you abreast of the situation.” He smiled and glanced at Joria.
I scowled at his not so subtle reference to her breasts. “Good,” I snapped. “Go prepare yourself. No foul ups.”
If she was aware of the double entendre, she did not show it. “I suppose you must go,” she said.
I nodded. “If I’m going to play the hunter, I’ll need a suitable weapon.”
I wasn’t sure how to interpret the look that crossed her face. I marked it down as either a disdain of weapons or else she sensed my eagerness to kill the creature and finish the job.
I left her in the apartment and headed back to the precinct. I needed something powerful enough to kill the beast. My .45 proved ineffective, as did the shotgun. I took a trip through our precinct arsenal and spotted a McMillan Tac-50 sniper rifle. One like it in the hands of a Marine sniper had made a kill shot at a mile and a half in Afghanistan. With a .50 caliber BMG armor-piercing round, I felt confident in taking out the creature. I was no Marine sniper but my rating for sniper rifles was good enough to keep the captain from bringing in a professional. The fewer people involved the better.
I had located two more thermal masking cloaks at a nearby army base and had recruited two uniforms to act as spotters on rooftops. They were reluctant after hearing rumors of events at the monastery, but were too macho to refuse. I would don the cloak Joria had brought and take a position one building down and across the street from hers on a fire escape with an unobstructed view of Joria’s balcony. At a distance of less than five hundred feet, I felt confident of a kill shot. Before heading to my hiding spot to wait, Joria and I met one last time.
“Are you sure you want to go through this?” I asked.
She showed no hesitation. “Certainly. It was my idea after all.”
“I can get a female officer to take you to your hotel,” I suggested.
“I will have a remote trigger in my hand that will activate the net cannon, as well as a bank of cameras when the creature appears. I will not lose this opportunity to validate my research.”
I could see that she was adamant. After all, she had been after the creature longer than I had. I was the novice. “Okay, good luck.”
“If you have to shoot, shoot straight,” she said in parting, gently laying her hand on my arm. The warmth of her skin on mine sent a chill through my body.
Whoa, boy, I chided myself silently. Work before pleasure.
“Later,” she whispered.”I find the city very lonely at night.”
I made a silent promise to kill the creature quickly and return. I may be slow but I knew an invitation when I heard one.
My
pile of moldy rugs and cardboard boxes that served as my blind on the narrow fire escape was damp and uncomfortable and I had to shoo away a few nosy rats as I waited for the Chupacabra to show. The open trash dumpster directly below me wafted several undesirable odors upwards at me between lulls in the breeze. I spent my time checking and re-checking my rifle. I had five rounds in the canister clip loaded in the Tac-50 and five more rounds in my pocket. Each round was five and a half inches long with a vicious sharp-tipped projectile. The Tac-50 had a 16X scope. I sighted in on her balcony door and was surprised that I could practically see through Joria’s thin nightgown. In the light streaming from the living room, I could see she wore no bra and her breasts were large and well defined with broad dark, inviting nipples. Her panties were tiny briefs riding high on her shapely thighs, revealing rounded buttocks. When she had said she would expose herself, I had not expected so fine a show. I didn’t know if the other officers could see her. If so, I hope they kept their eyes pointed skyward. She knew the Chupacabra had no sexual interests in its victims, so I suspected the skimpy wardrobe was for my personal viewing. Reluctantly, I dialed back on the scope until I had her framed in the doorway. I was certain the rifle would do the job.
A sliver of pale moon pierced the night sky, veiled at times by wind-scurried clouds from offshore, the threat of more rain. Joria walked out onto the balcony several times over the next few hours, smiling in my direction once. With the steady breeze blowing open her flimsy nightgown, it was a peep show each time. Once, she leaned over the rail of the balcony facing me, giving me an excellent view of her luscious breasts spilling out of her gown. I wondered if she had done it deliberately.
For four hours, I lay prostrate on the metal grated fire escape, trying to move as little as possible beneath the stifling thermal blocking cloak. My legs were beginning to stiffen and my right shoulder ached. I whiled away the hours fantasizing about Joria, wondering how soft her skin was, how passionate a lover she might be. I had read about Latin lovers. Would she sigh gently or howl like a wild animal? Her frequent displays of her body were arousing me to the point of distraction. I was beginning to wonder if I should call the whole thing off when all hell broke loose, not at Joria’s window, but at a window on my side of the street, one building down. I heard the shattering of glass and a woman’s scream.
I stood and threw off my makeshift blind but a neon sign obstructed my view. I looked across the street. Joria waved frantically from her balcony toward the building across from her. I slung the rifle over my shoulder and scampered up the ladder to the roof, hoping for a better view. I ran along the rooftop and leaped across the six-foot gap between buildings. I landed badly and skidded but managed to stay upright. I noticed one of the uniforms standing with his shotgun on the roof across the street and motioned him to get out of sight. We might still have a chance to get the creature. I peered down over the edge of the roof. The window was broken in an apartment two stories down. The screams had stopped but not the crashing. It sounded as if the creature was demolishing the entire apartment. Then I heard it pounding on a door, followed by more screams. The intended victim had managed to lock herself in the bathroom. I had witnessed the creature’s strength. I knew I did not have long before it broke the door down. I raced for the roof stairs and took them two at a time until I reached the correct floor. I ran down the hallway, yelling at curious heads as they popped out open doors. I didn’t bother slowing down at the apartment door. I unslung my rifle, loaded a round in the chamber, leveled it at the lock and fired. The entire door blew off the hinges and skidded across the floor. I followed the door inside the room. Splinters of wood lodged in my side as I brushed the shattered doorframe but I ignored them.
The creature stood silhouetted by the wan moonlight pouring through the window and I was certain it could see me as well. As I raised the rifle, it grabbed the broken door with one clawed foot and slung it at me like a projectile. I dodged to one side and rolled into the kitchen just as the door slammed into the wall beside me, imbedding deeply into the plaster. Pictures fell from the wall and knick-knacks shattered on a broken shelf, showering me in broken glass and small objects. The creature kicked the bathroom door, splitting it in two and stormed inside. The girl screamed. I rose with the rifle, but the creature held the struggling girl as a shield. I did not have a clear shot.
We stared at each other for a few moments – me and the frightened girl and me and the Chupacabra. The girl sobbed quietly enfolded in the creature’s left wing. We were at an impasse. Suddenly, two loud blasts erupted outside and the creature dropped the girl and spun to face this new threat. The uniformed officer across the street had fired his shotgun to attract the creature’s attention. The shotgun pellets had done no damage from that distance, but he had given me time to shoot. I fired from the hip as I walked toward the creature. The Chupacabra was fast but not fast enough. The .50 caliber slug struck it in the left side. Blood and gore splattered the living room wall. The creature screamed shrilly in pain, but before I could fire again, it dove backwards out the window, almost striking the asphalt before pulling out of its dive. I watched it as it rose straight up in front of Joria’s balcony as she stood by the railing. She backed up slowly as it landed a few feet from her. I was puzzled that she didn’t fire the canister.
“Fire the cannon!” I yelled. I aimed at the creature but was afraid of hitting Joria. Then I saw that she didn’t have the remote in her hand. “Damn!” The plan was going to hell rapidly.
Her fear must have passed. She bent over to pick up the remote control where she had dropped it when the creature had startled her. The Chupacabra sensed something. It swiveled its head toward the table and I saw that the wind had increased and the tablecloth was blowing up, revealing the net cannon.
It lifted into the air, hovered a few seconds staring at her and continued up over the roof. “Damn it!” I growled. I looked back at the girl in the apartment as she cowered on the floor, whimpering, knees drawn up to her chin, her body trembling. I turned my attention to Joria to make certain she was safe. She had retreated inside the apartment.
Unexpectedly, the creature did not flee. Instead, it circled the building like a vulture. Then I remembered the uniformed officer on the roof. I had dismissed his presence after he had fired, but the Chupacabra had not. It was a vengeful creature. I raised the rifle but had no shot. I heard the shotgun blast out three times, followed by a loud scream. I watched in horror as the officer’s body arced over the side of the building in a macabre imitation of flight, but a flight in which gravity won. He struck the middle of the street with a sickening crunch. I hoped he was dead before he hit. I waited a few minutes to be certain the creature was gone before turning my attention back to the girl. Now she was unconscious from fear. Her only wound was a bruise on her shoulder and a slight cut on her thigh. I knew from experience that infection would soon set in.
I first called an ambulance and then called in the squad cars patrolling the area. I waited until one of the uniforms arrived to look after the girl before I went down to the street. The officer who had probably saved the girl’s life was a broken heap on the asphalt, surrounded by a rapidly expanding puddle of blood. I covered him with my jacket. I looked up as Joria walked across the street wearing a robe over her nightgown. I could see the disappointment in her eyes. I could not hold her responsible for the fiasco. She had picked the right locale, but the creature had gone after different bait. Did it sense a trap? Was it that damn smart? According to Joria it was.
Well, I suspected the captain would have a few choice words to say about the night’s events. I had no doubt that my part in stopping the creature was finished. Under my guidance, we had lost two uniformed officers, a coroner’s assistant and a detective – more than a slight blemish on my record. Joria ran to me and clung to me. I felt the heat of her body as it pressed against mine.
“I’m so sorry,” she sobbed into my chest. “I was so frightened, I dropped the remote control.” I held her tight
to comfort her, enjoying the feel of her body against mine. It amazed me that my hormones could rage so during such a crisis. I think I could have taken her there beside the dead officer with no qualms.
“It’s not your fault. It’s mine. I underestimated the creature in spite of your warning. I screwed up.”
“I was so certain it would come here and that I was the perfect bait.”
I thought about that. “Has it ever seen you?”
Her eyes went wide. “Once, perhaps, in Brazil, but I was not certain.”
I nodded. “I think it recognized you and sensed a trap but was determined to play games with us. It could have easily killed the girl but didn’t, in spite of its hunger.”
Joria placed her hand over her mouth and looked surprised. “You’re right. It should have been starving by now.”
I could see the direction of her thought. “But it wasn’t hungry because it had already fed. Damn! Somewhere out there is another dead girl.” The creature had been one up on us all along. We were playing its game by its rules. That had to change.
“You injured it,” she said. “I could see the wound in its side as it flew past.”
“Not deeply enough. With what you said about its regenerative powers, I just knocked it out of commission for a while. It’ll be back.”
She sighed. “Yes, it will.”
“Did you get your photographs?”
She looked sheepish. “I was so frightened as I looked into its eyes that I forgot to press the button until the creature was leaving. I think I got a great shot of its feet.”
I chuckled. “Looks like we both failed.”
The neighborhood was wide-awake by now. Lights flashed on in the surrounding buildings and curious residents lined the balconies and wandered onto the street. The ambulance skidded around a corner and raced down the street, lights flashing, followed by a half dozen cop cars. I knew reporters would soon follow. I had to get Joria out of the limelight.