Marvin bobs his head. “I got it. I know how to keep a secret. I do need some bait though.”
“Bait?”
“Information to lure people into talking to me, something from the inside that’s more than just another rambling assumption people make from watching a YouTube video.”
As much as I hate sharing, Marvin is right. I tell him what I can about what happened in Jamaica. Between that, my earlier attack, and the destruction of my loft, he should have enough privileged information to garner some strong interest.
“Now to my other problem. I need to find a place to stay.”
“Yeah…my couch doesn’t fold out, so…”
“I wasn’t asking to stay here.”
“That’s good, because it was getting a bit awkward.”
“See if anyone has been snooping around in your forums. I need to go see about finding a new place.”
“Leo,” Marvin calls out just as I reach the door.
“What?”
His voice drops several octaves and takes on a British accent. “Make it so.”
I shake my head. “Make what so?”
“Man, never mind.”
***
It’s a short ride back into Queens. Yuri’s office building looks like a fortified tower with valet parking, if your valets were all gun-toting former Spetsnaz. I can practically feel the guns trained on me from half a dozen secret locations as a pair of goons relieve me of my weapons.
The outside guards hand me off to the inner security forces. They march me through several hallways, each one a mantrap with reinforced doors sealing off each section. I look up at the ceiling panels and imagine automated minigun turrets ready to drop down and lay waste to anyone foolish enough to attempt a breach. With Marvin now working for Yuri, the possibility isn’t that far-fetched.
We finally reach Yuri’s inner sanctum. I can tell by his expression that he is unhappy, but then, I don’t think I have ever seen him pleased. He also looks as though he expected me.
“I have problem, Malone,” Yuri grumbles when I walk in.
“You and me both, Yuri. Maybe we can help each other out. I need a place to stay.”
“My couch does not pull out, so…”
My feelings are starting to hurt from being rejected by the closest thing I have to friends. “You own a lot of property. I thought maybe you could hook me up with a place.”
Yuri’s frowning face bobs up and down. “I hear on news your place got destroyed. Maybe city demolition thinking it was abandoned crack house?”
“Someone is targeting me and my people.”
“Someone is also targeting my girls. I am thinking it is one of your people, so maybe I like this person who tried to blow you up. Maybe you find them for me so I can put them on payroll.”
“Two different people. Come on, Yuri, you know it isn’t one of ours. We lost two teams trying to take him down.”
“Ah, so that was you. Maybe I find him and put him on payroll.”
“He isn’t the employable type. So how about it? You give me a place to stay, and I’ll take care of our hooker murderer.”
Yuri scratched at the stubble on his face. “I am not seeing this as good business deal for me. You get free building for doing job you are already doing.”
Shit, I shouldn’t have let that slip. I’ve done a good job of double-dipping in the past and should have known better.
“Think of it as an investment. Every minute I’m looking for a new home is one that I’m not looking for the guy who is killing your girls.”
“Okay. I have good place for you. I give it to you as retainer for killing this asshole and for future job.”
Yuri is practically my cash cow. I hate losing contract jobs for retained work, but beggars can’t be choosy. “All right.”
Yuri writes down an address and slides it across his desk to me. “Is former machine shop for custom parts. Needs a little cleaning, but still better than your old place before it was blown to shit. I will call Marvin and have him install proper security system.”
I slip the address into my pocket after reading it. “I have him working on something for me. I’ll talk to him about it later. I should be fine for now.”
Yuri shrugs. “Go recover, but not too long. If you catch him alive, maybe I pay you big bonus to give him to me. He cost me money and killed my girls. I make him pay for that.”
“Sure, Yuri. We’ll see how it turns out.”
As much as I might like to see Jack in Yuri’s unforgiving hands, I really doubt I will take him alive. I’m going to have to hit him hard to take him down and there usually isn’t a lot left over when I have to use such brutal measures.
CHAPTER 17
“Wretched fools!” Jack railed, hurling a heavy bronze bust with the ease and velocity of a basketball.
The heavy projectile shattered the plaster veneer, splintered the wood supports, and crashed into the other room. Jack stormed around the posh living room like a cyclone made of living rage, leaving overturned and shattered furnishings in his wake.
The mansion belonged to one of New York’s many wealthy denizens, who had the good fortune to be on vacation when Jack decided to claim it as his domicile. The two housekeepers who had arrived just as the dawn broke were far less fortunate. One lay in a broken heap, her limbs misshapen, and her body battered beyond recognition. A victim of Jack’s tantrum. The other pushed herself into a corner, weeping and praying for the Lord to deliver her from evil.
“How little they must think of me to send such an inept group of weaklings to put me down. It would be laughable were it not so insulting.” Jack stopped his furtive pacing. “However, that Malone character…now he is a real vampire, not one of those pathetic, domesticated frauds.”
Jack bolted across the room and knelt next to the sobbing housekeeper. “What do you think? Has Mr. Malone managed to keep his beast alive as I have, while still maintaining his sanity? Such a thing is a rare ability. You think I am insane? You’re probably right. I certainly lost control with your friend. I do apologize for the rough treatment. A decent working woman like her did not deserve such brutality. Only whores deserve that kind of pain. I asked you a question. It is rude not to answer. Do you not speak English? No, of course not. If you did, then your employer might have to recognize you as a human being and that certainly would not do.”
Fear paralyzed the woman’s tongue. Her hand flashed across her chest as she fervently prayed for salvation.
Jack caught her hand and held it almost gently as he spoke in perfect Spanish. “I hate to tell you this, my dear, but there is no God. There is no Devil. There is only Jack.”
The woman’s struggles were feeble, her body paralyzed by fear as Jack drained her blood through a small cut on her throat he made with a scalpel. It took but a minute for even that meager resistance to cease.
He stood, wiped the blood from his mouth, and fingered one of the numerous holes in his jacket. The fools had absolutely ruined his clothing and it was so difficult to find a proper tailor these days. There was no sense fretting over it just yet. He was bound to earn a few more holes before the morning was half spent.
***
Gertrud rubbed her temples as she and Vincent ascended to the top of The Tower in the elevator. She had planned to spend the entire day at home recuperating after the stressful pre-dawn events, but the attack on Malone and the attention it drew required that she return to work.
“Do we have a complete tally on this morning’s catastrophe?” she asked.
“In terms of personnel, Sven and Leona should recover within the week. Dan and Samantha also survived, but they suffered severe burns that will take months from which to fully recover,” Vincent answered. “Public relations is practically clog dancing in an attempt to put out all of the proverbial fires. Fortunately, humanity is at its most gullible period in history despite it being the most informed.”
“The situation with Herr Malone is intolerable and needs resolved. Someo
ne obviously has a personal grudge against him and we simply cannot abide the attention it is bringing to us.”
“I hardly see how we can fault him for it.”
“Can’t we?”
“From what I have gathered, he is in the dark as to who is behind the attacks against him, and they appear to be completely unprovoked.”
“I am certain there was some kind of provocation on his part, whether he recognizes it or not. His mere existence provokes violent desires.”
“What of the two others we think this person assaulted? Is he to blame for them as well?”
Gertrud pressed her lips into a thin frown. “You still disobeyed me by bringing him in.”
“He is likely the only reason Sven and Leona are still alive. Without him, who knows how long Montague would have continued his rampage?”
Gertrud gave Vincent a begrudged, concessionary grunt. “Still, we must have order and a clear chain of command. You give him far too much leash. It is one reason why the high council sent me here.”
“And here I thought it was to brighten our lives with your cheery disposition.”
“Your enclave is on the brink of collapse while you make jokes. I would not be so quick to fiddle while Rome burns.”
“There you go again, casting rays of sunshine with every word.”
The elevator reached the top and disgorged its passengers. Vincent retreated to his temporary, or so he hoped, office while Gertrud stormed off to her commandeered quarters. Her receptionist looked up at her approach.
“Ma’am, a package came for you earlier this morning. It is on your desk.”
“Thank you, Richard.”
Gertrud entered her office and closed the door behind her. She saw the small, brown paper-wrapped box sitting on her desk. The long blinds covering the floor-to-ceiling windows were closed, but she caught bits of motion just beyond and heard the light slap and squeal of the window washer’s squeegee against the glass.
She took a seat at her desk, slid the parcel closer, and unwrapped it. Cutting the tape with a scalpel-like fingernail, she opened the box and gazed at the contents. Gertrud removed the earpiece and microphone from the box and turned it over in her hand. Her eyes narrowed and her brow furrowed when she saw C3 stenciled on it. The headset belonged to one of her dead squad members.
Her hand trembled with rage. Montague had obviously sent it to her to mock her. Gertrud dropped the device onto her desk. She turned her head toward the window and the ceaseless slap, squeal of the squeegee. Jumping to her feet, she stormed over to the window and parted the shades with her hands.
The rebuke she held on her tongue, ready to unleash it against the window washer, died in her mouth. Montague Druitt, a.k.a. Jack the Ripper, stood on the window-washing platform, a squeegee held in one hand and a pistol aimed between her eyes in the other. Gertrud’s jaw dropped open as she stared into Jack’s smiling face.
The pistol spat out the bullet with a fiery roar. The slug punched through the window, making a neat hole in the tempered safety glass and a nearly identical one in Gertrud’s forehead. Jack pressed the tips of his fingers together like a spear point and thrust his free hand through the small aperture, forcing the glass to dilate around his wrist.
Ignoring the glass cutting into his flesh, he grabbed Gertrud around the throat before she could fall to the floor. Jack jerked his arm back with enough force to pull her through the window, the glass crumbling into tiny cubes as the hole widened to accommodate her body.
Gertrud’s eyes and mind fought to regain focus. She was a vampire elder, and a bullet to the brain was but a stunning blow. She grabbed his wrist in her hands, causing her nails to dig deeper into Jack’s flesh than the glass had.
“You won’t—”
Jack hurled her off the platform. He smiled as he watched her fall forty-three stories, relishing the sound of her rapidly diminishing scream. Brushing the shards of glass from his coat, he strolled through the hole in the side of the building and drew his sword.
The door burst open, and Richard charged in, gun in hand. His eyes took in Jack, the gaping hole that was once a window, and Gertrud’s notable absence. It took perhaps a second for his brain to deduce what had happened, but even a second was far too long.
Jack’s first three slugs tore into the secretary’s chest. Richard managed to squeeze off a shot, but the bullet whizzed past Jack’s left shoulder. Jack’s next shot bored through Richard’s skull and dropped him to the floor.
Stepping over his foe’s incapacitated form, Jack sauntered out of the office and into the wide hallway. Two men with submachine guns appeared from opposite sides of the hall near the elevator. Dozens of rounds spewed from the barrels, stitching jagged lines of holes in the walls.
Jack darted down a side passage and sprinted past the mostly vacant offices. The top floor was home to the head of the enclave and little else. Security was light on the top level with the bulk of the guard force positioned at more obvious points of potential intrusion.
The two security agents raced after him, pausing at the intersection and listening for hints to the intruder’s location. The sound of shattering glass came from an office at the end of the hallway. The two vampires approached with long, measured steps, their weapons trained on the open door. They searched the office with their eyes as they flanked each side of the open doorway. The chair that once sat behind the oak desk was gone, presumably hurled through the window that was now another gaping hole to the outside.
One of the security detail moved into the room, while the other kept overwatch at the doorway. The breaching agent sidled around the desk and gazed through the hole, half-expecting to see the intruder gliding away beneath the canopy of a parachute.
Jack moved fluidly out from beneath the desk and kicked the security agent through the breach. Bullets shattered more of the glass panels, but Jack kept low to the ground, using the desk for cover. He returned to his hiding place beneath the desk, lifted the ponderous piece of furniture as if it were a card table, and charged at the man shooting at him.
Bullets tore through the wood, showering Jack with splinters. Several of the slugs found their mark and slammed into his body, but he ignored them and hurled the desk at the doorway. The firing stopped as the shooter ducked around the corner to avoid the heavy projectile.
The desk struck the doorjamb and wall with a crash. The security agent whipped back around to continue shooting at the intruder. Jack’s sword thrust out the moment the agent presented himself in the doorway, piercing his throat and slipping between the vertebrae in his neck.
The vampire’s legs and arms fell slack the instant the nerves lost connection with his brain. While still gripping the sword impaled through the guard’s neck, Jack grabbed up a bundle of his shirtfront, lifted him from the floor, and marched him to the busted out window before hurling him through it.
Jack turned away with a smile. “It’s raining men, hallelujah.”
Jack knew he needed to get off the floor before reinforcements arrived, and made for the elevator once more. A man sporting a thick beard stepped into his path just as he returned to the main corridor. Jack curled his lip in disgust. Any facial hair beyond muttonchops was barbaric.
Wyatt charged up the hallway, his stout broadsword held over his shoulder. Jack did not attempt to parry the heavy blade, knowing it would snap his lighter sword like a dry twig. He simply ducked beneath the powerful swing, thrust his blade into Wyatt’s chest, reversed the grip on his sword, and stabbed the former sheriff captain in the back as he barreled past.
“You are as clumsy an oaf as your beard marks you, and you fight with the grace and poise of a Scotsman.”
“I am a Scotsman!” Wyatt shouted and charged.
“Well, that explains it.”
Jack leapt back to avoid Wyatt’s more controlled attack. He counterattacked with several blindingly fast thrusts, opening several more wounds in Wyatt’s body. While any number of which would have proven fatal to a mortal human, th
ey were little more than superficial to a vampire, and Wyatt was able to close them with minimal effort.
Furious, Wyatt bulled forward, deflecting Jack’s next thrust just enough to prevent it from severing his spinal cord. He crushed Jack against the wall with his superior bulk, trapping his sword in his chest and pinning his arm against the wall.
“How’s this for a clumsy Scotsman, you sissy English git!”
Wyatt delivered a powerful headbutt. The force was enough to shatter the thin veneer and drive Jack’s head several inches into the wall. A second headbutt created a bulge in the other side of the wall.
Jack slipped the pistol from his pocket and shot Wyatt twice in the left leg. The former sheriff captain’s leg buckled, and he stumbled back. Jack pulled his head out of the wall and pushed Wyatt away. He stepped on the back of Wyatt’s good knee, forcing it to bend, spun him around, and thrust his sword through his spine. He pressed the barrel of the gun against the back of Wyatt’s head.
“Bad luck, old sport. Given another chance, I think you might have been able to give me a proper fight. At least you are accustomed to losing to the English.”
“That’s enough, Monte.”
Jack looked up and smiled. “Vincent! How lovely to see you. Have you finally decided to come play with me? Please, call me Jack.”
“No, and I will not. You are Montague Druitt. You were once my friend and this is no game.”
“We are still friends, Vincent, and of course this is a game. It is the grandest game of them all and none play it better than you—except me, of course.”
“What have you done with Gertrud?”
“You know, she did not seem pleased with my company. She left rather abruptly.” Jack glanced over his shoulder. “If you hurry, you might still be able to catch her.”
Vincent flicked his eyes at Wyatt. “Let him go and turn yourself over. I will make sure you die quickly and with dignity.”
“Why on earth would I do something like that?”
“If you do not, I will kill you here and now.”
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