Primacy of Darkness

by Brock E. Deskins

  “Come now, that is not how we play.”

  “I am through playing with you, Monte. I am giving you this one chance to surrender in honor of our friendship.”

  “Sorry, Vincent. If you want me, you will have to catch me.”

  “So be it.”

  Vincent moved with the incredible speed of an elder vampire. He was a streak of grey against the white walls.

  “Spoilsport,” Jack said with a frown.

  He hurled his captive into Vincent’s path. He and Wyatt collided like a pair of linebackers, with several times the force. The two went sprawling head over heels down the hallway. Jack rolled aside, narrowly avoiding becoming part of a vampire pileup.

  Vincent untangled himself from Wyatt and saw Jack standing in the elevator. “There is nowhere to go, Monte!”

  Jack held up the key his deft fingers had liberated from Wyatt. “Wrong again. Farewell, old bean!”

  Vincent lunged toward the elevator, but the doors swished closed in front of his face. He clawed at the seam where the two sides joined together, but they were constructed with the very purpose of keeping his kind out.

  “Stairs!” Wyatt yelled as he limped forward, his gait improving with each step as he forced his body to heal.

  Vincent used his key to unlock the heavy fire door and raced down the stairs with Wyatt close behind. Had it been a straightaway, both of them would have easily beat the elevator to the bottom. However, being a vampire and possessing inhuman strength and speed did not give them a reprieve from the basic laws of physics.

  The stairs did not wind around a hollow shaft. The stairwell was but one of four that circled a massive support structure that gave the skyscraper strength against things like earthquakes and explosions. Vincent and Wyatt had to slow down considerably in order to make the corner without slamming into the concrete walls at every turn.

  The elevator stopped, and Jack stepped out on the second floor. He reached into an inside pocket, pulled the pin on a smoke grenade, and tossed it into the elevator just before the doors sealed shut.

  The doors opened once again in the lobby and disgorged the thick smoke filling the car. Four security guards, all vampires and comprising almost the entirety of the enclave’s security force, since the rest were either at Leo’s loft or still doing damage control in Jamaica, opened fire, riddling the empty elevator with bullets.

  Jack emerged from the stairwell and sauntered across the expansive foyer. He nearly made it to the security desk before anyone realized he was amongst them. One of the guards, using the cubicle as cover, spun around at Jack’s approach.

  Jack smiled at him. “I believe a courier left a package here for me.”

  The guard raised his gun, but Jack was faster. He shot the man in the head and retrieved the package he had left by posing as a courier earlier in the morning. He ducked down to avoid the hail of gunfire now directed at him. The stairwell door crashed open, and Jack slid the box across the floor.

  Vincent’s eyes went from Jack to the box hurtling his way. He turned and threw himself and Wyatt back into the stairwell. Jack sprinted for the front doors, bullets tugging at his flapping overcoat and burrowing into his body. Once beyond the doors, he took cover behind a concrete pillar and pulled out his phone.

  “Freeze! Drop it!”

  Jack looked up and found the entire front of the building ringed by police cars and cops with their weapons pointed at him. Jack sneered his contempt, but mentally applauded their quick response. He supposed it was not surprising when enough people had fallen from a skyscraper to clog Central Park West traffic.

  Jack stabbed the number programmed into his phone with his thumb. The interior of The Tower erupted, sending dust and debris washing over the police cordon. Unlike London, he had not invited the police to join in the game, but if they were intent on playing, he would oblige them. It was what a sporting man did.

  Something heavy landed on the hood of a patrol car. The officer hunkering down beside it looked up to find a man standing over him, beaming at a joke only he understood. Jack leapt from the car’s hood onto the street and stabbed him through the neck before the cop could shake off his surprise.

  Jack danced amongst the cops and cars like a ballet dancer, leaping and spinning, cutting and stabbing, not to kill but to wound and humiliate. This was a brutal display of his dominance and the futility of their attempts to stop him.

  Within seconds, half a dozen officers lay severely wounded, bleeding from deep puncture wounds or lacerations. Some fought to staunch the bleeding, while others tried to ignore their injuries and continued shooting. Approaching sirens heralded the imminent arrival of reinforcements. Feeling his point made, Jack raced into Central Park and disappeared amongst the fog-shrouded trees.

  CHAPTER 18

  I walk around my new home and pull the dusty tarps off various pieces of machinery. The place was once a custom parts fabrication plant before it shut down in the late nineties. Most of the equipment looks as though it might still be serviceable once cleaned up and properly lubricated.

  The building itself is a lot like my loft, with concrete walls and the only windows set high near the roof. A metal catwalk circles the interior, and a small office occupies one end overlooking the manufacturing floor. The office doesn’t interest me much since I have decided that I will not be meeting any clients here. One thing the destruction of my loft has taught me is an increased need for anonymity.

  The doors are metal, but they are not anywhere near as sturdy as the ones on my loft. I will have to replace them, but they will suffice to keep out the local riffraff for now. I will also need to make a new armory. There does not appear to be any sub-basement in which to hide one, so I’ll have to talk to Yuri about building me a vault.

  My phone starts going into a seizure, and I answer it with a heavy sense of dread when I see the caller ID. “Hey, Kat.”

  “Leo, what the hell is going on? I just heard that your loft exploded! Are you all right?”

  “No, this is just a very elaborate voicemail greeting. Leave your number at the beep.”

  “Don’t get shitty with me, Leonard Malone!”

  “Sorry, but it was kind of a dumb question.”

  “What happened?”

  “Like you said, someone blew up my loft.”

  “Do you know who?”

  “Not really.”

  “What does not really mean?”

  “I know who planted the bomb, I just don’t know their identity.”

  “Where are you now?”

  “House-hunting.”

  “Why didn’t you call me? You can stay at my apartment.”

  “Nope. If someone is indiscriminate enough to try to take me out with explosives and nearly kill Castillo in the process, I don’t want to be anywhere near you.”

  “God, is Anna okay?”

  “She’s fine. I’m pretty sure I have a big chunk of her lodged in my ass, but what else is new?”

  “I still think you should come stay with me. I’m a tough girl. I can handle myself.”

  I sigh. “Look, this is the second time this person has gotten the jump on me. I just can’t have you anywhere near the line of fire. Besides, if she finds out you are important to me, she could use you to get to me.”

  “She?” Katherine asks. “Some old girlfriend of yours?”

  “Damned unlikely. You know I’m not the social type.”

  “And you don’t know who she is?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Where are you going to live? It’s not as though you have friends with pull-out couches you can crash on.”

  “Yeah, I found that out. Yuri set me up with a place that should make a good replacement for my loft.”

  “It wouldn’t take much.”

  “That is my home everyone keeps disparaging.”

  “You aren’t poor.”

  “Am too, I just hide the fact with my impeccable style.”

  “I’m just saying that you don’t have to live
like a derelict squatter.”

  “It suits my personality.”

  “I certainly won’t argue with that.”

  “You know you love slumming it with me.”

  “I do, so try not to get blown up again.”

  “I can’t make any promises…” My phone chirps. “Hey, Vincent is on the other line. I should take it. He probably needs my help with this little serial killer thing he has going on.”

  “Just be careful.”

  “When am I ever not careful?”

  “Are you serious?” Kat demands.

  I thumb over to answer Vincent’s call. “If you’re calling to wish me a happy birthday, you’re either a bit late or very early.”

  “We have a situation.”

  “I’m sorry, I have exceeded my quota of situations. Maybe if you call back in, say…June, I can fit you into my schedule.”

  “Quite the jocularity for a man who recently became homeless.”

  “It’s how I cope. Besides, I have recently upgraded my domicile.”

  “Yes, I am sure that whatever your new home lacks in esthetics it makes up for in stench.”

  “That just cost you your invitation to my housewarming and delousing party, mister.”

  Vincent grumbles under his breath. “Druitt attacked The Tower less than an hour ago.”

  “I’ll be right over.” I give him my new address. “Have your people send over whatever they salvage from my loft. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

  I streak across Brooklyn, weaving my way through morning traffic on my battered bike. I can’t believe Jack had the balls to openly assault The Tower. What’s even harder to believe is that he got away with it. Even I would have a hard time taking on the heart of the enclave, much less making it back out with my head still attached. Jack might be a bigger problem than I thought, and I already thought he was a damned dangerous sonofabitch.

  Police tape is stretched all across the building and streets, like yellow and black ribbon on a giant Christmas present. Cops and SWAT teams surround the area, keeping the public at bay and staying vigilant against further acts of what they probably suspect is terrorism. Which I suppose is accurate enough.

  A cop grabs me by the arm the moment I duck under the police tape. “Hey, you can’t go in there! Get behind the tape.”

  I use my friendliest tone and reply, “Fuck off, I’m expected.”

  The cop tightens his grip and tries to muscle me back behind the tape. “Look, asshole—”

  “It’s all right, Officer, he is with me,” Vincent says, striding toward us.

  The cop looks between me and Vincent, likely trying to decide whether to let me go or pretend he didn’t hear Vincent in time to prevent him from tasing me. Realizing he took too long to decide, he lets me go. Vincent lays a hand against my back and ushers me into The Tower.

  I look at the destruction Jack wrought in the lobby. “What the fuck happened?”

  “He shot Gertrud Fleischer in the head from a window-washing scaffold and threw her through my office window along with three others.”

  “Jesus Christ! Is she dead?”

  “A city bus broke her fall. She will likely survive, but even with several direct transfusions, it will take weeks for her to recover. Between the bullet and the impact, she suffered a tremendous amount of brain damage.”

  “Couple that with whatever was wrong with her before…”

  “You need to take this seriously, Leonard. Druitt proceeded to attack several police officers who responded to bodies falling from the sky.”

  “Shit.”

  “Shit, indeed.”

  “How did he pull this off? Where the hell were you? You and Gertrud are elders.”

  “Not even elders are invulnerable. None of us are immune to a bullet in the brain, which is why we are not allowed to go chasing after rogues like Montague. Her age is likely the only reason she survived.”

  “Sure, let the peasants soak up the bullets. Pussy.”

  I know what Vincent means, but I have to give him shit anyway. The older a vampire gets, the more likely they are of successfully creating a new vampire. That means the onus of continuing our species falls almost entirely upon those few who reach the venerable status of elder.

  “How many cops did he kill?”

  “None as of yet, other than the two he killed last night,” Vincent said, the relief in his voice evident. “Four are still in the hospital, but are expected to recover.”

  “He was making a point, against the enclave and the cops, just as he did in old London.”

  “You have done your homework.”

  “Purely by accident, I promise.”

  We take the elevator to the top floor where I find another swarm of cops poring over every nook and cranny like ants at a picnic. CSI crews are busy taking photos and dusting doorways for fingerprints.

  “How did he get access to the scaffold?” I ask as we walk toward Vincent’s office.

  “We are not sure. There is a service elevator that goes to the roof. That’s how the regular window washers reach it. I think he took advantage of our having almost the entirety of our security force out dealing with his attack in Queens and at your loft.”

  “Maybe that was his intent the entire time, to make a huge scene he knew you would have to respond to, in order to get you to lower your guard here.”

  “Plausible and certainly within his imagination.”

  Angel separates himself from a knot of plain-clothed detectives and crime scene techs. “Leo, what the hell are you doing here?”

  Vincent answers for me. “My company occasionally contracts private security through Mr. Malone. He has been reasonably effective in the past and I thought he may be of some use.”

  “What exactly is your business, Mr. Van Graff?”

  “I own a pharmaceutical company and am a principal owner of this building along with several others.”

  “Other owners or other buildings?”

  Vincent shrugs his response and I have to wonder how goddam rich he really is. I get the distinct feeling I have been grossly undercharging him.

  Angel flips through his notebook. “I’ve been going over everyone who has offices here. You have a lot of unrented space.”

  “It is an extravagant building and commands prices not everyone is willing to pay. Our tenants appreciate the exclusivity.”

  “Uh-huh. The thing is, some of your tenants, they aren’t big-name companies. How can they afford such exclusive office space?”

  “We subsidize some of the offices for various business partners with whom we have close relations.”

  “Was Gertrud Fleischer one of those close business relations?”

  Vincent ducked his head. “She was indeed. She had recently arrived from one of our European offices to perform an internal audit.”

  “What kind of audit?”

  “Just a run-of-the-mill business audit. It was all fairly standard.”

  “Is it standard procedure to surrender your office to a run-of-the-mill auditor?”

  Vincent is beginning to look uncomfortable. “I beg your pardon?”

  “We found several personal belongings and business papers belonging to Ms. Fleischer in what the registry lists as your office. Any particular reason why you gave her your office instead of setting her up in one of”—Angel flips through his notebook—“at least a hundred vacant spaces?”

  “My office gave her the best access to all of our files. I wanted her work to proceed as smoothly as possible and felt that giving her my office would best facilitate her needs.”

  “Witness statements and what little camera footage we have been able to find strongly hints that the man who attacked Ms. Fleischer and several of your security guards is the same man who killed the woman and two cops in Queens. Any idea who he was targeting?”

  “I haven’t a clue, Detective. The man is clearly insane.”

  “But you have to admit, he seems to have gone to a lot of trouble to target so
meone in this building and it seems that Ms. Fleischer was that target.”

  “I am not a detective. I could not begin to speculate as to his motives.”

  I am starting to feel as uncomfortable with Angel’s questions as Vincent is. I forgot that beneath Angel’s soft, friendly façade was a good detective.

  “There was a package addressed to Ms. Fleischer on her desk. In it was a military-grade radio headset. Any idea who might have sent it to her or why?”

  Vincent lifts his hands and drops them back to his side. “While I am required to be open and transparent with Ms. Fleischer, the opposite does not hold true.”

  “The only security footage we’ve been able to obtain shows that the bomb used to blow up your lobby was delivered by the same courier at the same time he delivered the headset.”

  “Shit, that’s how he got to the roof and the window-washing scaffold,” I say. “He posed as a courier to get access to the building and your moronic rent-a-cops let him walk right in.”

  “Obviously, our security measures require a significant overhaul,” Vincent replies.

  “Obviously.”

  “Find this man at any cost, Mr. Malone.”

  “Yeah, I’m on it.”

  Angel takes me by the arm. “Let me walk you out.” He waits until we are in the elevator before speaking. “What the fuck are you really doing here, Leo, and what is your connection to Jeeves the English butler back there?”

  “Like Vincent said, he hires me from time to time to do some detective work.”

  “Goddammit, Leo, I know you were in Pennsylvania and now this. Look, I appreciate what you did for me and my family, but I need to know what the hell is going on and what your part in it is. I got dead hookers, dead cops, and now a dead Austrian businesswoman and a few private security guys chucked out of a window.”

  “I wish I had some answers for you, Angel, but I don’t.”

  “Is this guy targeting you? Is he the one who attacked you in the street and blew up your loft? And don’t give me any bullshit about a fucking Internet commercial!”

  “The person who attacked me is not the same guy who did this. That’s all I can tell you.”

  “Come on, Leo. Castillo is a damn good cop and now she’s suspended and damn near got killed because of you and your bullshit.”