“How do I unlock your phone?” Trinh asked.
“Thumbprint.”
Trinh reached behind Marvin’s back and pressed his thumb against the screen. The phone unlocked with a chime. “Number?”
“It’s in my contacts under Asshole. Don’t tell him that.”
Trinh opened the contacts window and thumbed the entry. The phone rang twice before Malone’s voice issued from the tiny speaker. “Yeah?”
Marvin swallowed the lump in his throat. “Hey, Leo, you know that info you wanted me to find on your ninja assassin?”
“You think you have something?”
“I definitely have something for you.”
“All right. I’m kind of in the middle of something right now. I’ll come by a little later. Your place?”
“Yeah. I’ll be here in my bat cave like always.”
Trinh disconnected the call and handed the phone to Carol. “Take him back to our place. If Malone calls him, just make sure he comes here.” She turned to Marvin. “You give her any trouble or do anything to warn Malone, I will make sure your death is a painful one.”
“Trinh,” Carol said, “are you sure you want to do this by yourself?”
“Don’t worry. I have explosives set in the hallway, and I can monitor his approach from Marvin’s apartment. The moment he steps near the door, I trigger the bombs and finish him before he can recover.”
“Please be careful.”
“I’ll be fine. You just be careful with him.”
Carol threaded her arm through Marvin’s, lifted him to his feet, and leaned her head on his shoulder. “Marvin’s a sweetie. He’ll behave. Won’t you, Marvin?”
Marvin shook his head. “Whiplash.”
“You’re so funny!” Carol screeched as she led him into the hall.
Marvin noticed a backpack in the corner of the hallway near his door, and the fake plant that was at the end of the hall was now midway down. “Man, I ain’t ever gonna get my security deposit back.”
CHAPTER 24
I lay on my back in the park, staring up at the sky. At least in the direction of the sky. The fog is still clinging to the city like a wet shirt. Even if it had been clear, it would have been tough to see the stars. Light pollution is what they call it. I can live with it. It’s not as bad as the people pollution.
It doesn’t matter. I could gouge my eyes out and it wouldn’t change how well I can see what I’m looking at—or looking for. It’s tough to recognize the value of one’s life. Especially for someone with a history like mine. On the one hand, I put my ass on the line to keep my kind from going rogue and running roughshod over the human populace. Yeah, it’s a bit self-serving, but no one cares about your motives if you save their life.
On the other hand…hell, the shitty things I’ve done, I’d need a wheelbarrow to hold them all. I have to stop Jack, but I can’t do that with the girl at my throat every time I turn around. She’s furious, and rightly so, but she let Jack get away. She’s a problem. My phone begins to vibrate and I answer it.
“Yeah?”
“Hey, Leo, you know that info you wanted me to find on your ninja assassin?” Marvin asks.
“You think you have something?”
“I definitely have something for you.”
“All right. I’m kind of in the middle of something right now. I’ll come by a little later. Your place?”
“Yeah. I’ll be here in my bat cave like always.”
I hang up. “Shit.”
Marvin doesn’t have a bat cave. He has a spaceship. I tap the app on my phone that’s linked to Marvin’s cell. I have the same setup with Kat’s phone. After being threatened by a rogue NSA squad, I took measures to make sure my people were as safe as I could make them. The blip on my screen is moving away from his apartment.
“Shit.”
Unless he’s going out for pizza he isn’t going to be at his apartment, but I bet someone else is. The girl is starting to use my people against me. If she gets to Katherine… It puts me in a fucked-up position, but at least it makes my choices clear. There is no longer any doubt as to what I have to do no matter how distasteful I may find it. I hate it when people force my hand. I prod my phone to make a call. I don’t know if I’m surprised when Angel picks up his office line, but I am relieved.
“Detective Lopez,” he says.
“Angel, it’s Leo.”
“Goddam it, Leo!” Angel hisses into the phone. “What the fuck is going on?”
“I’m happy to hear from you too. This time, I’m not being sarcastic.”
“Leo, what is happening? We’ve got every precinct in the city on lockdown with all hands on deck.”
“I think Jack wanted to make a point and hoped to draw me into a fight. It’s the only reason he stuck around so long.”
“Who the fuck is Jack?”
“It’s what he likes people to call him. Jack the Ripper.”
“Great, a historical egomaniac.”
“How bad was it in there?”
Angel exhales as if he’d been holding his breath the entire time. “No new fatalities—yet. That’s likely to change come morning unless we get lucky. He came at us mostly with a fucking sword. He had a gun, but he wanted to cut us instead.”
“He was counting coup.”
“Counting what?”
“Counting coup. It’s a practice some Native American tribes used in combat. Instead of killing their enemies, they would tap them with a stick or bow. It was to show their bravery and to humiliate an enemy by showing that they were such great warriors that they didn’t have to kill you. You probably irritated him by getting involved in what he thinks is a big game, and he wanted you to know that you do not belong, that you cannot compete.”
“I would be insulted, if I hadn’t heard some of the shit that went down. Leo, he cut up several cops with a sword. There is no way someone didn’t shoot him, so please tell me what we’re dealing with.”
I sigh and shake my head. “Angel, I can’t do that. It’s not just about my safety, but yours as well. There are secrets in this world that people will kill to keep, and these can be very dangerous people.”
“People like Jack.”
“People like Jack with a hell of a lot more resources than Jack.”
“Ah, you mean people like Vincent Van Graff. Tell me, Leo, how’s Gertrud Fleischer doing? I can’t seem to find her in any hospital or morgue.”
I squeeze my phone so hard I’m sure I’ll break it. “Angel, please trust me. Stop connecting dots.”
“I thought I could, but not anymore. Starks knows it was you who came in blasting Jack with a goddam anti-aircraft gun. He’s showing his appreciation by giving you some slack. Maybe he’s right in doing so, but maybe he’s not. I’ve seen too much.”
“Would you trust Castillo?”
“What?”
“If Castillo told you to back off, would you do it? Would you trust her if she told you it was best not to keep digging?”
“Leo, if you twist her up, I will personally put you in the ground. She is too good a cop to be extorted or whatever you plan to do to get her to back you.”
“It hurts that you think I would do something like that.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve seen too many brothers hurt and killed recently to be a nice guy.”
“You think you’ve seen too much? Castillo has seen far more. I am going to tell her everything. I have to for her own good. I hope that she will understand why it is important that this information stays within a very small, closed loop. What she does with the information is entirely up to her. But if she agrees with me, and tells you to back off, will you do it?”
The seconds tick by. I can practically hear the battle being waged between his trust in his partner and his cop instincts.
“Yeah, I’ll follow Castillo’s lead wherever it takes us.”
“Okay. I don’t suppose you still have my bike? I really don’t want to take a taxi where I’m going.”
“Yeah, it’s in the yard. Starks moved it out of the way. Like I said, he wants to give you some slack. Enemy of my enemy and all that shit, I guess. Where are you? I’ll meet you outside so you can get it.”
“Thanks, Angel.”
“Go to hell, Malone.”
“Soon enough.”
Angel’s words sting. I don’t count many people amongst my list of friends, but Angel was at least an honorary member. It’s one of the reasons I want to keep him out of the loop. I wish I could have kept Castillo away as well, but that’s no longer possible. Wish in one hand and shit in the other, guess which one fills up first. She is going to find out on her own and that will be dangerous for everyone involved.
It’s a short jog back to the precinct. Cops are still everywhere. I could probably drop over the wall and grab my bike, but there’s no way I’m getting out of the yard on my own without raising a shit storm. I see Angel standing at the entrance smoking a cigarette.
Several cops snap to attention and reach for their weapons as I approach out of the darkness. Angel tells them to stand down, when I get close enough for him to recognize me. He isn’t happy to see me.
“Your bike’s over there,” he says as I approach.
I greet him with a nod, and he escorts me into the yard. “Listen, Angel, I—”
“Are you going to kill this sonofabitch?”
“That’s my plan.”
“That’s all I need you to say.”
“I’m going to come clean to Castillo. She has gotten herself in too deep to pull out now, but you haven’t. You can still avoid some of this mess. That’s why I don’t want to tell you. It’s not personal.”
“It’s above my pay grade. I get it.”
“I do need you to do one other thing for me.”
***
I creep through the window from the fire escape and take a seat in her tiny living room. Castillo walks in a moment later, pointing my shotgun at my chest. She sits in the chair across from me, never moving the barrel away from my center mass.
“Angel called me, told me you might be coming. Do you always sneak in through the window? I assume it was the window since you didn’t bother knocking.”
“It’s a common method of entrance for me.”
“Are you here to kill me?”
“Maybe.”
She hefts the shotgun. “I got a real gun, like you said.”
“I see that. I wondered where I’d left it.”
“It’s mine now.”
“Finders keepers?”
“Something like that.”
I shrug. “Fair enough.”
“Could I stop you with it?”
“Maybe, but you won’t have to. Not tonight anyway. I’m not here to kill you, not directly.”
“Then why are you here?”
“You pried into something that some very dangerous and well-connected people are not going to like you knowing. Things they will kill to keep a secret. You already know enough for them to kill you, so I am going to tell you everything and hope that it’s enough to keep you alive.”
“Why now?”
“Things have changed. You have been on the edge for a while. It was a balancing act of sorts. You knew enough to be a problem, but little enough that you could be written off as a crackpot.”
“Ah, and get me suspended, thus creating a paper trail of instability. So what changed?”
“You, for one. You got a good peek through the keyhole, enough to be a real threat. Then we have this guy running around shooting and blowing shit up and that has put people on edge. There is too much attention on them to take any kind of risk. You pose a risk, and my telling you what you want to know will remove the slightest shred of doubt from anyone who might be against preventing you from sharing this information. Do you still want me to tell you?”
Castillo swallows. The shotgun is trembling in her hands. “I have to know.”
“I figured as much. You should know that I am way over my limit for sharing this information and it could mean my death sentence as well.”
“Am I a terrible person for not giving a shit?”
I chuckle. “In different circumstances, we could have been friends. Either that or our familiarity would make us hate each other.”
“I’m betting on the latter. You want to get to the point? This gun weighs more than my TV.”
“Do you remember what I said to you after I beat the hell out of those goons you set on me in the holding cell?”
She takes a deep breath and nods. “You said that you were what the boogeyman checks beneath his bed for.”
“I told you that, in hopes of scaring you off so that I could stay beneath the bed, but you insisted on dragging me out, so here I am.”
“And who’s the boogeyman?”
“He’s the one who’s been terrorizing the city of late. He’s not the only one, but he’s the one whose bed I’m under today. He goes by the name of Jack, Jack the Ripper. Do you know why?”
“Because he’s a psychotic megalomaniac?”
“He is, but that’s not why. He calls himself that because he is Jack the Ripper.”
“Are you telling me he is the same man who went around killing prostitutes in England a hundred years ago?”
“A little more than that actually, but yes. It is the same man. His real name is Montague Druitt.” I tap the name into my phone and hand it to Castillo.
She takes the phone and reads the Wiki entry. She takes special care comparing the old photograph with what she’s seen on some of the video footage and police sketches.
“It’s obviously not the same guy, but then you…” Her face falls as she makes the connection with what she’s found out about me and my military records.
“He and I are of similar stock.”
“What is he? What are you?”
“We are victims of a…virus, for lack of a better word. The virus is transmitted through the blood and has a very high fatality rate. Only around five percent of those infected survive, but the odds go up and down depending on the age of the transmitter. This virus changes those who survive, on a genetic level, enough so that they cannot really be classified as human any longer. Those of us who live become much stronger, our bones are more like flexible stone, and we age very slowly. One of the biggest changes, which is the most controversial and the reason we must maintain absolute secrecy, is that we can no longer eat and digest normal food.”
“W-what do you eat then?” Her voice trembles and her waning color suggests she suspected the answer.
“We can only subsist on human blood.”
Her grip tightens on the shotgun, and for a moment, I think she is going to shoot me. “Are you telling me that you and he are vampires?”
“That’s as good a word as any. I don’t know if the mythology preceded us or not. We even use it, so I can’t say.”
“So you—you”—she jabs the shotgun barrel at me—“kill people and drink their blood?”
“Not often. You remember the blood you found in my refrigerator. I, we, mostly consume bagged blood, but we can’t live on it forever. Occasionally, we all have to take a fresh victim and…drain them.”
“How often? How often do you kill people?”
I shrug. “It depends. Me personally, I go as long as possible. I had what you might call a serious drug problem in Vietnam, and by drug I mean blood. Since I got sober, I go as long as I can without fresh blood. When I don’t have people shooting and stabbing me, I can go three or four months without what we call a full feeding.”
“Jesus Christ! You murder three or four people every year?”
“Murder is not a word we like to use. Is it murder when a cheetah kills a gazelle? Like I said, I have to do it more often when people are putting holes in me, so we can round it up to an average of five.”
“The people you kill don’t give a fuck about semantics!”
“The people I kill don’t give a fuck about a lot of things.”
“What pe
ople? Who do you kill?”
“We try very hard to limit our prey to people who won’t be missed—criminals and the occasional homeless person.”
“People who won’t—! Wait, how old are you?”
Her questions are beginning to make me uncomfortable. “I was born in 1916. I became a vampire in 1933.”
“Jesus Christ,” she mutters then leaps from her chair. “Jesus Christ! You’ve been killing five people a year since 1933? I can’t even do the math! It’s in the hundreds!”
“I’ve also been in three major wars and a few mercenary gigs, so it’s a lot higher than that.”
I’m almost positive she’s going to shoot me now, but she’s a good cop, and her training overrides her emotions. “This guy, Jack, he’s one too. He’s killing people too, and not for food.”
“It’s a game to him. He does it for sport.”
“And he’s been doing it longer than you have.”
“By about fifty years.”
“You are trying to kill him.”
I nod. “I am. It’s what I do when my kind get out of line, when they break the rules and bring attention to us.”
“So, what, you are like some kind of vampire cop?”
“I used to be, officially, but I bucked the system. I refused to play politics and did my job. Some people didn’t like that, so they fired me. I’m what we call a warder now. It’s kind of like being a mall cop. It’s my job to keep people in my district in line and deal with trouble before the Sheriffs have to get involved.”
“Sheriffs?”
“That’s the vampire cops. I used to be one.”
“But they fired you for doing your job. Just like me.”
“Crazy world, ain’t it?”
“You’re a fucking vampire. Oh my God, is Katherine?”
“No, she’s a werewolf.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah, and Angel is a Mexican leprechaun. Mexichaun.”
“Eat shit. You just made me believe in fucking vampires. I don’t know what’s real anymore. Does she know what you are?”
“Yeah.”
“And she’s okay with it?”
“Sadly, being a vampire barely makes my top ten most undesirable traits.”
“That’s for sure,” Castillo scoffs.
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