Second Sunrise

by Aimée Thurlo

  He’d had a good look at the man, and would recognize him again immediately. The facial resemblance between his attacker and Johnny Tanner was close enough to make Lee suspect the man was a relative, which made sense. He was undoubtedly one of Tanner’s pack, hopefully the last one still alive. He definitely hadn’t been around when Tanner attacked Lee on the highway.

  When he saw wet, pressed-down grass above the concrete banks of the “stream,” Lee waved, catching Diana Lopez’s attention, and motioned for her to come over. She ran up to him.

  “He came out here, then took off toward the parking lot, I think,” Lee said, pointing at the wet spot where the man had emerged from the water. He turned and looked back toward the covered bridge. “You can’t see this spot from where we were standing, and he took advantage of the blind zone to slip out and run off.”

  She nodded, then looked at the holes in his sleeve and the bloodstains. “Are you sure you don’t need to go to a hospital?”

  “No, it just grazed the skin.”

  He went back to the covered walkway with her. The perp had left his two crossbows there. Tracking the sale of those might give him some idea of where to find the skinwalker—unless they were homemade. They located the weapons immediately, and she examined both arrows without touching them. “Strange-looking things.”

  “They’re called bolts. He used two crossbows so he’d have a quick follow-up shot instead of having to wait to reload.”

  “I placed a call on my cell phone for backup to search the neighborhood while I was checking the downstream ditch. Agent Thomas should be joining us soon.”

  “You decided to stake me out, huh?” Lee usually avoided the word “stake,” for obvious reasons. He preferred surveillance.

  “Lucky for you. You move very quickly, but I think he’d have nailed you if I hadn’t seen what was going on from across the grounds.” Diane paused, then added, “If I hadn’t qualified as a marksman, I probably wouldn’t have even attempted the shot.”

  He watched for a moment. She was confident and beautiful, a combination he liked. She was the kind of woman who made him regret his necessary, self-imposed isolation. Although he hadn’t dated in a long time, not since his wife died, his hormones still functioned. Lee knew she could get under his skin if he let down his guard.

  “Thanks, Agent Lopez, if I didn’t say so already. It looks like someone from the Rez is trying to punish me for surviving that attack on the highway. And he took the time to select a nearly silent weapon to avoid drawing attention when he attacked.”

  He’d deliberately paced himself to arrive back at the bridge a few steps ahead of her so he could ensure a good look at the crossbows. Lee knew there was another reason why the crossbow was used. This skinwalker knew what he was, and apparently had intended on trying the old stake-in-the-heart trick. The man probably watched Buffy back on the Rez, or that spin-off. They were good television. He watched them himself sometimes, but that crumbling-to-dust thing was a bit over the top.

  Looking down without need of a flashlight, he noted that both crossbows were handmade out of old rifle stocks, cut down into a pistol grip. The bows were of spring steel, and the bowstring was steel cable. Crude, but effective.

  Diane pointed her flashlight at the weapons and bent down to examine them. “They were handmade—crude but functional, and not traceable. Something for the FBI weapons museum.”

  Diane stepped up to him, standing so close he nearly blushed, and touched the hole in the center of his sweater with her fingertip. “Always wear a protective vest when you go for a walk?”

  “Got in the habit when I joined the state police. They’re never too hot or uncomfortable when you consider that the alternative is so . . . negative.”

  “I hear you. I have one on myself most of the time.” She shrugged, then reached into her pocket and brought out a pair of thin latex gloves. Looking around the grass, she failed in her quick search to find anything new.

  Seeing flashing red lights in the direction of the parking lot, she waved at them, then went up to her approaching partner, Agent Thomas, to make arrangements to have the scene cordoned off and searched. When she was finished, she turned back to him.

  “Did you get a good look at your assailant?” she asked, tilting her head slightly, mixing charm with business.

  “From his facial features, I think he might be related to the late Johnny Tanner. I’ll work with your FBI imaging software, or make a sketch, if you like. I’m a wanna-be artist.”

  She nearly laughed. “Sounds like a plan.”

  A Las Cruces police department squad car pulled up in the parking lot across the grounds, and in the distance, Lee could see their portable crime unit turning a corner and heading in the same direction. He took out his cell phone.

  “Guess I’d better let my lieutenant know what’s going on too. This was supposed to be vacation time for me.” Lee hit the speed-dial number. As he waited for a response, he looked over at Diane Lopez. He knew she would be listening to whatever he said to his boss. As he studied her expression, he wondered what she was thinking now.

  “Good evening, Iris, this is Lee Hawk. I need to speak to Lieutenant Richmond.” Lee was speaking to the radio dispatcher, who also answered the phone after the day shift was gone.

  There was a short pause, then Richmond got on the line. “Hey, Hawk. There’s a lot of radio traffic concerning a disturbance at your apartment complex. Is there a connection between that and your call?”

  Richmond had the knack for getting to the point. “Exactly, Lieutenant. Someone who looks like he could be a relative of Johnny Tanner, that carjacker from Shiprock, just tried to nail me with a crossbow, then a revolver. Apparently he didn’t know I was off-duty tonight.”

  “Smart-ass. You okay, Hawk?”

  “He nicked me, that’s all, and I took a good thump on my vest. But the perp got away, at least for the moment. Here’s what went down . . .”

  Lee proceeded to give a quick sketch of what had happened, got the usual party line about cooperating with the local police and watching his back, then was finally able to end the call.

  “Okay, now let’s go down to the station. I want to get you started on that sketch as soon as possible,” Agent Lopez said.

  “Ready when you are.”

  The next morning, the phone rang early in Lee’s apartment. Looking at the caller ID in the darkened bedroom, he noted that the source of the call was blocked, not revealing who it was that had just woken him up. It was probably one of his superiors with a truckload full of questions about last night.

  “Hello,” Lee grumbled.

  “Hawk? Is that you?”

  “Oh, hello again, Lieutenant Richmond. Guess I’m still half asleep. You must be calling about last night.”

  “That’s right, Officer Hawk. I just got the opportunity to read your detailed report on the incident and have a conversation with the FBI.”

  “You need me to come in?” Lee doubted it was really necessary, but once the FBI got involved, officers in other agencies tended to begin covering their asses and doing everything by the book. Jealousy and envy were sometimes factors in the power struggle as well, with locals usually underpaid and often ill-trained.

  “Not necessary at the moment, but let me know where you’ll be. I’m just calling to advise you that you’re being put on administrative leave until the FBI and our Las Cruces area plainclothes agents have a chance to evaluate the threat against you. Continue to cooperate with any investigating officers who have jurisdiction, including the FBI, and keep a low profile. Is that clear, Officer Hawk?” Richmond added.

  “Sure, Lieutenant. But make sure the department doesn’t dock me any vacation time if I’m on mandatory administrative leave instead. Okay? Remember, you’re not the only one who’s tight with the governor,” Lee joked. The lieutenant had been a bodyguard for a New Mexico governor years ago, and was constantly boring the other officers with stories about the assignment and his association with the p
olitician.

  Richmond grumbled an affirmative and hung up the phone.

  Halfway into his shower, Lee heard a knock. Reaching for his backup .45, he wrapped a towel around his waist and went to the door, standing to the side as much as he could and still look out the peephole.

  It was Special Agent Diana Lopez, and she had two cups of coffee in her hands. Things were looking up. He decided to go with the flow.

  He set his .45 down on the room divider that separated the living room from the kitchen, turned the dead bolt, then opened the door. Lopez nearly dropped the coffee.

  “Special Agent Lopez . . . Diane. Come inside, and bring that coffee with you. Sorry for the out-of-uniform look. I was in the shower.” He waved his hand toward the kitchen table, and nearly lost his towel.

  “Nothing I haven’t seen before, Officer Hawk—Lee. Go ahead and finish your shower. I’ll make myself at home. Afterward, I’d like you to come down to the local office and look at some photos.”

  “Mi casa es tu casa,” he said, smiling, then picked up the .45 from the divider. She looked away from his towel long enough to notice the handgun.

  “Good to see you’re being careful.”

  “Oh, this little thing. I carved it from a bar of soap.” She smiled and he walked back into the bathroom, shut the door, then placed the backup weapon back between two hand towels beside the shower stall.

  Less than ten minutes later, he emerged from the bedroom, fully dressed, with his off-duty Beretta handgun in place. He’d hurried with the sunblock, too, though it meant skipping some areas normally covered by clothes.

  Lee had figured Agent Lopez would be showing up again soon, but underestimated her. He hadn’t expected her this early. It was barely eight in the morning, and when he was off-duty, he usually spent the daylight hours sleeping. Despite his ability to cope with limited sunlight, he was a walker of the night, and didn’t like pushing that terminal sunburn thing.

  “Want something to go with that coffee, Agent Lopez?” Lee said, walking over to the refrigerator. He took out a carton of eggs, some bread and milk, and the butter dish. The bottle of calves’ blood, concealed in a tomato juice container, was a special treat he’d avoid this morning now that he had a guest.

  “I had a glass of juice and a breakfast burrito at a fast-food place, but I hate those chain eateries with laminated menus. Back home in Albuquerque, I’d be powering down some huevos rancheros, green chile, and a big pot of coffee right now. You go right ahead, Lee.”

  “Sure you won’t have some french toast and maple syrup?”

  She thought about it for a moment. “Maybe two pieces. Do you have any jam or jelly, and some margarine?”

  He had peach jam, which turned out to be fine with his guest. By the time she was helping him load the dishwasher, he’d managed to feed her four pieces of french toast with jam and another cup of coffee.

  On the way to FBI headquarters, in her sedan, Diane talked about having to diet the rest of the weekend to make up for this morning’s indulgence. He told her she didn’t need to worry about it, which was the right thing to say, though she didn’t act like she believed him.

  The FBI offices were downtown in an office building close to the city government facility. There, they looked at some photos Diane had the Navajo police in Shiprock fax them. It didn’t take long for Lee to identify his attacker, a cousin of Johnny Tanner’s named Darvon Blackhorse.

  The revolver Blackhorse had used was recovered from the ditch, and had fingerprints all over it. The weapon had been stolen from a Farmington home a month ago.

  The special agent in charge of the Four Corners area planned to use Navajo cops to help him search Blackhorse’s residence in the Shiprock area on the Rez, and maybe pick up his trail from that end. Meanwhile, Las Cruces area enforcement agencies would be put on the lookout for Blackhorse, beginning with a search of the local motels.

  After an hour, Lee managed to get a ride back to his apartment while Agent Lopez met with other officers to discuss the case. Lee had been asked to remain at home and inside—no problem for a vampire during daytime anyway—and was told that police officers would be patrolling the area, keeping watch, though they couldn’t spare a bodyguard.

  Finally alone again, Lee sat down on the sofa beside a small stack of local newspapers. He sifted through several current issues until he found the one he’d been keeping for months, sandwiched in between the others for safekeeping.

  Turning to the “around the state” section, Lee looked at the photo of the German Air Force pilots scheduled to come to Holloman Air Force Base for weapons training in their Tornado attack aircraft. The photo had been taken in a large hangar at some NATO airbase. In the center of the front row of pilots and support crew was a tall, slender German major with wraparound sunglasses and dirty blond hair.

  Even without seeing the major’s eyes, Lee easily recognized Hans Gruber, the German agent who’d ambushed the army convoy that March evening in 1945, killed officer Benny Mondragon, and changed Lee’s life forever.

  After years of fruitless efforts trying to track down his enemy, including working as a clerk for a private Jewish-led group gathering information on former German officers, especially SS and SA thugs, Lee had gotten lucky. The vampire who had killed his partner had come back to New Mexico. Was Major Wolfgang Muller, as Gruber called himself now, here to finish up old business?

  Lee wasn’t sure of anything—except that they’d meet. The time had finally come to settle the past once and for all.

  CHAPTER 7

  Lee had never given up his search for Hans Gruber over the decades, but he’d been unable to keep the vampire from leaving the country, and in the chaos that came at the end of World War II, the vampire had just disappeared. And he didn’t know if Gruber was the only enemy he had to worry about. Someone here in the U.S. must have provided Gruber with the intelligence information needed to locate and ambush the convoy with the gray box back in March of 1945.

  The U.S. military, meanwhile, had made sure the ambush of the soldiers had been concealed by a cover story of an accident, and the death of Lee and his trainee officer, Benito Mondragon, had been listed as accidental as well.

  Because Lee knew that someone in the program or security had betrayed the convoy, perhaps someone in what he later learned was called the Manhattan Project, Lee had never tried to retrieve the gray box all these years, as the dying lieutenant had advised.

  He had gone back to the area a month later, but by then, rains had washed away the tracks, and he couldn’t be certain exactly where it was. But he had returned as often as he could to check, making sure no one else was digging for it either. He felt responsible for that box, even now. Still, it would be nice to someday be able to shed that responsibility. Maybe someday soon, as a matter of fact.

  But now his elusive quarry had come to him. When Lee discovered Gruber’s presence and location, he worked to get a transfer to the Las Cruces district—close enough but not in plain sight.

  When Lee made his move to take on Gruber for what he hoped would be the last time, he wanted it to be quick and clean. It would be during daylight hours if possible, when Lee’s tolerance for daylight would give him at least one advantage. Gruber was stronger, more experienced, and capable of taking a lot of damage, but Lee would try to take him by surprise and use what little he’d learned about vampires in the past fifty years to finish things once and for all.

  Now, with the complications brought about by the skinwalker attacks, and the travel restrictions Diane Lopez had requested, Lee was forced to be even more subtle in his movements and plans. He still hadn’t decided whether to change his identity again before this was over. It would mean resigning from the state police department. True, Gruber—now Muller—might recognize him more quickly as a state police officer—the uniform was nearly identical today to what it had been then—but as a state cop. Lee had access to weapons, information, and other resources he wouldn’t have in most other professions. Posing a
s a member of the U.S. Air Force was a possibility, only Lee knew next to nothing of the role. He’d be discovered by any airman as a fraud almost immediately after he went on base.

  The phone rang and Lee answered it. “Hello.”

  “This is Diane, Special Agent Lopez. I’m just checking in. Have you noticed any strangers around your apartment today?”

  “Just one ornery-looking lady with a gun who stopped by earlier,” Lee joked, wondering if her call was being recorded. Probably.

  She ignored his comment, though he could hear the amusement in her voice. “Just follow the standard drill for a protected witness. Keep a low profile, stay alert, keep the curtains drawn, and try not to place yourself in a situation where someone can get close enough to take you out. We haven’t been able to turn up the suspect, Darvon Blackhorse, at any local motels, and the Navajo police have determined he’s not at home.”

  “Coming from the Rez, he’s probably short of money and may be sleeping in his vehicle, or at a relative’s place, if one happens to live in the area. You might see if he has a younger relative or a former neighbor or friend going to NMSU who lives in a dorm or other university housing. Have you searched DMV records for a vehicle registered to Darvon Blackhorse?”

  “We’ve already checked all that out. His vehicle was located in a shopping center parking lot about a mile from your apartment. We have it under surveillance. Evidence inside the vehicle suggests Blackhorse didn’t come down here alone,” Diane answered, strictly business and obviously very on top of her job. But she would have to be more than just competent in order to be running an investigation out of Albuquerque. New millennium or not, women still had to work twice as hard as men to be cops. His late wife had . . .

  Lee checked himself, putting a stop to that kind of thinking. Emotional baggage would just be in the way now, and he had the biggest job of his life to complete. Nothing could be allowed to get in the way.