by Mark Henwick
As for lovers, I had a possibly incurable, national security level infection and the army scientists couldn’t even tell me whether it was contagious. So, despite mom’s hints about marriage and grandchildren, I was permanently, frustratingly, ‘between’ relationships. I’m a healthy woman with healthy desires and, excuse me, no fucking outlet.
I finished up my stretches and my worrying with a sigh and when I drove out, no one followed.
I stopped at a gym back near the office, where my membership had long since run out. My luck was in, and Sol was on the door. He was so damn cute that, if it weren’t for my no-touch rules, I would have enjoyed delivering on all the provocative suggestions I attacked him with. As it was, after ten minutes he let me in to shower and change, while he went and stuck his head under the cold water faucet.
Afterwards, I went by the office to check if there were any important mail or voicemails. In half an hour, I was back on I-25 and heading for the center of Denver as evening fell.
Downtown was a whole new ball game.
Chapter 6
Jennifer Kingslund’s chef, Troy Huber, lived on the fifth floor of a new apartment building. It was tucked between old warehouses that were being converted to apartments, with clubs and restaurants dotted around. It was a good area. Way out of my budget, of course. I drove past and headed towards the main streets to find a parking garage.
Since leaving the office to come here, I’d had the feeling of being followed again. This was an opportunity to shake it up and see what fell out. I’m not a great one for waiting.
I parked and grabbed my backpack. Down on 16th Street, it was busy, with the tail end of people heading home after work and the start of the dinner rush for restaurants. Everyone was moving and half of them would be moving in the same direction I was, which might make it difficult to spot a tail. Operating in cities was not the particular specialty of Ops 4-10, but I’d had the basic training. Vary your walk, don’t look for the tail, just look at the people and wait for someone to stand out.
It was getting chilly with the threat of rain later, but the restaurants with outdoor seating were still doing well. Another time, I might have sat and had a cup of coffee and enjoyed watching the world walk by. Denver’s good for that, but I couldn’t remember the last time I had been carefree enough to indulge myself.
Troy’s apartment was a couple of blocks south. I headed away from it and crossed the street to a takeout restaurant, walking slowly and using the shop windows to look behind me. I picked up a burger and stood outside, taking my time juggling the sauce and salt packets and taking a few bites.
I saw him.
Without giving any indication I’d made him, I tossed the remains of the burger in a trash can and started walking again, back across the street and down towards the apartment.
Mr. Obvious was about six foot, dressed in dark brown jeans and a loose jacket. The jacket would be to hide his gun. He’d walked up the street behind me and followed me across, lingering a couple of stores away. His head jerked around when I started walking again, and he followed immediately.
After passing the entrance to the parking garage, I turned into a side alley, getting out of his line of sight, and sprinted away, thanking the stars for my backpack with my nice, big gun in it.
I wasn’t intending to outrun him, even though I probably could, so I ducked behind a dumpster and got the Heckler Koch out. The safety snicked off and I strained my ears to hear the sound of his footsteps following. What had he been wearing on his feet? Running shoes? Boots? It was a stupid, rookie mistake to miss that.
The alley was formed by the tall brick backs of offices and apartments. It was used for deliveries and services, and was punctuated with rolling steel doors. Few ordinary doors and almost no windows opened on the alley. It was dark, and the occasional spotlights over delivery doors only served to make the shadows deeper. With all that featureless brick, it should have had great acoustics.
I strained to hear. Out on the main street a car door slammed. A motor started. Traffic noises seeped in. Then someone close by grunted loudly, as if in pain. I came around the dumpster in a crouch with a double-handed grip on the gun, sighting back up the alley.
Mr. Obvious was lying face down on the ground, unmoving, one arm broken. His jacket was half torn off and a pair of even bigger guys were standing over him. One was taking his pistol and the other was looking down the alley at me. Not police. My skin prickled and out of old habit I gave them target names. Fang 1 and Fang 2 seemed appropriate. They were dressed in matching black suits, for God’s sake.
I clamped down on the hysterical giggle that followed the rush of adrenaline. The different groups on my tail were fighting over me and the two vampires stuck out, like, well, like black suits in summer in Denver. In daylight I’d have been able to pick them out across a quarter mile of city. They’d only been able to tail me by tailing my tail.
They walked slowly towards me. Fang 1 had Mr. Obvious’s gun held out between finger and thumb in front of him. That’s not to say he didn’t have a slick move where he whipped it up and fired, all in a heartbeat, but he seemed to be trying to make it clear that he wasn’t going to shoot me. I let them come. I was pretty sure that these guys were representatives of the local vampire community and that dictated that I treat them with a certain respect unless they gave cause for anything else.
At twenty yards, I spoke. “That’s far enough, gentlemen.”
I hadn’t put my gun down and whereas it wasn’t quite aiming at either one of them, it was close enough. They stopped. My nose prickled with the copper scent of vampire, overlaid with something sweet. Cinnamon?
I jerked my head at the guy lying behind them. “Thanks for that, I guess. How is he?”
“He’s unconscious,” said Fang 1. “I’m going to unload his gun and throw it in the trash, okay?”
I nodded, not taking my eyes off either of them. I watched him strip the magazine slowly and carefully, clear the chamber and toss everything into the dumpster.
They glared at the HK in my hands, but hey, I didn’t ask them to toss the gun. I wasn’t going to shoot them if they weren’t armed, but I didn’t want them to know that.
“Unless I’m mistaken,” I said slowly, “I have just had the pleasure of being saved by two of Denver’s very own fang-dangling vampires.”
They didn’t smile. Maybe the gun ruined their sense of humor. Maybe a vampire’s smile shows the fangs and means something else.
“You’re coming with us,” said Fang 2.
“The old ‘resistance is futile’ line, eh?” I sighed. “Gentlemen, thank you for your help this evening. However, I am holding the gun and I will not go with you.”
“You will, you know,” said Fang 1 too loudly, but Fang 2 ruined it by twitching. I talk too much when I should be listening, but I can read a tell.
I ran; up the side of the brick building. Enough to give me height and confuse Fang 3 who had snuck up, really quietly, behind me. I backflipped over his head and tried to kick down with my boot. It was Hollywood style and it wouldn’t have worked, but anyway, Fang 3 had already moved. Damn, but he was quick. Quick, but not quick enough to avoid tangling up with Fang 1 and 2, who’d come in like a pair of Dobermans.
I landed unbalanced, which gave them time to turn on me. The first one I punched in the jaw and he reeled back, grunting in surprise. I was punching left hand because the right was keeping my options open with the HK, but I’m strong with both hands. The second suit lashed out and half caught me in the ribs, making me grunt in turn. I whipped his face with the HK, but a third painful punch from the other side clipped my jaw and I saw stars.
If it’s not working, do something different, Top would have said to me. I backpedaled to get free and brought the HK back up.
“I will use this if I have to,” I said, aiming at Fang 1’s face, and they slowed up. “Call it even, guys. Back off and leave me alone.”
Unfortunately, that wasn’t going to work either.
Either they didn’t believe me or they didn’t care, which was really scary. Fang 3 started to edge to one side and in a few moments they would be spread out and I couldn’t handle them like that. I had to find a way of getting them to come to me one at a time.
I turned and sprinted down the alley into the gloom. Assuming they had been together to start with, if Fang 3 had gotten in that quickly behind me, there was a way to get out quickly too. I was betting one of the few doors off the alley led into a building that was being converted. I could hear them running right behind me. I got the horrible feeling they could have run much faster if they wanted and all they were doing was herding me. That would mean there was another black suit up ahead somewhere. As soon as I thought it, I saw him come around the corner at the far end, silhouetted by the streetlights. He start sprinting towards me. One more option gone.
One of the doors opening onto the alley looked as if it wasn’t fully shut and I shoulder-charged it. It slammed open and I was through. I was right, this old warehouse was being converted to apartments. Partition boards stood stacked against walls, boxes of tiles and cement littered the floor. This had to be the way Fang 3 had gotten in behind me. It was long after work hours and he must have disabled the alarm, so I couldn’t expect any help. I got the door shut and slid the bolt home just as the first black suit crashed against it. The door was a temporary fixture made of plywood and it would hold them awhile, but there wasn’t anything else to secure it, other than a bench, which I shoved up against it.
I ran inside the darkened building and up the stairs as a foot kicked right through the door. A hand followed and started scrabbling for the bolt. Note to self: avoid being kicked full-on by these guys.
I was going up the steps four at a time when I heard the door heaved open, scraping the bench along the ground. I reached the third floor before I spotted what I needed, some solid timber poles. I grabbed one about five feet long and another short offcut and made the next floor, checking down the stairwell. I could see all four black suits—moving shadows on the stairs, shown by zebra bars of light shining in through the streetside windows. They were eerily silent, except for the panting and the slap of their shoes on the bare wooden steps.
At least they were panting. That suggested that they could get tired.
The HK was back in the bag when they started up the last flight. I stood in plain sight, holding the long timber pole upright to one side, like a military standard, both hands on it, my weight on my back leg. I was just inside a doorway. I tried to look confident and as if I knew what I was doing, but my heart was hammering and my mouth was dry. I had no idea what it took to persuade a vampire to stop, or what it took to knock one out. All I had ever done before was kill them, which was an option of very last resort now.
Seeing me waiting made them slow down: first mistake. They came straight at me: second mistake. They came in line, one at a time: third and worst mistake. Their strength in numbers should have been used to rush and overwhelm me from different directions.
The first got the timber offcut, which had been lying across my front foot, flicked up into his face. Although there was no danger from it, he reacted and jerked his hands up to his face, leaving his front unprotected. I hit him hard in the stomach with the end of the long pole, hard enough to propel him backwards into the others. Not hard enough to rupture internal organs, I hoped. I really, really didn’t want the vampires to have any more reasons for coming after me.
As he went back I saw unmistakable vampire fangs in his open mouth.
Number two got the side of the pole across his chin while he was tangled up with number one and went down with a broken jaw.
Number three managed to hit me in the face again as I launched him back down the stairs, but he took my pole with him and I had no time before the next.
Fang 3 was the fourth through the door. He was a student of Kung Fu, and a very good one. His relentless attack of twisting, snapping punches quickly started to break through my defenses. I let some land, only partially blocking them, so I was in a better position to punch back. Any body punches I landed he seemed to be able to ignore and he kept his head well protected. I was in trouble, taking a lot of pain, and I was tiring more quickly than he was. He only had to keep that up and I was finished.
Then he tried a movie-style coup-de-grâce.
His beautiful, graceful kick went over my head as I ducked. My ungraceful fist went straight and hard into his groin, and I swept his leg out from under him. He slammed into the floor, doubled over and making noises like a sick puppy. Well, good news! At least one of the major disadvantages of being a man transferred to vampires.
Number one tried to get back up. Ten out of ten for effort, boy, but not when you can hardly breathe. I slugged him tiredly and he collapsed again.
Number two was still out of it, groaning and squirming on the floor. It looked like a broken jaw and concussion. I ran down the stairs.
Number three had a broken leg and I figured he should have a concussion as well after falling an entire flight of stairs. He was lying very still. It was Fang 1. As a reflex, I checked his throat pulse, which I guess might seem an odd thing to do with a vampire. Regardless, he had a pulse of sorts and his eyes flickered open.
I stepped back. “Next time, a written invitation might be better,” I said. “Then it won’t hurt so much when I turn it down.” I was unsure whether he was tracking well enough to take that in. He didn’t laugh, anyway. I went down the remaining stairs at a run and was out of the building and away.
There was a group of people gathered around Mr. Obvious, one of them talking into a cell. I headed down the other way, trying to walk as if I were oblivious to anything else.
At the end, I turned the corner to get out of view from the alley and leaned against a wall.
I was still panting and I was nursing a whole new set of aches and bruises, but I was in better shape than any of them. I had gotten the upper hand over a group of four vampires and I pumped my fist in exhilaration. Yes! They were quicker and stronger than me, but they’d only learned to fight. I’d gone to a harder school and I’d learned to win.
Sober thinking quickly took over. This hadn’t settled anything. It didn’t mark the end of either group’s intentions towards me. I was pretty sure neither group would know what I was doing in LoDo. The best place for me at the moment should be Troy Huber’s apartment. I was just around the corner from it. I calmed down and walked there slowly, just another person in the night. Almost.
Chapter 7
When I reached the lobby door of Troy’s apartment building my breathing was back to normal, but I opened it with fingers still shaky from the aftereffects of adrenaline. I noted the security camera as I walked to the elevator and went up to the fifth floor. I pulled some latex gloves out of my kit and snapped them on.
One hand in my backpack, holding the HK, I let myself into Apartment 503. It was dark.
“Troy?” I called out as I flicked the lights on, on the small chance that he had come back, but the place had an empty feel to it and there was no response. I locked the door behind me.
I dropped my backpack, sank down beside the door and let out a long sigh. Strangely, I felt much better now. It was like when I was in the army. I had always been stressed before an operation, but once it started, it went where it went.
I had to expect both groups to try again.
The crime boss would get a replacement for Mr. Obvious and maybe the replacement would be better at the job, or use a sniper rifle or whatever. I needed to take the initiative on that. If I could find out who the boss was, the playing field became more level. I could even get the police to do the work, if I could find some hard evidence. I’d need to start that tomorrow.
The vampires would come again. It was reassuring that they had put so much effort into capturing me, rather than killing me. If things escalated, then I guessed I would have to call in the colonel. I couldn’t think of any way I could precipitate things or find out more abou
t them in a hurry, so that was wait and see for the moment, however much I disliked that option.
Those things mentally filed away, I needed to work to pay the rent, which was the reason I was here in the first place. I took a pair of plastic booties from my kit and slipped them on over my boots. So sexy.
I stood still in the middle of the floor and surveyed the room. The apartment faced over the creek towards Elditch Park. Good living space with pale cream walls and quality wooden furniture was my first impression, immediately followed by too neat. Troy was a very tidy bachelor. Or he had a maid. Or someone had cleaned up thoroughly.
There were two bedrooms off the living area, a master bedroom with the same view of the park and a second bedroom for an agoraphobic dwarf. I started there. Troy was an avid cyclist and he kept his fancy street racer in the second bedroom on a sheet of blue plastic, along with a wall of photos from bike racing events all over Colorado. The small pine dresser held a jumble of brightly colored bike gear. Nothing seemed out of place.
The master bedroom was no more illuminating. The bed was neatly made, but only with sheets. Clothes hung in the closet, looking forlorn. I noticed jackets and pants were all mismatched and shoes were just tossed in the bottom.
“Not so neat in here, Troy,” I muttered.
The storage space above the clothes rail was taken up by a couple of suitcases, both empty. I got a chair and checked if there was anything suggesting another missing suitcase, like a dust pattern, but there wasn’t. There were some spare sheets in a plastic bag, but no other bed coverings.
A stack of magazines lay in a pile by the bed—a company magazine which featured Troy and the Golden Harvest, some biking and cooking magazines, and a few general interest.
His razor, toothbrush and toothpaste were in the bathroom. If he had gone on a trip without telling anyone, he hadn’t used his suitcases and he hadn’t taken the things you would expect.