I decided to ignore the part where the vampires simultaneously left no trace and left a living person behind for Hooks and Anderson to screw over in that special way that only the U.S. government could. If Mosley wasn’t picking up on that nuance I wasn’t pointing it out.
“And of course he’ll also have you to think about,” Hooks said. “We’re here to hold you back right now, but imagine what would happen if we left and you could do whatever you wanted to a man who was willing to stand by while you were killed and actively worked to help the people who killed your wife?”
Hooks looked me up and down. An appraising look tinged with more than a little respect.
“I know I wouldn’t want to be on the shit list of a guy who’s already killed a few vampires for fun,” Hooks continued.
“Definitely not,” Anderson said. “The way you’re running through the bloodsuckers you’re going to be out of vampires soon, and then who will you go after for revenge?”
Hooks looked down at the younger cop and his eyes and his voice were hard like steel. It was clear he wasn’t someone to be fucked with in that moment. Or in any moment, for that matter.
“Do we make ourselves perfectly clear son?”
“Y-y-yessir,” Mosley said. “You won’t ever hear from me again.”
“Good,” Hooks said. “Now get the hell out of here before we change our minds and let Byron have a crack at you after all.”
“But my partner…”
“I said get lost,” Hooks said.
He pulled out a gun and pointed it at Mosley who scrambled away. Hooks fired five times and dirt kicked up around Mosley, but I noted that none of the shots hit.
I had a feeling Hooks was the kind of guy who could hit everything he pointed a gun at if he really wanted to. Those misses were clearly part of the message he was trying to send.
The message got through too. Mosley fell, scrambled to his feet, and a moment later he was lost in the cornfield. I heard the swish of corn being parted for a moment and then silence descended on the clearing of fake horrors.
“You had fun with that, didn’t you?” I asked.
“Gotta have your fun where you can,” Hooks said. “It’s a messy job most of the time.”
“We weren’t kidding about the cleanup with the last vampire interrogation we came across,” Anderson said. “That sort of thing ain’t pretty.”
I looked at the spot in the corn where Mosley had disappeared. Then back to Higgins who’d been so ready to kill me. I thought about him standing with a gun pointed at me and being just a trigger squeeze away from having a night go from bad to worse. Finally I turned to the agents.
“So how long were you going to wait before you stepped in and stopped those guys from killing me?” I asked.
A faint ghost of a smile from Hooks. “We figured you had it well in hand.”
“Have to get your fun somewhere in this job,” Anderson said.
“Plus you won me five bucks,” Hooks said. “I knew a couple of small town cops weren’t going to be enough to keep a guy like you down.”
I sighed and reminded myself that it probably wasn’t a good idea to get on the bad side of these two. I had a feeling being on their shit list wouldn’t be good for a person’s long term health.
“So what now?” I asked.
“So we let you keep going on your rampage,” Anderson said. “We’ve broken more in this investigation since you started taking out vampires than we have in months hanging around here trying to break what the vampires are planning. It’s big, but they’re good at covering it up. As you’ve discovered.”
“So long as you keep getting results we’re going to look the other way and cover up your little revenge quest,” Hooks said. “Because honestly we’re both sick of hanging around here trying to break the case. Fuck it. Let them all go to dust.”
The implied threat hung in the air, of course. I was smart enough to pick up on it. As long as I kept getting results. I had a feeling the moment I screwed up I might end up on that bad side I wanted to avoid.
“Fair enough,” I said. “Now if we’re going to torch this car could you give me a ride back into town? I don’t much fancy wasting most of the night walking back.”
“Sure thing,” Anderson said in the middle of popping the trunk on their car and pulling out a couple of gas cans. “But you’re going to have to sit in the back seat next to Barney Fife here. Might get pretty boring with nothing but corn to stare at.”
I turned and grinned at Higgins. He shied away from that grin.
“Oh don’t worry,” I said. “I can think of a few ways to make the ride more interesting.”
33
Lurking
I leaned back in the darkness and inhaled the scent of motor oil, gas, and dust. It reminded me of the garage at my grandpa’s place growing up.
Of course my grandpa had used that garage as a workshop in addition to using it as a place to park his car. I got the feeling this garage wasn’t used for much of anything once the owners were in for the night.
My thoughts were interrupted by the garage door clicking on. The lights didn’t turn on because I’d already taken care of that.
The last thing I needed was for someone to realize I was in here before it was time to strike.
An SUV pulled in next to the police cruiser I was hiding behind. Not that I was really doing all that much to hide. Mostly staying in the shadows.
This wasn’t like my work overseas. No one expected anything bad to happen here. No one expected someone to be lurking in the shadows in their house. That made it a hell of a lot easier for me to work. To do something monumentally stupid like break into the chief of city police’s house to personally settle the little vendetta he’d sent out over their computer system earlier.
It was a pity I didn't get to do this with my boss on the campus department, but the worse he’d given me these past few days was a good ass chewing. I figured an execution order deserved a personal follow up.
I grinned. I could get used to this. Not that I wanted to get used to it. I’d much rather be going home to Rachel right about now, but the world hadn’t asked me my opinion on that before it sent some vampires to kill her.
My fist clenched and unclenched. One of the people in that SUV was the man responsible for letting the vampires run free in this town. That was enough to make me want to give him the same treatment the vampires got, but I held myself back.
The doors opened and kids got out.
“Dad, the light’s messed up!” a little boy said.
“Damn it,” an older male voice said. “I’ll have to fix that. Later. Go ahead and go inside.”
“Will you really fix it honey?”
That was a female voice. Light spilled across the garage and I moved farther back into the shadows. Someone had opened the door into the house and it looked like they’d left the lights on in there.
“I promise I’ll fix it,” the guy said, his tone that of long suffering husbands around the world.
“Because if this is anything like the time you promised to fix the…”
“Damn it Laura I said I’d fix the damn thing and that means I’ll fix it!” the male voice said, going from long suffering to annoyed.
“If you say so,” the woman, Laura said. She sounded like she didn’t believe a word he was saying.
I almost smiled. They didn’t know how lucky they had it being able to bicker with each other.
I’d kill for the ability to bicker with Rachel like that just one more time. I had killed tonight, but that wouldn’t bring her back.
“Fine. You know what? I’ll do it right now.”
“Fine,” she said. “I’ll be inside getting the kids ready for bed.”
Getting the kids to bed. That was good. I’d cased the joint before they arrived. The bedrooms were all upstairs and on the other side of the house. Getting the kids ready for bed meant she wouldn’t interrupt my business here tonight.
Laura stepped into th
e house but left the door open. Meanwhile the man stumbled around the SUV swearing and muttering quietly to himself.
Someone wasn’t happy about taking care of a busted light bulb. Well he was going to be a hell of a lot less happy as soon as he met me.
The guy rummaged through some shelves. I listened for sounds from inside but it seemed Laura was being true to her word and heading away from the garage rather than sticking around.
Good.
“Looking for this?” I asked from my spot wreathed in the shadows. I held up a box of bulbs and shook my head. “Incandescent. That’s not good for the environment.”
The reaction wasn’t at all what I’d expect from the man who was supposed to be the law in this town. he jumped and wheeled around, but he didn’t cry out.
The guy’s hand moved to his side. To where his gun would be if he was smart enough to carry the thing all the time. Rookie.
I shook my head. This was going to be almost too easy. The guy obviously wasn’t used to the idea that there might be people out there who wanted to do violence to him and his.
Not at all like humping it in the Hindu Kush where everyone and their mother was packing an AK and nursing a hell of a grudge.
“If it makes you feel any better it wouldn’t do you a damn bit of good,” I said.
“Who the hell are you?” he asked.
“Usually this is the part where I tell you I’m your worst nightmare or something like that,” I said.
There was a long pause. Obviously the guy wasn’t sure what to think of that. He stared at me long and hard. I’m sure it was the sort of look that terrified the men working under him, but I’d seen some shit.
And I wasn’t even talking about the shit I’d seen in the past couple of days. No, on the sightseeing list of shit in my life an angry look from a police chief who was used to his direct reports jumping at the slightest displeasure was pretty low on my list of scary things.
Finally he looked away. I grinned. Score one for the good guys.
At least score one for the guy who was killing the bad guys. Considering what I was willing to do here tonight I wasn’t quite sure I could consider myself a good guy, but I’d do what needed to be done.
“So, um, is that what you’re doing?”
“Hm?”
“Saying you’re my worst nightmare?”
I stretched. It was a long leisurely stretch that let the tubby chief of the city cops know he was in the presence of someone who could break him with the flick of a finger. If I wanted to.
When I was done I pulled out my gun just to make sure I got the point across. In my experience the city cops could be a little slow sometimes, and I wanted it to be abundantly clear that this asshole’s life was on the line tonight.
“Y’know it’s interesting. I never let this thing leave my side,” I said. “Figure I went to all the trouble of becoming a cop and getting the trust to carry one of these around, so why not make use of it?”
My eyes went to the empty spot at the chief’s side. Old Chiefy’s hand flexed where his service piece should be.
“Funny thing is I’ve discovered recently that this gun isn’t nearly as useful for protecting my family as I thought,” I continued, acting for all the world like I was talking to an old friend.
The chief licked his lips. His eyes darted down to my gun and then behind him to the door. I could tell what he was thinking before it occurred to the fat fuck and all it took was the slightest shake of my head for the guy to give up on any escape attempts before they sprang to ill-advised life.
“Turns out there are things that go bump in the night in this city,” I said. “The sort of things that anyone who’s sworn to protect and serve should try to root out, but would you believe someone actually gave a couple of front line guys orders to kill me because I found out vampires were real?”
The city chief laughed, but even in the darkness I could see his body tense. I was very good on picking up cues in near total darkness, even without a little technological enhancement. It was a skill that had helped keep my ass in one piece once upon a time.
Maybe it was still helping keep my ass in one piece tonight.
“Vampires?” he asked. “Are you fucking kidding me? And what the hell do you mean someone ordered you dead? I wouldn’t…”
His mouth shut and his eyes crossed down the bridge of his nose as I brought the point of my gun to rest there.
“Y’know there are places you can shoot someone in the head where it doesn’t kill them?” I asked. “You hear about suicides that don’t finish the job. Living in constant pain. Locked in with no way to communicate with the outside world.”
I smiled and arched an eyebrow.
“The dusting the vampires got was probably a lot more merciful than what I’m going to do to you if you don’t tell me what I want to know.”
“I’m not telling you shit,” the guy said. “Do you have any fucking clue…”
I lowered the gun and rolled my eyes. Started talking in a singsong voice. I even waved my hands around imagining I was a little girl talking about how scared I was.
“Oh no! Do you have any idea what the ugly vampires will do to me and my family if they find out I ratted them out?”
My expression hardened.
“They’ll do the same fucking thing to you that you let them do to every one of their victims, and it’ll be the least you deserve you fat fuck.”
“You don’t…”
Whatever he said was interrupted as the butt of my pistol slammed into the side of his face. There was going to be a hell of a shiner there when this was all said and done, but if this guy knew when to shut the fuck up that would be all he had to worry about.
Maybe. I was getting pretty pissed off. I didn’t take kindly to people trying to kill me, and I really didn’t take kindly to old assholes trying to cover up that they’d ordered someone to kill me.
“Don’t tell me what I will or won’t do,” I said. “I’ve done the sort of things you couldn’t imagine, and that was before I realized vampires were real and they could be turned to dust real easy like.”
I leaned in closer. Close enough that I could see a bead of sweat trickling down the city chief’s face even in the darkness.
“Now stop and ask yourself something. You’re scared shitless of those vampires and what they might do to you if you sing. Now what do you think is going to happen if you piss off the guy who’s killing those fucks left and right?”
I glanced to the door. It was still open and providing the only light spilling into the garage.
“Lovely family you have there,” I said. “I had a lovely family too. It’d be a shame if the same thing the vampires did to them happened to yours.”
I let the implication hang in the air. Finally the prick took in a shuddering breath and let it out.
“What do you want to know?”
“They took my daughter after they killed my wife. I want to know everything you know about their operation and the cover-up, and I want the condensed version because I’m not going to let those assholes have my little girl any longer than I can help it.”
The guy almost got a sympathetic look on his face. Almost. Then it was replaced by fear. At least there was a little bit of humanity still in the prick.
That was something I could take advantage of. If he was a cool bastard there was nothing to be done, but a shred of humanity meant there was still a part of him I could hurt, and I’d learned the hard way that sometimes the only way to get through to some people in this life was to threaten to hurt something close to them.
I was good at hurting people who needed it. Would I lose some sleep over it? Probably, but I was in a place where a few sleepless nights was worth getting Zoey back.
“They run an operation at The Factory,” he said. “They pull kids in from the university and send the ones they want off for whatever it is they do.”
“Whatever it is they do,” I said, my voice flat.
“Yeah,
” the guy said, a touch of defensiveness coming to his voice.
“You think the cows ever phrase it that way when they’re being led into the slaughterhouse?”
“Look, the less I know about what goes on there…”
The guy shut up again. The fact that my pistol made contact with his face at a very high speed probably had something to do with it. He put his hand to his face but otherwise seemed to have the good sense to keep his fucking mouth shut.
Only I didn’t want him keeping his fucking mouth shut.
“Keep going,” I growled.
“They pay us to keep things quiet there. They don’t take many college students, too obvious. At least not from around here. They pull in people from all around though. Other schools. Townies. They get enough variety because of their reputation to avoid suspicion. I don’t know anything else. I swear!”
My eyes darted to the door again. I wanted to make absolutely certain that I was being clear with this asshole. The last thing I needed was for the chief here to get a case of the shakes because he thought the vampires were going to come for him.
It was time he learned there were far scarier things than vampires in this world, and one of those things was standing right in front of him.
“I swear,” he said, a touch of pleading coming to his voice when he realized where I was looking.
“Fine,” I said. “I’m going to believe you for now, but if it turns out you’re lying I’m coming back for you.”
My eyes darted to the other side of the house and I turned and smiled. “You’re not going to like it if I find out you were lying and you wasted my time.”
“I swear that’s all I know,” he said, tears starting to stream down his face. Either he was scared shitless or he was a very good actor.
“Now what to do about you?”
“What do you mean?” he asked, fear touching his voice, really touching it, for the first time. “You said if I told you everything you… you wouldn’t…”
“Yeah, well I can’t very well leave you around to tell the vampires there’s someone out here gunning for them, and I can’t very well leave your family here to be gutted by the vamps when they hear you were doing your best canary impression here tonight.”
Blake Byron: Paranormal Investigator Page 20