by Declan Finn
But not before Sarah Bell was herself torn apart and eaten.
Rory hadn’t been able to say that, but he drifted off into silence, leaving all sorts of horrible implications in Merle’s brain.
Merle hadn’t even noticed when the car had stopped. “Merle?” Kristen said. “We’re at the house.”
He glanced at his wife… Ex-wife, dammit. “Sorry about that.” He said into the phone, “I’ll see what I can do. As soon as possible. I’ll give you guys a ring back when I can, okay?”
* * *
After Merle heard about the nightmare of last night’s slaughter in San Francisco, he had to endure hours of working with his ex-wife and son, working together to pack up the rest of their valuables.
He had to do it without telling them a single thing. What would he tell them? That he had sent college kids not six years older than their son out to fight vampires while he went gallivanting off to “safety”?
Granted, that was only because they didn’t know what he did while he gallivanted.
Making an excuse that he had to run an errand, he managed to break away, and found himself at the 42nd Street New York Public Library. It was easy enough to find an empty darkened room, and he merely sat for a while.
I brought her into this, he thought. But in all likelihood, she would have been killed by a vampire sooner or later, as vampires swarmed the city. Only she wouldn’t have been prepared for the end…only now I’d like to kill them all.
Merle sat in the dark and waited for the inevitable.
“I didn’t have anything to do with it,” Dalf hissed behind him.
“If I thought you did,” Merle said, low and dangerously, “we’d have a long discussion involving you, me, and a car battery.”
“She served her purpose,” he said, in a tone that bordered on reassuring. “Don’t worry, you already have a replacement, someone who’s lethality itself.”
Merle looked over his shoulder to make sure he’d disappeared into the shadows. I wonder where Marco Catalano is.
CHAPTER 8:
WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE
August 2nd, New York City
Amanda Colt opened her eyes in New York City and looked around her bed, and then her room in general. It was a nice place up in the East 70s, almost nothing to disturb her.
Blackout curtains in place, check. Duct tape still secure, check. Time…nine in the morning? What in God’s name is the problem?
She rose from her bed, thankful she had abandoned the age-old habit of sleeping in coffins. Did anyone know what it did to their backs? Dear God, it was like sleeping on a bed of nails… and she had been thrown on a set of those once.
She stretched, cat like, and fell down on the mattress, feeling the Ziploc bags of Russian soil. The myth said that they needed home soil; they never said how much was required.
Everything was secure… it wasn’t like this was a bad neighborhood, and it wasn’t like anyone could harm her anyway… Burglars were truly up to date, with metal knives, plastic guns. Ironic that if they just stuck to wooden clubs, they would live longer, at least against her.
What a quandary. Get eaten by me, or easily gunned down by…well, anyone else in New York…the odds are on their side, I suppose.
But no one was there, that was certain. It was less a sense of someone in the room, and more a matter of feeling a very hard thump and then…
Amanda opened her eyes and smiled. Marco was at the door. “I’ve made my decision?”
“Are you going to fight vampires in San Francisco?” Amanda Colt asked. Her golden-red hair flowed down her back, neat as always, and lights of amusement danced in her brown eyes.
Marco mentally frowned, comparing it with his blue eyes and blond hair, which made him look like a Nazi stormtrooper, especially with a crew cut. “The middle of nowhere, San Francisco? Just a few vampires here and there.” He rolled his eyes. “If it were worth the trouble, maybe I’d go. But no. I’m not going to go.”
Amanda smiled at him with a tender look that melted his heart and stiffened his spine—yes, spine. “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure. If they were really a problem, I’d be happy to go. They don’t exactly scare me.”
“I know.”
“I carry silver cross,” he said in a bad impersonation of a Russian sentence structure. “I don’t attend parties at night.” He smirked, paused, and said normally, “Especially not in Hashbury. Granted, if I went, I’d probably just stay in my dorm room where I shall invite no vampire or anything else. I’d nail a crucifix to my door so vamps couldn’t even knock. And… now that I think of it, none of ours flew, did they?”
“Not unless they were bats,” Amanda agreed. “Or mist.”
“Besides,” Marco continued, “why would I want to go to San Francisco? It’s not New York, and it’s not even Hell-A.”
Amanda rolled her eyes at the nickname of the largest vampire population on the West coast. “You can’t see living there at all?”
“Meh. The dorm rooms are nice,” Marco continued, “most of the people are friendly…though I even met this cute little redhead.”
“Really?” she teased.
He sighed deeply. “I didn’t go there to check out the female population. She was polite, intelligent, and pretty. Hung around with a blonde who wasn’t exactly my type, and another one who was athletic.”
Marco’s little smile flickered a little wider, then, went back to normal. “It’s too suburby for me.” He turned his head, and stretched a muscle. He examined the door noting that it had a lock like a bank vault—metal bars that would interlock with the doorframe if needed.
“But, if you’re going to go, you’re going soon, da?” she asked.
He looked back at her. “Eh. They take people at the last moment—and literally in the middle of September, if I so wanted.” A shrug. “So…”
She nodded. “Da… so…”
They looked at each other for a long moment, and he couldn’t put a laser pointer on it, but something was…there. She looked at him with such… such…
Oh, stop it, he thought, you’re being sentimental.
He stepped forward and hugged her furiously, and she hugged back so hard, ribs creaked. After a moment, he slowly stepped away from her, hands trailing down her arms as they parted.
He smiled and stepped away, moving for the door. However, when he reached back to grab the doorknob, he caught hold of someone’s wrist. Marco looked over his shoulder. There stood a short, funny little man with a midnight blue windbreaker and a set of matching eyes placed in a thoroughly Asian face.
“Merle,” Marco muttered, “how nice. What brings you by?”
Merlin Kraft smiled and looked to the vampire. “Good to see he hasn’t been eaten yet. How are you, Miss Colt?”
“Amanda,” she corrected him. “Helping your family move out to California?”
Merle smiled slightly. “You have a good intelligence system. Your gangs?”
Amanda nodded. “In part. Marco works that part of it, and we both deal with the vampire world.” She was being polite about the matter, since handling vampires involved lots of coercion and a slow drip of holy water, sometimes.
Kraft nodded thoughtfully. “Right.” He studied us a moment. “Are you up on San Francisco vampires?”
Colt nodded. “How recent do you want us to be?”
“Last night.”
Marco smirked. “We’re good, but not that good.”
Amanda shrugged. “San Francisco is such a small community of vampires, there aren’t even enough in the area to form their own Vampire’s association. There just aren’t that many of them. They prefer Los Angeles, probably because they don’t have to worry about exceptionally cool summers.”
Marco chuckled. “Also, LA has more gang-bangers that won’t be missed. Do they still have the highest murder-by-driveby rate in the country? But that’s getting off topic. Why do you ask about San Francisco.”
Merle glided over to the couch and sat,
crossing his legs at the knees. “Some of Mikhail’s boys decided to pay me a visit. But I’m here, helping Kristen and Arthur pack. I want a country between my family and my brother Dalf.”
Amanda growled slightly. “They hurt your people,” she stated. “How many did they get?”
His eyes flickered for a moment, revealing the pain inside. “Just one, but that’s enough to set me back months. I’m too busy cutting down vampires to do my job—you know, the one I’m paid for. If I can’t secure my home base, I’m not going to be much good to anyone.”
Amanda nodded thoughtfully. “Have you found who killed your FBI agent yet?” she asked, referring to the case that had first brought Merle to New York.
“No, and that’s the biggest problem,” Merle said. “This is my first time back to the East coast since our shootout in April, and already I’m down someone. I need help, and my government resources don’t allow for expansion, you can imagine why—I’m too weird, and this is too out there for anyone else to justify the expense.”
“Even after the death of an FBI agent?” Marco asked.
“Several FBI agents?” Amanda added. “And MI-6 allies? This is strange. Why has no one else investigated?”
“Probably because I killed the assassin who murdered the FBI agent,” Merle answered. “One dead bad guy is sufficient, apparently. Fine, he’s a vampire whose body disintegrated—but I can’t say that, so ‘associates and co-conspirators’ carried off his body. But apparently, having my word that the killer was decapitated is enough to file away the report and move on.”
Marco’s amused little smile was fixed, even as he rolled his eyes. “Since we killed off his boss and a lot of his minions, there’s probably been nothing for future spies to find.”
“And,” Amanda continued, “if there is nothing further to find, there is no reason to kill other FBI agents and spies who look around the United Nations.”
“In short,” Marle said, “they’re laying low.”
“Until they kill off the people who are already onto them,” Marco said. He looked to Merle. “So they’re after you for certain.”
“And us,” Amanda added. She glanced at Merle. “There was an entire meeting of the New York City Vampires Association about killing Mikhail the Bear. They know that Marco and I were involved. And if the ruling body of the local vampires knows of our involvement—”
“Then everyone in the vampire community knows,” Marco concluded.
Merle looked from Marco to Amanda and back. “Have you ever noticed that you two complete each other’s sentences a lot?”
“No,” Marco answered, as Amanda said, “Nyet.”
Merle arched a brow, nodded, and said, “Right. Anyway. Marco, I need you sooner than I thought. If Amanda stays here with your gangs and Vatican Ninjas, you can come with me to San Francisco, to my little team, then both of you should be as protected as possible from any possible reprisal.”
Marco and Amanda merely exchanged a glance, and the genial mood shifted. Merle had said the magic word, whether he knew it or not. Marco was needed.
Someone had to go to San Francisco.
Amanda knew this. She loved that he’d run to the rescue, but hated that it would mean dragging him away from her.
Marco Catalano chuckled. “Sure, I might be able to help.”
Amanda smiled at Marco warmly, then, turned to Merle. “Have you brought your anti-Vampire squad in on your government work?”
Merle looked at them and smiled. “I have no idea what you mean.”
“I see,” and Amanda did, without fail. “Lucky for you, most vampires only know you’re dangerous, and nothing more than that”
One of Merle’s eyebrows did a vertical lift. “Me in the vampire underground? Oy, I don’t like the sound of that mischegas.”
Yiddish…Asiatic face…da… Amanda smiled reassuringly. “Don’t worry, you and your brother Dalf are mentioned most prominently. If they knew you were involved with government, you would be hunted by everyone.”
“Goody.” He looked to Marco. “So, when can you come?”
* * *
“Next week,” Marco told Amanda and Father Rodgers, seated at the rectory table again.
The other two at the table didn’t answer. At one side of the circular table was Father Rodgers. A double shot of Sambucca Romana on the rocks in hand, he said, “I think that if it be done, it would best be done quickly. And frankly, I could think of worse things. You get extra ties to the government. This might eventually translate into additional support down the line. Tactically, it’s a good move. At the end of the day, it will make a big difference in reference to hunting down and suppressing vampires.”
Marco nodded, his little amused smiled frozen in place, though not quite as amused as usual. “Any other concerns?”
Rodgers looked to Amanda. “Will the gangs follow you?”
Amanda nodded. “Yes, they will. Even if they did not respect me to start with, Marco gave them a good talking to shortly after the battle in front of his house.”
The priest cringed. Marco had actually taken on his Vatican Ninjas, in his own church. The street gangs must have been terrified of him, if they had enough brain cells to rub together.
Marco smiled and said, “Well, Amanda, if it makes you feel better,” at the next vampire meeting, tell them you banished me from New York for the school year. That might make them feel more at ease.”
Amanda gave him a slight smile. “Maybe.”
CHAPTER 9:
POLITICS BITE
August 10th, San Francisco
A week later, Marco finished moving into the dorms of the University of San Francisco, and found himself located down the hall from two women he had spotted on his last visit—the redhead’s name was Yana Rosenburg, he remembered. Both were friendly and amicable, and looked slightly like the living dead—Marco chalked it up to a recent murder of an undergrad he had heard about. I wonder if that undergrad was Merle’s dead colleague.
“So, Marco, you’re from New York?” Yana asked. Her hair was the color of a pale fire, eyes light green, and while she wasn’t an athlete, she was on the light side.
Marco didn’t look at her as he lifted another box into place. “Certo, bella donna,” he said in Italian, without looking over his shoulder.
“So, what’s it like?” she asked, as though eager to hear about some great and majestic foreign land.
Marco chuckled. “Oh, it’s nice enough. Easy to get lost there if you don’t know what you’re doing, which, of course, I never do. I prefer leaving a trail of string behind me.”
She giggled, hanging back on the threshold of the door, like a vampire waiting to be invited in. I hate thinking like that, he thought. “I’m not exactly sure how I would describe New York City for a foreigner.” She didn’t reply, or even make a noise, but he looked at her, and chuckled at her slight, confused frown. “New Yorkers tend to think their home is a different country from mainland—remember, we're on an island. Which means someone around here is going to have to help me through culture shock… or I’m going to have to do that for the rest of the town.”
The pale blonde, Tara, ducked her head in. As he remembered, she was a dirty blonde who wasn’t excessively pretty. She had muddy brown eyes and a square face, and a stout figure.
“Um, San Francisco is a city.”
Marco shook his head and turned back to unpacking his books. “I can’t call San Francisco a city… a city has a skyline, a subway, a high violent crime rate.”
“Why come here then?” Tara asked.
Marco had a perfect lie already ready—mainly because he it wasn’t really a lie. “Because I was tired of the even more obnoxious, stuck up, perfect…people at NY…U.”
Both of them knew he wasn’t going to say either “people” or “U.” But the words “bastards” and “NYScrew” didn’t seem like the right thing to say. They seemed too…nice.
“But to come all the way out here?” Tara asked.
Because I had to come this far to get away from someone I love too much to inflict my psycho-ass on. “Because I would hate to miss out on all the nice quiet people you have hanging out around here,” Marco said with such a straight face that they had to laugh.
* * *
New York, August 12th
Lady Jennifer Bosley, President of the New York City Vampire’s Association, was not only powerful, but very, very rich. Not Bernie Madoff rich, or Bill Gates rich, but she was rich, as in “old world, old money, I can buy and sell China ten times” rich. She was not “the 1%” but the 0.0001%. If anyone had known she existed, or if she had all of her money in the same place under one name, she would have been one of the top ten richest entities on the planet, including nations.
Like many other wealthy vampires, she bought an entire apartment complex, and left the outside alone, turning the inside into a luxurious palace. On the outside, it looked like a gang-ridden neighborhood had declared war on her building. Inside, it looked like a modern-day palace. Her office was the size of a large living room. The carpet was Persian, the tapestries were European, the paintings were by old masters, some of which Amanda knew as having gone missing during World War II, and the bookcases had nothing but first editions.
But Jennifer Bosley herself was surprisingly relaxed. She came in wearing dark green jogging pants and top, as though she had just come in from a run. Her basic attitude was such that she knew she was rich, and she didn’t need to prove it to anyone. Her form was curvy, and she moved with effortless grace. Her blonde hair terminated at the base of her neck, with her hair at the sides tucked behind her ears. Her full lips were unadorned, and her brown eyes seemed to just cut through whatever she saw.
“Don’t worry about the paintings,” she said in her London accent. “I ate the ones who stole them, and their original owners weren’t alive to file any complaints.”
“Understood.”
Amanda Colt stood before President Bosley in a simple but good-looking sweater and jeans. Marco, and every other person who had ever talked about her appearance, would be the first to say that it would be hard for anyone who met her to say that she didn’t look good in everything she wore.