Claws That Catch

by Lee Hayton

  “We need to get that woman some more wine,” Asha said as she slumped into her usual seated position. “Come to think of it, I could use a bottle myself.”

  “Great,” Norman said, walking out of his bedroom and rubbing his eyes. “We can have a party.”

  “You can’t,” Asha shot back. “You’re well underage.”

  Norman snorted, but judging from the look that Asha gave his back, he would soon find out she was serious. Not my war, so I curled up on the edge of the sofa and closed my eyes.

  “Shit. There’s been another bombing,” Asha said, bringing me into full consciousness with an unpleasant jolt. “Another blood bank, just when they were getting set to reopen.”

  Norman looked over his shoulder at the television with a frown. “They’re playing a dangerous game if this is organized. The public puts up with the vamps in slavery because it gets their city built. If the workers no longer work, then the entire façade starts to crumble.”

  “Or, they start to look for private donors,” I said, trying to second-guess what the average man’s plan might be. “If that happened, they could use the situation to disappear people, and nobody would notice.”

  “They don’t need something that elaborate to make enemies disappear,” Asha pointed out. “The empire or private enterprise can get that accomplished in broad daylight without anyone batting an eye.” She stared at the screen, her lower lip pooching out in thought. “There’ll be money behind it, but I don’t know how they’re making a profit from this one.”

  “I need your help,” I said, giving the door a quick glance to ensure that Dory hadn’t returned. “There was a death last night.”

  “Where’s Percival?” Norman said, grabbing at his chest in alarm. “I thought he’d just set up camp down in the cellar.”

  “I don’t have a clue where he is, but that’s not who I’m talking about.”

  “Earnest,” Asha said. “That’s why Dory was down here.”

  “We’ll need access to his accounts if we want to convince people that the status quo is normal. Can I leave that with you?”

  Asha nodded. “I’ll have a look through his office. and work from there.”

  “Earnest had an office?”

  My raised eyebrows caused Asha some amusement. “Yeah, what did you think? He wasn’t a heathen. He was a thug with a massive crush.”

  “Was this part of your plan?” Norman said, turning narrowed eyes toward me.

  I shook my head. “This is just an unexpected annoyance. As far as I know, Dory just wore him out.”

  Dory wandered back into the room a few minutes later. I gathered from her massively upgraded appearance that she’d managed to find her own source of wine. She sat down next to me on the couch like a woman who hadn’t just lost a lover.

  “What the hell did you do to him?” Asha asked, the corner of her lip curling up in a smile. “I thought old Earnest would last forever.”

  Dory shrugged and wiped a tear away. Real or staged, I couldn’t be sure. “I think his heart gave out in the end. He was carrying a bit of extra weight about.” She shook her head. “I don’t like to think about it. Any one of us could drop dead—” she snapped her fingers “—just like that!”

  “Well, I think Asha’s got a few more hundred years mileage in her,” I said.

  “And I’m only on my second life,” Norman added, then faced me. “Which one are you up to?”

  “I’ve got a few left up my sleeve.” I looked back to Dory. “We’re all practically immortal here, you know.”

  “Well, I’m not.” Dory stretched her legs out onto a cushion, a sulky expression on her face. “I think this body is eighty, if it’s a day.”

  “But you look so young and pretty,” Asha said in a mincing voice, blowing Dory a kiss. “No one would ever be able to tell.”

  “I need to work out how to get my upload,” Dory said. “Once I have a copy of that safe in my hands, I’ll feel better.”

  “Sure,” Asha agreed. “You just need to break into the government law enforcement holding and go to their secret room where they hold all the stuff that nobody is meant to know about. I’m sure that’ll be a piece of cake. Why don’t you use that invisibility spell?”

  At that, Norman broke into laughter. “Yeah. How long can you hold your breath?”

  “It’s okay for you lot. I’m the one who just lost her partner. Show some damn respect.”

  “I would if I thought you cared,” Asha said, patting Dory on her knee. “But it’s difficult to tell under that hardened veneer.”

  “I cared.” Dory gave a sniff and wiped away another tear. “He didn’t even tell me where he hid his money.”

  Asha barked with laughter, then clapped a hand over her mouth at the harsh noise. When she pulled it away, her smile was still broad. “Well, play your cards right, and soon everything that belonged to Earnest will belong to us, my dear.”

  “I’m going downstairs to check on Percival,” Norman announced suddenly. “Just in case we have some kind of bug going around.”

  “Don’t go in the drains,” I warned him as he left. “We’ll have a job to do later.”

  He raised his eyebrows, then gave a look of disgust as he followed the instruction through to its natural conclusion.

  When he was gone, I crossed into the kitchen and retrieved my folder from the cleaning cabinet. I pulled out the last piece of paper, showing the name and occupation of my son, stowing the rest of the information safely back where it had come from.

  “While you’re poking around and looking for Earnest’s information, would you be able to dig around and see what you can come up with on this guard?”

  I handed the paper over, keeping my eyes fixed on the television screen as I did so. The last thing I needed was Asha’s sharp gaze ferreting more information out than I currently wanted to give.

  “Who’s this?”

  “A guard down in the vampire pits,” I said, although she could read that herself. “I thought it might be a good point of entry for our plan.”

  “We don’t have a plan.”

  “Not yet.” I tapped the sheet of paper. “But this might give us the start of one. Whatever we do, it’ll be easier if we have someone on the inside.”

  “And you think this guy might be a snitch?” Asha frowned at the page, scanning the entirety of the information again. “Why?”

  I shrugged. “He’s loosely connected with my old employer. I just have a hunch, based on a few conversations over the years.” The muscles in my shoulders and neck strained to tighten, but I forced them to stay loose and relaxed. “If what you find out looks different, then we start at another point.”

  Asha nodded and handed back the page. “I’ve got it,” she said, tapping the side of her head. “I suppose that I should get working on the problem.”

  Asha disappeared out of the room for a half hour, then walked back inside to grab her jacket, a broad smile on her face. “I guess old Earnest really just wanted us to have the lot when he died,” she said with a quick wink. “And if not, then shame on him for being so bad at hiding stuff away from prying eyes.”

  Asha walked over to the door, grabbing her jacket on the way. “I don’t suppose you feel like a drink in The Waterside?”

  I smiled and gave her a sideways glance. “At this time of the morning?”

  Asha returned the smile and nodded. “Yeah. That’s always been where I’ve done my best work. You don’t want me to fiddle about with a computer that can be traced back here, do you?”

  “I certainly don’t,” I agreed, also grabbing a jacket and pulling up the collar against the expected cold.

  “Hey, Mike,” Asha called out as we walked into the bar. From the look on his face, the pleasantry wasn’t reciprocated. As soon as the manager finished up serving the current client, he flipped up the lip of the bar to slide through, heading our way.

  “I’m pretty sure I’ve told you on at least a dozen different occasions that I don’t want you
coming here.”

  Asha planted a kiss on his cheek, then winked over at Gwen, the barmaid waiting behind the counter. It was a poorly kept secret that she and Mike had a thing going.

  “You keep saying it, and I keep turning up anyway,” Asha said. “One of these days, I’m sure you’ll just get the message and leave us alone to drink here in peace.”

  “Fine,” he grumbled. A quick capitulation, even by his standards. “What’ll you have?”

  “I’ll have a shot of your finest whiskey, and my friend will have a white Russian, gentle on the Russki.”

  As Mike returned with the drinks, Asha slipped him a bill that was far too large for the order. “If you happened to have a laptop lying about handy, that also wouldn’t go astray.”

  For a moment, I thought Mike would just refuse the note. His eyes stared straight at it while his brain performed some intensive calculations. Finally, he sighed and picked up the money, holding the old bill up to the light to ascertain that it was genuine.

  “That’s a bit insulting,” Asha remarked. “You know I’m good for it.”

  “Just being careful,” Mike replied with gruff good-nature. “Hold tight, and I’ll send something your way.”

  We sat at the table, neither one of us knowing quite what to do in the way of small talk. I traced out a figure eight on the wooden table using the condensation from my glass. Asha just frowned down at the wood as though its very existence was offending to her.

  “Here you go,” Mike said after a wait of ten excruciating minutes. He slid an old-fashioned newspaper across the table, something that would probably draw more attention than the object it was meant to be hiding. “You’ll need to spend at least another hundred on the bar.”

  “Done,” Asha said, handing across a card that definitely didn’t belong to her. “Run this through and hold twice that much on the tab.” She winked. “Call it a tip.”

  He returned the card a few minutes later, and Asha snapped it into little pieces. She got to work on the computer, leaving me to my own devices.

  When we got back, I’d need to organize the werecats to dispose of Earnest’s body. The team would be getting restless for another training session, the quickly formed bonds just as quick to snap apart.

  I didn’t know what I was doing, but that had never stopped me before.

  “There’s a job opening,” Asha said, startling me out of a doze, “in the guards.”

  “Really?” I rubbed a hand over my face, trying to wipe away my sleepiness. “How are they taking on new staff when they’re not expanding?”

  “Beats me. I’m just reading out what they’ve got on the site.” She spun the laptop around so I could read the posting for myself. “Feel like applying?”

  I tried to think around the roadblock in my head. To make a good decision, I reckoned I needed at least another eight hours of sleep.

  “Do it,” I said. “And make me a shoo-in, will you? I don’t want to go through an interview only to find out that I wasn’t in with a chance.”

  “Just a moment,” Asha connected the laptop into a port on the side of her neck. “I’ll just scope out the other candidates and make your resume a little bit better.”

  She closed her eyes, letting the cybernetics inside her brain do the hacking for her. In another few minutes, her eyes popped open. “Okay. Unless the entire thing is a ruse, you’re in.”

  My heart started to beat a little faster, and my head swam with possibilities. I could meet my son, could work next to him. We might form a tight friendship, and then I could tell him who I was.

  And he could reject me.

  Perhaps, I could just work beside him and never admit the relationship. We could become close colleagues and have one of those joking relationships like the old sitcoms on the TV.

  Except, you’re going into that place to scope it out and try to turn the entire vampire slave system on its head. He’s in there because he likes it.

  I had no way of knowing whether that was true, so I ignored the little voice in favor of ordering another drink. Sure, it might turn out that my son was a willing pawn of the empire, but it was also possible that he just did a dirty job because it was one of the few ways to get paid.

  Just following orders.

  Okay. That little voice in my head had to go. “How’re you doing with Earnest’s stuff?”

  “Nearly there. The man needed the help of a good accountant.”

  “You find the payoffs?”

  “Yeah.” Asha shook her head and pursed her lips. “He made a regular payment once a week to a sham organization and another one every other month to a real one.”

  “What’s the real one?”

  “The City Landlord Inc.” Asha smiled. “And I must say, they’re doing a sterling job.”

  “Hey, just because he rented an apartment out to us, doesn’t mean he wasn’t a great landlord in other ways.”

  “I’m surprised he registered with anybody,” Asha said with a shrug. “I always assumed he just took over that place with some violent thugs and then everyone fell into line behind him.”

  I nodded and laughed, though the situation wouldn’t be so pleasant if I were on the wrong side of it. I’d been there enough times to know. “The City Landlords Inc are probably the ones who handed the violent thugs out to him to begin with. If a business proposition like that works the first time, why not repeat it till it reaches a natural end?”

  We walked out of The Waterside, pulling our collars up in unison against the cold that we’d forgotten while we were basking inside in the bar’s heat. Smog was edging low over the horizon, ready to envelop us in its shroud of pollution. Even though it wasn’t yet midday, it looked like the sky was edging into night.

  “Just think,” Asha said, leading us toward home. “By this time next week, you might have a real job.”

  “A pawn of the empire,” I agreed. “It’ll be a nice change of management.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  “I see here that you have previous experience,” the supervisor said. “Can you tell me about an incident where you had to apprehend a prisoner who was trying to escape?”

  I thought back through all the jobs that I’d had and alighted on an occasion that fit. “Once, I had a man who wouldn’t obey directives. He tried to slip down a side corridor while the, uh, manager that I worked for was waiting for him in the meeting room.”

  The man across the table from me smiled and nodded. I didn’t need to read his mind to know what he was thinking. Isn’t that just like prisoners to try to slip away right at the point they become useful?

  “I apprehended him using my martial arts combat skills—” a slice across the back of his heel that severed his Achilles tendon “—and dragged him to the place that he was meant to be—” a windowless cell, three stories underground “—so my boss could ask a few questions—” the average man tortured him for a few hours “—before I escorted him back to his cell—” tossed him off the overpass in front of a speeding truck.

  “Well, that certainly fits the bill, doesn’t it?” The supervisor sat back, crossing his arms behind his head. The stains in his armpits showed that the room was too hot. A good point to notice because otherwise, I would have thought that it was down to my nerves. “Your resume didn’t lie.”

  No, sir. It perfectly matched the fake history that Asha had skillfully dotted among the right government files. I should have asked her for a bank loan while I was at it. A lovely seafront property would suit me fine.

  “I have some other candidates to interview,” the man said, blessedly putting his arms back down, “but unless they blow me away, I’ll be giving you a call this evening.”

  I thanked the man, shook his sweaty hand, and walked out of the building. I’d been there before, in recent memory, getting Asha out of a cell. Back then, I’d had the protection of a covert officer to protect me if something went wrong. Now, I only had myself to rely upon. As I passed through the barbed wire of the front gate, I couldn�
�t work out if that was an improvement.

  My plan, so far as it went, was to gain a position here, then somehow work out how to infiltrate the vampire pits, turn them, free them, and bring down the might of the empire while I was at it.

  The last point was moot—the empire had already been brought down by the Pennyworths—and the rest of it seemed an impossibility. I sighed as I wondered why I’d bothered to convince Asha to come on board. In truth, I thought it was probably less about the plan for vampire freedom and more to do with the opportunity to meet my son.

  If I did get called up and placed in the current position, then I’d be working on a team of which he was part. Until I began the job, I wouldn’t know if that would get me into striking distance of him. If the teams were restricted to solo work—which I’d seen on occasion—then I might only meet him at the annual team function, and no guarantee that I’d be seated close enough to talk.

  The whole thing seemed foolish now, but it had gone far enough that I had to see it through. I thought with nostalgia about the good old days where all I had to worry about was fighting for my life on the streets. At least there, I’d had an advantage. If I got the job, I’d always be on the back foot.

  Dory was waiting for me by the car, eagerly bouncing from one foot to another. For some reason, the thought that me getting the job—even at the lowly guard level—was enough for her to gain access to her memory stick had taken hold. Although both Asha and I had tried to explain in detail why that didn’t actually get her any closer, she hadn’t paid attention.

  Still, at least it gave her something to take her mind off Earnest.

  The werecats had taken to the task of disposal with gusto. Part of it was due to a willingness to embrace anything that relieved the tedium of having nothing to do, but mostly it was because I’d lied through my teeth about the mission. Nobody knew that poor Earnest was contained inside the trash bags. Our luck held throughout the trek through the sewer system as no cat managed to claw open a bag by mistake.