Shrouds of Darkness

by Brock Deskins

  “All right, Nicky, go back inside,” I tell him and start walking out of the alley.

  “How can I go back in there after you disrespected me like that in front of my crew?” Nicky whines at my back.

  “The way nature intended,” I call over my shoulder, “with humility and a profound sense of shame.”

  “You’re a real asshole, Malone, you know that?”

  “That’s what everyone tells me.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  I am back to the rooftops the next night, looking and listening for anything out of the ordinary. Showing up to slaughter scenes after the fact is getting me no closer to finding Martin and it is really starting to piss me off.

  Nicky says he saw what he thought were Sheriff’s taking Martin away but if it was them, why doesn’t Vincent know about it? If Wyatt and his crew did take Martin, why didn’t he tell me and why are people still being torn up by a werewolf that I have to assume is the same one?

  Then there are the reports of unlawful vampire predation. Maybe it’s more than one. Maybe it’s a gang of younglings stupid enough to think they can make their own little enclave and they took Martin as a way to keep attention on a werewolf instead of themselves?

  A bunch of younglings taking on a full werewolf? Highly unlikely even if they somehow got enough information on how to do it and who to pick off with the highest degree of success. No, there are too many factors, too much inside information needed for that to be plausible.

  Ok, a group of mature vamps carving out their own little niche. Same agenda, same motives, but with more strength and knowledge. That at least is possible if still improbable, but at the moment I have nothing else to go on.

  It is a little after two in the morning and I decide that I have wasted enough time for one night. I drop down to street level and start walking briskly towards home. I am on Hawthorne near Prospect Park when I hear the scream.

  My ears instantly pick out the direction and I am off at a dead run. Most likely it’s just a home invasion robbery but just maybe it’s my guy, or guys. A second cry let’s me lock onto a single family house and I pull my hood up over my head.

  The first thing I notice as I bound up the front steps is the splintered door frame that used to hold the door that is now in two pieces and lying on the floor halfway down the entry hall. I know immediately this is no robbery. This is good for me but bad for whoever lives here.

  Even so, I am totally unprepared for what awaits me as I burst into the living room. Cowering in the corner behind a couch is a woman holding two, middle school-aged children. All are crying and in hysterics but that is not what shocks me.

  In the center of the living room are three vampires; two white, one Jamaican-looking who’s face is buried in the open throat of a man who I assume was the father. All three look at me and smile as the Jamaican drops the lifeless body to the ground.

  “Hey, mon,” the Jamaican says to me. “This house is taken. Best you go find your own, we ain’t for sharin’.”

  “Yeah, go find your own,” one of the white guys warn me.

  “You stupid sons of bitches. What the hell do you think you are doing?” I growl at them.

  “Whatever we damn well please,” the third one arrogantly informs me. “Who’s to stop us?”

  All three are new, but unfortunately, for them, they won’t be getting any wiser with age. Maybe they don’t know the rules but I’m in a particularly foul mood thanks to my lack of progress in my case and I don’t feel like taking the time to educate them.

  “Me,” I tell them as I reach into my jacket and start to pull my blade.

  “Just you? It don’t look like much of a fair fight, mon. There be three of us.”

  “Yeah well, that’s how it is sometimes, but unless you have four or five friends in the other room it isn’t going to get any fairer.”

  All three charge at me with blinding speed the moment they see my sword slide from of its sheath but they aren’t nearly as fast as I am. I am a trained fighter; these guys are hoodlums and newbie vampires at that.

  I bury my sword into the Jamaican’s gut just below the sternum, but a slight dodge at the last second causes me to miss the spine I am aiming for. He flails about wildly and pulls my sword from my grip as he goes screeching and flapping about the room in panic.

  The first white guy swings at me with a wild haymaker and I catch his wrist with my left hand in vice-like grip that would have pulverized the bones of a human. I pull him towards me and pivot us both around as if I’m leading him in tango. The third vamp tries to clobber me from behind but I lash out with my right leg and send him flying through the wall, shattering several studs, and laying him out inside one of the bedrooms.

  I spin back towards the one caught in my grip before he can take a swing at me with his free hand, grab him by the waist of his jeans with my right hand, and heave him into a roof beam before body slamming him onto the hardwood floor with the force of a pile driver.

  The Jamaican calms down enough to pull my blade free from his chest and charges me with it raised over his head, ready to split my skull like a piece of firewood. Shalonda practically leaps into my hand and the look on his face is almost comical as he stares into that gaping black cavern of a barrel. I squeeze the trigger and his head practically vanishes in the flash of the discharge.

  I snatch my sword from his limp grasp before his body even hits ground. I don’t even need to look as I pirouette and take off the head of the guy I slammed into the floor just as he is rising back to his feet. This is the part in the movies where the vampire inexplicably spontaneously combusts into a pile of ash easily swept up with a dustbuster. Unfortunately, this is reality and reality is always much more messy.

  A sound from the bedroom causes me to turn and I see the last vamp shaking the drywall dust from his face as he ponders his next move. We both come to the same conclusion at the same time.

  “Don’t you dare…,” I begin to warn him but I’m too late and he isn’t likely to listen anyway. “…run. Damn it!”

  He dives through a window before I can get a clean shot off and I immediately give chase. I pull out my phone and hit the speed dial.

  “Cleanup,” I shout as soon as the other end picks up and I quickly rattle out the address. “Two rogue vamps and three human witnesses!”

  I don’t wait for a reply before flipping the phone shut and pouring on the speed after the fleeing vampire. He is young but he is fast and I am barely able to keep pace with him.

  Buildings fly by in a blur but I am getting no closer to my quarry and I know I need to bring this chase to end quickly as we begin nearing an area with a more active nightlife. It would not do at all to have multiple humans witness two guys tearing down the streets at speeds upwards of forty miles per hour. This is not the way I want to become a YouTube sensation.

  As we burst out of an alley, I snatch up a discarded tire rim and hurl it like a discus. Even I’m impressed with myself as the steel projectile catches the runner in the back of his head and sends him tumbling. I don’t even break stride as I tear a parking meter out of the ground and advance with malicious intent.

  He is already climbing back to his feet as I reach him, but a swing worthy of the major leagues from my parking meter sends him flying into the unyielding brick wall of a building amidst the chiming of flying nickels, dimes, and quarters.

  The young vamp is persistent and tries to get back up but I double him over with a hit to the gut from my makeshift baseball bat then send him back down to the sidewalk with a clout to the back of his head.

  I toss aside my parking meter, roll him over, and grab him by his jacket collar. “What the fuck was all that about? Are you all that damn stupid?”

  It takes a moment for his eyes to stop rolling around and focus on me and when he does, he laughs in my face.

  “We’re vampires, dude. We do what we want!”

  I shake him roughly and bounce his head off the concrete a couple times. “Shit like that w
ill bring heat on us, you stupid bastard! That’s why it’s against the law! Didn’t anyone ever tell you that, or are you all just so damn stupid you don’t care?”

  He laughs again and his reply sends a chill down my spine. “Not for long, Malone. Things are changing and they’re changing real fast.”

  That sounded eerily familiar to me and I wrack my brain trying to place it, but I don’t have time to really process it. I can already hear sirens in the distance. If the woman’s screams didn’t prompt the neighbors to call the cops, the near artillery blast from Shalonda certainly did.

  “On your feet, asshole, I’m taking you downtown.”

  Again, Mr. Chuckles laughs at me. “I don’t think so, cowboy.”

  The kid bites down on something in his mouth and within seconds a bloody froth is running down his face as he convulses. I step away, not wanting to get whatever he took onto me, and cast about looking for something with which to take a sample.

  I find a small glass vial that probably belonged to a crackhead and carefully scoop some the bloody drool into it then firmly seat the stopper in place before wiping it clean on the kid’s shirt.

  I fish around in his pockets and although he doesn’t have ID, he does have a cell phone. Everyone has a cell phone. I drop the phone in my pocket, drag the body into the alley, toss it into a dumpster, and call in a cleanup with a quick warning of severe biohazard. The guy on duty gives me shit about it but I tell him to quit his bitching and send a team. I have a good idea at what the toxic pill is and I am furious, certain I have been played this entire time.

  I know exactly what this poison is and the only place on the planet it is found—Vtech Pharmaceuticals, owned by Vincent Van Graff who just happens to sit in the president’s chair of the enclave and hates my guts.

  My friend, Dr. Wallis, the one that tried to find a cure and burned himself to death when he failed, had inadvertently developed the most effective means of killing his own kind ever devised. In the very small circle of people that know of its existence, it is simply known as the Cure.

  Immediately upon being informed of Dr. Wallis’s disastrous failure, Vincent had all samples and every piece of data placed under bio safety level four in his top research lab.

  Whether this is related to my werewolf hunt or not, I don’t care. All I care about right now is putting a boot up someone’s ass for jerking me around, and I have a good idea whose ass is a prime candidate and where it is currently planted.

  I find a payphone and call the security desk. “Mr. Van Graff,” I say as soon as the front desk picks up.

  “One moment, I’ll transfer you.”

  I hang up immediately. If Vincent hadn’t been there they wouldn’t have bothered transferring me to his office phone. I figured he was in despite the late hour. The man is almost always at the office despite owning a spectacular home upstate.

  A short jog gets me to a street where cabs are running and I quickly flag one down. It drives me into Manhattan and drops me off in front of the massive office building. I don’t ask the driver to wait.

  Probably the murderous look in my eyes makes the solitary guard stand up and come around the desk to intercept me. He pulls out a taser but is far too slow. I whip Shalonda up and put a round through his kneecap. Had he not been a vampire it likely would have taken the lower limb completely off. As it is, he simply drops and hurls expletives at me while he grabs at his ruined leg.

  I roll him onto his stomach, handcuff his hands behind his back, and take his elevator key to the upper floors. Despite being one of the fastest elevator designs in use, it takes far too long for me to reach the top.

  When the doors finally open, I storm down the hall and kick in the decorative yet solid double doors leading into Vincent’s palatial office suite. Although expected, I am still disappointed by his lack of reaction to my violent intrusion.

  “Mr. Malone, I see the years have down nothing to improve your subtlety or tact. If you have information about the case you need to share with me that you feel warrants more than a phone call, you can simply schedule an appointment and I will grant you permission for an audience at my convenience. There is no need to shoot the help and ruin my doors.”

  I toss the vial of frothy pink poison on his desk. “Like you gave permission to your minion to ingest this?”

  “And what might this be?” the senior vampire asks as he reaches towards the vial.

  “Just a sample of the Cure I scooped out of a dead vamp’s mouth a few minutes ago.”

  Again, I am impressed with the old vamp’s composure as he casually withdraws his reaching hand. Most people would have leapt half way across the room when faced with the most deadly poison to their kind in the world.

  “I see.”

  “Do you? Because I sure as fuck don’t! I don’t see how some dirt bag vampire so new he still has teeth marks in his neck got a hold of that when you are supposed to be the only person with access to it! Can you explain that to me? Can you explain why you have me chasing after a single werewolf when it seems we have an influx of rogue vampires running around fucking shit up in my neighborhood?”

  Vincent casually scoops the vial into his trashcan with a sheet of paper and regards me intently before answering.

  “In regards to the poison, I will perform an internal audit of our samples and security. It is not your concern. Any unlawful vampire predation is currently being dealt with by the appropriate authorities, of which you are no longer a part. Continue your search for Mr. Goldstein as I directed you. Neither the Cure nor vampires are your concern.”

  “Not my concern! I have vampires packing poison and murdering people without regard for secrecy right in my ward. How is that not my concern?”

  I finally get some emotion out of him as he responds: “Because I told you it was not your concern, you little prick! Now follow your orders and get the hell out of my office! And you can be sure that you will be paying for my door.”

  I turn my head at a sound behind me and find Wyatt with his hand on his sword waiting to escort me out. I can tell when I am being asked to leave. Damn it. Vincent was supposed to give himself away, a facial gesture, any kind of reaction to let me know what is going on inside that too intelligent head of his, but he gave me nothing.

  “I know my way out,” I growl and slap Wyatt’s hand away as I stalk back to the elevator.

  “Leo, tell me what’s going on, maybe I can help,” he calls at my back but I ignore him. “Leo, why won’t you let me help?”

  “Because I haven’t decided whether or not you’re part of the problem,” I shout back as the doors slide open and I step into the elevator.

  Out of pure spite, I snap the key off in the lock before tossing the chain and remaining piece of key to the guard that has already been posted to replace the one I shot. Wyatt probably gave him the rest of the night off despite probably having recovered from his wound already.

  I pace around my loft totally frustrated. Vincent has me looking for a werewolf that is probably not involved, at least not willingly, in several attacks but gets bent out of shape and forbids me to look into known vampire attacks.

  Toss in the vampire equivalent of cyanide mixed with Ebola and this whole thing makes no sense. Vincent has the Cure on lock down but my gut is telling me he is unaware of it having walked out of his lab—maybe. For fuck sake, I could wallpaper the empire state building with all the maybes I have. One thing I am sure of; there is a lot more going on than a nerdy werewolf and a few idiot vampires running amok in Brooklyn.

  I fiddle with the phone I took off the vamp’s body but it’s no good. It’s locked and I don’t know how to crack it, but I know someone who can. I’ll have to stop by for a visit and employ him. I have a few other tasks that his technical genius can handle for me as well. I need information and if anyone can get it, it’s Marvin.

  A very loud banging on my ground floor door interrupts my contemplations. Given the construction of my door and building, the fact that it is loud means
someone is either hammering it with a battering ram or repeatedly backing a truck into it.

  I double-check that Shalonda is in my pocket holster before springing up the steel steps to a narrow, barred window set about twenty feet above the street in front of my building.

  Sure enough, a squad of cops in full assault gear is abusing my door with a handheld ram. I wonder how long they will continue their futile attempts before realizing that nothing short of one of their battering ram tanks will crack the thick steel door or bust it off the one-foot thick reinforced concrete wall.

  “Castillo, is that you knocking?” I call down to the mass of cops below.

  Several cops train their weapon on me immediately as Castillo backs up to get a better look at me. “Get your ass out here, Malone. I have a warrant for your arrest.”

  “Is there a search clause in that warrant?”

  “No,” Castillo calls up in obvious annoyance.

  “Then stop banging on my fucking door and I’ll come out.”

  Castillo motions her squad back and I climb back down the stairs. I take my time emptying my pockets of their assortment of weapons if for no other reason than to deny Castillo the pleasure of an excuse to shoot me. With a sigh of regret, I toss my Miguel Caballero into the furnace. You can bet that’s going on my bill. I grab another trench coat from my closet, a regular one not the bulletproof variety, and put it on.

  Lastly, I call my lawyer. I have stuff to do and I would rather not spend any more time twiddling my thumbs in jail than I have to.

  I push the door open and step out into the early morning gloom. Before Castillo can order her men to jump me, I slam my door shut with an audible click of its lock. Gotta keep the cops honest.

  Castillo surprises me by simply cuffing me and reading me my rights. I really expected her to have me roughed up a bit.

  “What’s this about, Castillo?” I ask her as she handcuffs my hands behind my back. “You got me on camera jaywalking?”

  “Even better, Malone. I have three witnesses placing you at the scene of a home invasion and murder.”