Last Ditch Effort

by Isobella Crowley

  Remy frowned. She had a point there.

  “And,” she went on, “the press, not to mention social media, were not involved. I would be shocked if at least twenty people didn’t capture your little stunt on their phone cameras and haven’t already uploaded it to YouTube. Tucker might be able to turn this to his advantage, somehow—perhaps by directing too much human attention toward us for us to be able to act at all without getting in deep shit. He’s not a moron. His dumb hick act is only a façade. You underestimated him and, clearly, all of us overestimated you.”

  It had been a while since he had been chewed out to this extent. Especially by someone other than his own family. He did not speak.

  Presley seemed to have finished his medical exam. “You are not seriously injured, Mr Remington, but you’ll want to avoid strenuous physical activity for the next week to ten days, I’d estimate. If you start to feel worse, you should see a proper doctor.”

  Taylor flipped a hand toward Remy again. “And you were hurt on company time. Publicly. You can’t do half the things I might need you to do, and I don’t have time for fucking around. I have connections that can defang most governmental organizations, but it takes time. Do you have any idea how much bullshit paperwork is involved with workplace injuries, workman’s comp, and all that crap?”

  He vaguely recalled his father discussing such things once, but he hadn’t paid much attention. Sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll were more interesting.

  After a moment, he looked at Taylor and tried a joke. “So, then, it sounds like my promotion will be delayed. But…uh, seriously…I’m sorry. I’ll try to deal with all the media stuff myself if I have to—that won’t involve strenuous physical activity, anyway. And I can probably take the fall for my own actions. You can claim I acted on my own, not under your direction.”

  She put her hands on her hips and shook her head. “Go home, David Remington, and get some rest. Take tomorrow off. But think very, very hard about what you plan to do next. Because if this is how you intend to operate, you’re better off not coming back.”

  The vampire turned away from him and walked down the hallway to vanish into the shadows of the old house.

  With a heavy sigh, Remy pushed to his feet. “And here I was believing that she’d at least think the whole jumping-out-of-the-car thing was completely killer-bad.”

  Presley put a hand on his shoulder. “You’d best do as the mistress suggested, sir. Call a car to take you home and spend a little time recuperating.”

  “I think I need to, at this point.” He groaned. “Maybe I’ll even remember your name. What was it, again?”

  The butler folded his hands behind his back. “Your attempts at humor are appreciated,” he commented, “but not particularly successful. Good evening, sir.”

  He wandered out the front door and into the cool night air. Presley shut the door behind him.

  Riley had perched herself either on his head or his forearm during the whole dressing-down but had not spoken until now. As they descended the winding path through the estate’s grounds toward the gate, the fairy detached herself from him and flew in front of his face.

  “Hey,” she said in what was probably intended to be a cute voice, “don’t worry too much. I thought the car thing was awesome.” She tittered and fluttered her tiny eyelashes at him. “In fact…it even makes me kind of…excited to think about it. I like men like you, human or otherwise.”

  She was so close to his face now that he was afraid she would try to kiss him on the mouth. Or, rather, on one tiny corner of his upper lip.

  “Riley,” he said and no longer even tried to fight the black mood that swelled out of him. There was no point in restraining it. He was born to be an asshole. “Why don’t you give it up? Your sexual interest in me displays a fundamental ignorance of rudimentary physics, for fuck’s sake. Think about it. Your entire body is smaller than…never mind. It simply won’t happen so you might as well stop acting like a stupid little girl.”

  The fairy flinched. Her jaw dropped and eyes widened as if he’d actually slapped her. “That’s it!” she shrieked, her chipmunk’s voice surprisingly loud. Tears so minuscule they were practically water vapor flowed from her eyes. “I will give it up. I’m going back to my nest. Don’t ever ask me for anything ever again!”

  Sobbing, she flapped her wings and rocketed herself into the trees. In an instant, she was gone.

  He stopped where he stood and looked at the ground for a moment. After a few breaths, he rolled his head in a circle and cracked his neck. It made him feel marginally better.

  “Well,” he said to no one at all, “I’d say it’s time for a drink.”

  Por’s Bar, Lower Manhattan, New York City

  Remy pushed his way into the basement tavern and noticed immediately that it was far busier than it had been a few days before. Granted, that had been in the afternoon and this was the hour when New York’s vibrant nightlife was reaching its full stride.

  About half the tables were occupied, mostly by humanoids, but a few by strange creatures he could not identify right away. The lighting was dim and the angles of the shadows hid many of the clientele. Several forms mingled freely on the open space around the solitary pool table.

  Conscious of how caked with sweat he was after his misadventure at the demolition derby, he ignored the other patrons and made a beeline for the bar. His purpose there was straightforward. He needed to kill some brain cells.

  Porrillage the gnome stood upon a pyramid of boxes, his back to the bar as he filled a mug with frothy golden beer for another customer. When he turned, he saw Remy at once.

  “You again?” he remarked in his thin yet gruff voice. He climbed down and handed the beer to a wan and grizzled-looking man who might have been undead. Remy couldn’t be sure.

  “Correct,” he said gloomily.

  The gnome wiped his hands off on his apron. “What does Taylor want this time? A shipment of liquid courage for her helpers with all the crap she’s getting herself into lately?”

  He mounted a stool and leaned forward on his elbows. “No, what she wants is for me to go away and leave her alone for the next thirty-six hours. I’m here purely on my own initiative. And what I want is…let’s say, a whiskey and Coke on the rocks. Light on the Coke and ice, heavy on the whiskey.” He sniffed. “Don’t worry, I managed to total my car earlier so someone else will do the driving.”

  Por shrugged. “Whatever you say, pal.” He turned to retrieve a glass and a bottle of nice blended Irish. “It sucks about your car, though. What the hell happened?”

  Remy glanced briefly at the guy two seats to his right, who’d ordered the mug of beer. He did look like a corpse but he smelled kind of dry and spicy, which made him wonder if the man were an unwrapped mummy.

  Turning his head toward the gnome, he explained, “Oh, you know, I was forced to enter it in a demolition derby. The other cars already did half the work the scrappers would normally have to do when salvaging the parts.”

  “Hah!” The bartender scoffed. “Yeah, that’ll do it. I wasn’t aware that anyone was ever forced to enter a demo derby, though. Are ya sure you didn’t simply make a hasty-ass decision?”

  “Anyone,” Remy stated firmly, “would have done the same thing in my position.”

  By now, Por had filled the glass about two-thirds with whiskey over a cursory smattering of ice and was in the process of topping it off with fizzing brown cola. “Yeah, yeah, that’s what they all say. Here ya go, buddy.” He walked along the single wooden beam along the floor that acted as a step for him to reach the bar and pushed the glass toward him.

  “Thanks.” He raised it in a mock toast and drank about a third of it at once. “Ahh. Very refreshing in a burning kind of way.”

  Over the course of the next couple of minutes, he drank another third and grew pleasantly woozy while the gnome hurried around to tend to the other customers seated at the bar and dispatch a waitress to deal with the folks at the tables.

  W
hen the proprietor had a moment and was again within earshot, Remy said, “You know…if Taylor does want a shipment of liquid courage for her minions, she’ll probably need a considerably supply, especially if she doesn’t want me to help out. I basically won that derby, even though I have zero experience with crashing my car into others. Intentionally, anyway.”

  The gnome gave him a squinty look. “Hmph. What happened this time, Mr Bigshot?”

  He told him the entire story in great detail and tried conscientiously not to slur his words.

  “It’s horseshit,” Remy concluded. “Sure, I made more noise than I was supposed to, but I intimidated the hell out of that guy, Tucker. He knows, now, that Taylor has someone in her corner who he shouldn’t fuck around with. And she yells at me and practically kicks me out. Now, I have to go sit in the corner and think about what I’ve done. For fuck’s sake.”

  “Well…” Porrillage snorted. “What did you expect? You basically did the complete opposite of what Moonlight Detective Agency is supposed to do. Aren’t you supposed to be on mitigation? Creating a gigantic media feeding frenzy isn’t a very good way to mitigate much of anything.”

  He waved a hand flippantly. “It’s only one battle. And it wasn’t so much a loss as a strategic retreat or something like that. It puts us in a better position to win the war.” He took a final swig from his glass, emptied it of liquid, and retained one of the ice cubes in his mouth.

  “How do you reach that conclusion?” the gnome mused. “In any event, Taylor might have been more forgiving of your cock-up if you’d taken immediate measures to, you know, mitigate your own actions and approached her with an apology and a plan. Instead, it sounds like you kinda waltzed into her house expecting to be praised instead of convincing her you deserve praise.”

  Remy rolled his tongue around the melting ice cube as he considered this statement.

  So what he’s saying is that if I come up with a really good plan—which I’m sure I can—and work harder at persuading her of my value to the agency….

  “Por,” he proclaimed and slapped a hand firmly on the bar, “you’re right. Someone of my talents has a responsibility to convince someone like Taylor that I’m not merely someone she can brush off due to a minor error. She told me to take tomorrow off, but I’ll go back to her house an hour before sundown so that I can give her a piece of my mind as soon as she gets up.”

  The proprietor raised his eyebrows as he nodded very slowly. “Yeah. Good luck with that, pal.”

  “Thanks.” He stood, smiled, and dropped a business card on the counter so Por could bill him for the drink later before he half-stumbled toward the exit. He pulled out his phone to secure a ride. To his amusement, one of the available drivers was a guy named Stan.

  Riverside Boulevard, New York City Waterfront

  Just beyond the warehouse, the first rays of dawn cast glimmering streaks of rosy crimson and sparkling gold across the choppy waters. This was the hour when most vampires would retire to their coffins if they hadn’t already.

  Gabriel, on the other hand, was still very much out and about.

  He snapped his fingers toward a pair of men who carried a heavy wooden crate from the shipping warehouse to one of the trucks. “You,” he intoned. “Bring that over here. I wish to inspect it.”

  Looking put-upon, they took deep breaths and hauled the crate in his direction to set it on a low, broad concrete ledge.

  The man on the left looked at the vampire and seemed perplexed by the fact he wore sunglasses before the sun had even risen. “Do you wanna look inside?” He reached for a crowbar hanging from his belt.

  As he stepped toward the crate, Tucker suddenly appeared from somewhere off to the right. “Let the man have a look,” he said. “’Course, he’ll find that everything is exactly as it should be but I can’t blame him for wanting to see with his own eyes.” He hooked his thumbs into the lapel of his jacket.

  Gabriel glanced at his partner before he returned his gaze to the cargo. “Thank you, Tucker.” Ignoring the man’s offered crowbar, he cracked his knuckles and tore the top off the crate with one hand. The workers stepped back, immediately tense.

  Within, partially hidden by packaging materials, was a nice selection of automatic weapons. There were rifles elsewhere, but these were mostly high-caliber sub-machine guns—compact but powerful. A few riot shotguns ought to be in one of the other crates, as well.

  All, of course, were highly illegal. But that wasn’t a problem. They had managed to evade any unwanted attention from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, and the vampire had ensured that bribes made their way into the hands of any inspectors or NYPD officers who might get in the way as well.

  “Good.” The corners of his lips turned upwards. He replaced the crate’s lid and used the flat of his palm to pound the nails back in place. “You men may proceed.”

  The workers nodded, hoisted the crate up, and took it to one of the trucks which would soon be bound for Gabriel’s personal estate.

  Tucker sidled up and smirked. “Yessir,” he stated cheerfully, “things are coming along nicely. They probably don’t even realize how far along we are. Heh, heh.”

  Before his companion could respond to this, a few sleek, old-fashioned cars pulled up along the edge of the docks. The men who stepped out as the doors opened wore suits and hats.

  The werewolf chortled. “I see the Italians are fashionably late again.”

  Albert and three of his bodyguards wasted no time and strode over to where the vampire and the Southerner stood. Albert, as usual, seemed shifty and nervous. But once he satisfied himself that he’d not walked into a trap, he dismissed his henchmen and stood alone with the other two.

  Gabriel cracked a single knuckle. “How nice of you to join us, Albert. Finally.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” the mobster replied. “I had to do a little quality control on an operation that was making too much noise. I’m sure you gentlemen can appreciate the value of keeping things nice and quiet at a time like this.”

  “Indeed,” said their leader dismissively.

  Tucker grimaced and added, “I had to fob off some interviews with the dadgummit press over that little stunt Taylor’s pretty boy pulled at my derby. But don’t worry, my boys will handle it. If we’re lucky, that idiot will traipse off to Connecticut or something and drag the reporters with him, while we—”

  “He should,” Gabriel interrupted, his voice loud and sharp, “be traipsing off to hell as we speak. But somehow”—he glared at the new arrival—“both of you failed to kill him. A mortal. A rookie in the preternatural world, no less. How is that, may I ask?”

  Albert spoke first and rubbed his nose with a knuckle. “He had some fairy with him. One of my guys told the little bitch to get lost when he came into the casino, but he must have hooked up with her afterward—she’s the only reason my guy Joe wasn’t able to exterminate the bastard.”

  Gabriel turned to Tucker.

  “Well, the boy has some talent for driving, and his car held up better than it should have. Hell, maybe that fairy enchanted the damn thing. It’s purely his luck, though, that he bailed out of the car before he was obliterated.”

  The mobster snorted. “So you planned to derby him to death? That’s not the way to do away with a man quietly, my friend.”

  The other werewolf narrowed his eyes. “People have been known to die in sporting events. Accidents happen. Murder by gun, on the other hand, tends to draw attention even when it happens someplace out of the way. I would have thought you’d know that.”

  Bristling, the mobster snarled. “Don’t try to lecture me, fat boy, on—”

  “Silence,” Gabriel interjected sharply and raised his voice enough to shut them both up. “Think no more about it. We will let bygones be bygones. That Remington imbecile seems to have unnatural luck, but he is not the main target here anyway. He will be of little concern once Taylor is dealt with. And deal with her we shall. Today.”

  The lycanthropes ca
lmed.

  All three of them understood the ramifications of this. The limitations under which they’d been forced to operate would be removed. The natural order would return. Earth’s most bounteous harvest was human flesh and blood—and all of it would be theirs for the reaping.

  The vampire cracked the knuckles of his right hand again. “Albert, I want you to personally stay out of the operation, but we will go ahead and allow some of your men to accompany Tucker and his group. It helps to have professionals on board and it’s best your own hands stay clean.”

  The mobster swept the area around him quickly with his characteristic shifty-eyed glance, then nodded. “Yeah. I’ll send top-level guys, though, but ones who can’t be traced back to me if something goes wrong.”

  “Good,” Gabriel said before Tucker could reignite tensions with some smart-ass comment. “Tucker, I understand that you’ve rehearsed this operation on your end several times over. My people and I will direct our efforts to keep the other preternaturals from interfering.”

  So far, everything was coming along precisely on that front. His agents had intercepted messages, sowed disinformation, disabled vehicles, and otherwise, done all they could think of to slow any response and create dissension in the ranks. Taylor’s mansion was not even guarded, at present, except by a few basic security systems and her elderly lupine manservant.

  Once the plan was set in motion, her sycophants would spit out their drinks, stumble over their words, and try to spring into action. But they would find that the rebel forces were more than prepared for them.

  The vampire continued with his reminder to Tucker. “You, however, will handle the most important part of the entire mission. We rely on you to not drop the ball.”

  The lycanthrope chuckled. “The ball will remain un-dropped, Gabe. Don’t you worry. We’ll have that coffin out of there in a jiffy, kept so tightly under lock and key a fly won’t be able to take a shit on it without us knowing.”