by John Conroe
“What happened?” I finally asked, still watching this alien Tatiana.
“You got suckered in by a were weasel. They are the primary assassins of the were world and this one was getting ready to punch your ticket. We,” she pointed to Tatiana and herself, “were on our way to see you and suddenly she leaped out of the car and ran off. I followed her and by the time I caught up she was finishing off the were. With my car door, which she took with her when she jumped from my car. It was kinda messy. Weasel paste. We got some of her magical blood into you and you healed right up. Like a vampire would. Freaky. But you feel okay now?” she asked.
I tore my gaze from Tatiana and gave myself a quick once over. I felt great, although I seemed to be naked under the sheets. “Ah, yeah, I guess. Ah, Tanya. What's up? What's the matter?” I asked, puzzled and very worried by her appearance.
“Hello, Christian. I'm glad you are well.” She didn't seem glad.
“And now that you’re awake, I need to say some things to you,” she continued.
“Jeeze, Tanya. What are ya doin'? Not like this! Not this moment!” Lydia objected.
Tatiana's head snapped to look at the little vampire, who she addressed after a moment.
“Yes, Lydia. Now. Before a moment longer.” I didn't know what was happening, but the dread I felt in the pit of my stomach was making me queasy.
“Chris” she began. Not Christian -- this was bad.
“I have decided that my Mother was right. I am grateful to you for saving my life last Friday. And I'm grateful to you for snapping me out of my....catharsis. But I'm awake now. And I think we are even at this point. I find myself growing rapidly, catching up for lost time. I'm afraid my infatuation with you was, well, simply a girlish crush.”
A micro burst of shame flashed across her face as she said this.
“So, if I misled you, then you have my apologies. But I'm afraid that the simple truth is that I've outgrown that stage. I've outgrown you. It would be best for you to leave me alone.” She spun on her heel and slipped from the room like a wraith.
My heart had stopped beating as soon as she had said her mother was right. And I couldn't seem to make my diaphragm work. The weasel had kicked like a mule, but this hit me ten times harder. My vision started to darken from the outside in, spiraling down until I couldn't see. Some primitive response to my body's inability to decide to fight or flee. “Chris...Chris, breathe!”
Lydia's voice was competing with a train sound that filled my ears.
Reflex kicked in and my lungs filled with sudden, almost painful whoosh of air. After what seemed like thirty or forty years, my vision came back to find Lydia hovering in front of me worriedly.
“What the hell was that? What just happened?”
“Chris, listen to me. You can't believe that she meant that. It's...it's complicated.”
I was scrambling out of bed, ignoring my nakedness and moving toward a pile of clothes.
“Complicated? That wasn't fucking complicated!” I yelled. I pulled on a pair of leather pants and a black tee shirt from the pile of folded clothes. “That was exactly what Galina said would happen.”
Stunned disbelief was giving over swiftly to red, red rage. Rage at Tatiana, rage at Galina, rage at Lydia for telling me it had been real, and mostly, rage at myself. The pain was unbelievable, worse than any physical feeling I had ever had. I could feel it in every cell of my body and I needed out. The fight or flight decision had been made and it was flight time. I almost missed it in my hurry to be gone, but a big duffel bag with part of my cop gear sticking out of an open zipper caught my eye just enough for me to grab it.
“Chris, wait, let me explain!”
“ SAVE IT! I'VE GOT ALL THE EXPLANATION I NEED! NOW HOW THE HOLY HELL DO I GET OUTTA HERE?” I was screaming at this point. A human would have flinched, but she just pointed sadly at the doorway and said, “Down the hall to the stairs, down two flights and out the front door.”
Barefoot, I practically flew down the stairs and ended up on the ground floor of Galina's brownstone. The big oak front doors were directly ahead and the front room and foyer were filled with vampires dressed in expensive clothes, mingling with goblets of thick red blood in hand. I could smell the blood and I was instantly the center of their curious attention, but I ignored it and headed for the door. A young vampire dressed in a white shirt and black pants, with a tray of goblets, moved to intercept me, his free hand out, palm facing me in an obvious order to halt. I pooled my rage into my right hand and punched my aura in his direction. He was four feet away from my outstretched hand, but he flew back through the air and smashed into the wall seven feet up. Didn't know I could do that. I ignored him and focused on the front door, which was locked and wouldn't open. With no obvious way to unlock it I looked around and found a vase sitting on a thick marble column.
I grabbed the vase and threw it to the closest vampire, not watching to see if he would snatch it from the air. Instead I grabbed the column, which had to heft a good two hundred pounds, and began to advance on the door, only to find Lydia there ahead of me. She manipulated the lock somehow and opened the door, standing aside. I dropped the column and a moment later made it into the predawn darkness.
Chapter 13
I found myself at home, later, just as the sun was coming up. I was numb, inside and out. Standing outside my apartment, pushing at the locked door and not really sure of how to get in. If I had applied some thought, I would have looked in the dusty duffel that I've dragged around town for my key ring or found my hidden key in the hallway.. But thinking was bad, it only led in painful directions, and so I refused to start. The apartment door behind me opened and I felt someone step out and stop. The scent of peaches and kiwi told me it was Paige, the soft scuffle of her running shoes told me she was headed out for her morning jog.
“Chris? Are you alright?” she asked.
I shook my head and stared at the door, twisting the knob without result. I knew I could force it open, but that didn't seem to be the answer. Paige stepped up beside me, looking at me with a worried expression.
“Did you lock yourself out?”
I nodded.
“What about your spare key?” She reached up, on tip toes, and brushed the top of my jamb. I don't keep my key there, but her motion triggered a memory and I moved to the building Super's closet at the end of the hall, between our apartments. The spare was above that jamb. Wow, real clever. I fumbled it at the lock, till Paige gently took it from my hand and unlocked the door. Later I would look back and wonder at how I must have looked; barefoot, torn black tee, leather pants, unkempt; but at that moment I simply nodded thanks and slid into my apartment dragging my bag behind me.
“Okay, well...I guess I'll just head out on my run. Do you need anything?” she asked.
I shook my head and sat on the edge of my futon, and listened to her gently shut the door. She stood outside my door for a moment, perhaps deciding if she needed to do anything else, then padded down the hall for her morning run. I won't bore you with the details of my morning, but just a comment on the daily grind. As mundane as our regular lives can be, sometimes, when we've had a great shock, that steady regular routine can be a God send. It certainly was for me, in fact, it may have been the only merciful thing that God had ever sent me.
Much later in the day, I arrived at work, more or less on time, dressed more or less respectably and essentially functional. Ignoring the steady stream of stares that I seemed to get now days, I settled into the Muster room, waiting for the briefing. The room was buzzing with excitement and after a time it penetrated my haze. Something big was up. Twenty minutes behind schedule, the Lieutenant took the podium and called us to attention.
“Listen up. We have a big operation going down tonight, here in the Sixty-Eighth. The short and long of it is, we've got info on the location of the Hance lab and we're hitting it in about forty-five minutes. Special Ops will run the show, we're providing backup, security and support. Captain Ortez w
ill brief us on the op order.”
Ortez was my height and built like a salt and pepper haired bull. He spent the next twenty minutes detailing the operation and then we broke out by squad to head to the lab location.
Our squad was specifically tasked to follow the main entry teams into the warehouse where the labs were supposed to be located, an order that puzzled all of us. When I spotted Roma and his Triple S team conferring with Ortez, I understood. Roma was arraigning some special backup if something unusual popped up. The fact that he was using me and putting my unsuspecting squad in harm’s way at the same time only added to the pit of rage doing a slow burn in my belly.
The Special Ops teams formed up, the snipers got in position, security fanned out around the property and the command van was up and running. We hung back, at the very rear of the entry formation, Roma's team just ahead of us. Sommers and the Asian guy were suited up SWAT style, but the rest were dressed normal, with the addition of heavy body armor. Although I did notice the Triple S folks inserting forearm-length thirty-three round magazines of nine millimeter ammo into their Glocks. Velasquez looked my way a couple of times but Roma ignored me. Most of the Sixty-Eight guys were geared normal, but my squad rated assault weight vests and shotguns for Sarge and Henderson. We all had earpieces for our radios. With everyone in position, we hunkered down and waited.
Finally, the word came down and almost anticlimactically, the operation was underway. Sometimes a raid will be noisy and full of flash, but on a big building like this, with multiple levels and potential booby traps, discretion is a better choice. The doors were breached with a modicum of fanfare, and the teams entered fast, but carefully. Bomb squad guys were with each of the entry teams, looking for trip wires and beams of light. It turns out Silly String is great for finding trip wires without setting them off. There were gobs of bright blue and green chemical string smeared into the concrete floor of the warehouse as we moved into the darkness. Sarge and Henderson were following the rest of us, as the squad's ostensible purpose was rear security and they had the firepower. I moved myself up to the front, as I was aware that I was the firepower if things got hincky.
Some of the troops ahead had spread out to clear the first floor, but most headed into stairwells that only went down. As we started down the industrial metal stairs I noticed that it was the lanky tech guy Aikens who was just ahead of me. More cops split off to cover the first underground level and a second, but we kept going down and were just reaching the third when the shooting started. The sound of full auto fire ripped through the stairwell from below with a secondary echo coming through the earpiece. Unnaturally calm voices that could have been talking ball scores detailed the action to the rest of us. Groups of crazies like the ones in the park, some apparently armed with guns, were slowing our advance. The well trained Ops guys were taking them apart with professional ease.
We reached the third level and broke out into a vast underground room, entering at the top level. For some reason it reminded me of Plasma, with the dance floor being below ground level entry. Flashes of M4 assault rifle fire lit the dark and hand held lights were probing the darkness in every direction below us. Suddenly the chatter on the radio became panicked at the same moment an unholy roar filled the room. Magnesium flares burst into light and the action below was revealed. Teams of Ops guys were bunched up, back to back, firing in every direction. As I watched, horrified, one team was suddenly swept away like bowling pins, but I couldn't see anything hit them.
I unfocused my eyes and looked with my Sight. Something big was moving at incredible speed around the room, ignoring gunfire and swatting men around like toys, roaring as it tore through the heavily armed cops. I couldn't see its shape clearly, but it had four legs and its aura was green, red and PURPLE. A greasy black strand strung from its neck, stretching back into the inky darkness at the other end of the huge room. A man-sized blot of deeper black moved about in that gloom and I instantly knew that a Hellbourne held the reins of the monstrous thing crunching up our guys. Without thinking about what I was doing, I hit the stairs that clung to the wall and raced down to the floor below. As I ran I tried to watch the hell beast with my Sight, but moving while using Sight is like running with three-D glasses on. Not good. But after reverting to regular vision I discovered that the thing gave off sparks as it ravaged the cops in its path. Not a lot but enough that I could track its otherwise invisible position with some accuracy. “Hey Sparky, over here!” I yelled at it and two glowing red eyes suddenly swung in my direction. Uh oh! That worked a little too well. It charged me instantly, but things slowed down and it didn't seem quite so fast anymore. I jumped to my right as it ripped through the space I had been occupying and also through the steel railing of the stairway I had just jumped from. I struck at it with my pooled aura, and I know I touched it, because the giant beast grunted, but didn't slow.
>Do you like my pet, Gordon?<
I looked for the source of the voice but it had come from everywhere and nowhere.
>I brought him here just for you<
Hellbourne had never spoken to me this way before, but the vile quality the words carried with them could only belong to demon kind. I spoke normally, knowing it would hear me as I readied for another charge.
“Yeah, he's frisky alright. Whadda ya call something like that?”
It laughed a greasy laugh and chills ran down my spine.
>Why it's a DamnedThing, of course. They take forever to create, and train, but I rather enjoy the process, even if they don’t.
I've been saving it for a special occasion and this seems....right<
Sparky charged me again, and again I was able to jump away, while slashing with my aura infused right hand. This time the Damnedthing spun and swiped at me. I was very close to it and the center of its taloned paw hit me in the chest and sent me flying to land hard on the concrete floor. Had I been a half a foot further away when it clocked me, the dimly visible sickle-like claws would have about sliced me in half. It moved unhurriedly toward me and I struggled to get away, but my legs had gone on strike. I couldn't even stand up to face my death head on. It stood over me and I could see its faint outline. Bear-like, but the size of a Volkswagen beetle.
>Well, that didn’t take long. We’ll take good care of your little vampire. Goodbye, Gordon<”
The beast lowered its keg sized head to sniff me and I saw the nebulous black collar that held its throat like a hell-forged choke chain, the oily black tendrils running into the creature’s back and neck. With nothing left to lose, I reached my left hand and grabbed the slick blackness and yanked with everything I had. The thick inky strand squirmed in my hand like an eel, then abruptly parted with the sound of rotten flesh tearing. The black leash let go, releasing the monster from its Hellbourne master. The Damnedthing stood still for a moment, its huge jaws hanging over my torso, dripping gooey saliva onto my chest, then I saw a light of awareness flare in its ember eyes. It reared up on its hind feet like a Kodiak bear and roared at its new freedom, shaking dust from the girders above. Suddenly it whirled and lunged after the Hellbourne that had recently held its leash. Its roar shook the building and an enormous crash of metal joined the mix. The sounds receded into the distance, echoing strangely and were almost immediately replaced by the moans of the wounded and shaken cops calling to each other and trying to restore order. I lay back for a moment, my head pounding from a collision with the concrete floor that I hadn’t noticed in the excitement of eminent death.
My squad found me a few minutes later and Sarge called for a medic. I waived him off, indicating he should help someone seriously injured. The last thing I needed was for a medically trained individual to document my rapidly healing wounds.
The efficient machine that is the NYPD soon had generators, lights and organization. The Special Situation Squad was running things and pretty quick Velasquez, and Roma pulled me into a quiet corner to debrief me, while DeMarco and Aikens looked over the sophisticated drug lab that had been found i
n one corner of the vast room. Sommers and Takata moved to the dark part of the room, their weapon lights illuminating the wreckage of double industrial doors leading into a tunnel. Joined by one of the few intact Entry teams, they followed the carnage into the tunnels beyond.
Roma and Velasquez both listened carefully as I ran through my part in the altercation with the Damnedthing and Hellbourne. The Inspector paused me for a moment and called Aikens back over, then had me restart my narrative from the beginning.
“Chet, you ever come across a mention of a Damnedthing before?” Roma asked the skinny technician. Aikens thought about it, then answered, “I don't remember any details, Inspector, but there is something vaguely familiar about it. I'll need to delve into the archives and make some calls.”
“Do that now. I'm going to need more information about it before I can even attempt to explain it to the Commissioner,” Roma said. I learned a lot from that sentence. Roma had more juice than I thought if he reported directly to the NYPD Commissioner.
Aikens left to get his research underway and I continued with my play by play. When I got to the odd conversation between myself and the Hellbourne, Gina interrupted with a question.
“Have the demons ever talked to you before?” she asked.
“Well the free floating or geographic kind, the ones you guys rate on your scale ten system, almost always talk to me. Taunting, insulting, threatening, it's all part of their own brand of psych-ops. But the mobile Hellbourne have never addressed me before. Hellbourne don't linger or hesitate when I show up, they just react really quickly. I think it's because they can't track me. I'm cloaked from them like they’re cloaked from everybody else. Pisses them off.”