The filing cabinet smashed through the window and Tset jumped after it, landing on his shoulder, greeted by the warm sound of cartilage and bones breaking and the cold feel of the asphalt. He stood as best he could, having a hard time keeping a grip on Francois.
"Put your hands up!"
A light shone on him like on the street all that time back. There were police, everywhere. He dropped Francois gingerly, his hands brushing the remnants of his jacket as he stood - the detonator was in his pocket. He smacked it inconspicuously, setting it off, 'Now where did I leave that bag?'
From the center of the compound there was a gigantic explosion, the rest of the windows that were there, not many, blew out and fire coursed liquidly through any hole it could find.
Tset and Francois were safe from the blast, near the base of the building as they were. 'Oh, right. There.' Tset smiled and tossed the detonator away under a flaming block of machinery, where he watched it melt for a second. The blast had exposed those tape drives he'd been thinking about upon entry - they were encased in steel. Or had been.
He looked back to the police, who were just scrambling around to get back into formation.
Tset turned all the way and put up his hands.
He was handcuffed. The yelling was silent - concussion had shattered his ear drums and they bled. He was quickly being medically stabilized.
"I made up a story that checked out, luckily."
"What was it?"
"We're slaves! He was eating us!!"
"Right buddy." The captain said, looking at Tset's driver's license, believing Tset and Francois to be a couple of whackos - Frederique 'Stinger' Archembeaux a cannibal? Not on your life.
A team of paramedics were doing their best to stabilize Francois despite the onset of police.
A gasp, "No, boss, look at this!"
A trash container had been rocked by the explosion, tipping it. When the smoke cleared they all saw inside a score dead men and women, all partially eaten, all pale and withered and bloodless.
"Holy Christ in heaven!" The captain was visibly shocked, his aged but pleasant features becoming white, his eyes wide.
"Also, that filing cabinet was Archembeaux's accounts filing - nothing like a Narc cop's name on an invoice for a metric ton of crack cocaine to really spoil his name. Especially when he's been impaled and immolated to the point of not being able to defend himself."
Francois was agog, "My fucking God, Tset! You are a lunateec! You are craziair zen anyone I know!"
Tset smiled, "Yeah, kinda helps me get shit like this done if you really look at it."
They sat there, then, in a silence, Tset smoking, unwinding, Francois in shock.
"So... where are ze news crews asking us?"
"Well, like cowboys, we rode off into the sunset."
"What do you mean by zis?"
"After the fake IDs and before any reporters got their papers or cameras ready to get eye witness bullshit on the scene..."
Tset was standing at the back of the ambulance, he'd demanded chocolate and coffee after he miraculously healed under IV care, and his metabolism was putting his bones back together, doing the rest. His vision had finally returned and he was almost back up into the positive numbers, so far as percentage of operability went. His broken arm was in a sling and his wounds, now shallow had been bandaged.
"Jesus Christ!" Tset exclaimed, pointing at nothing.
The medic looked and Tset threw open the doors behind him, he and Francois, who was still strapped down to his gurney, flying into traffic. Before they touched down, Tset was gripping Francois like a child, having undone the gurney straps in midair.
When they did touch down, Tset found himself rolling, trying to hold onto a man his size and protect him from the cement, which seemed, to him, to be a-tumble.
"Then I just ran, or limped anyway, wrapped you in that blanket, told people you were my mannish grandmother and we'd had a housefire and that you were in shock."
"Riding off into ze sunset, ha."
"Yeah, I see your point, but at least now you know why you've got bandages on your head and why your leg is broken. Also strained the fractures in your back."
"Mon ami! We are alive, but you are paying ze tab for medical expenses."
Tset smiled, under his breath he muttered, "Yeah right, froggy."
"What was zat?"
"I said, 'good night! You look groggy!'"
Francois chuckled, he was feeling tired, "Wait till I get out of... zis..." Then his head slumped and he snored.
Tset smiled to himself and lit another cigarette, pointedly glaring back at the nurse who'd come into the room.
The Pit, Revisited:
Good-Bye, Tyler
After Francois' convalescence, he and Tset took a train back into The City - Tset had actually taken them to a small village tucked away in the Alps, and, while the ride was not long, it had definitely been secluded.
"Hopefully the heat's died off by now." Tset said, smoking a cigarette in the train.
"'Ow long 'as eet been?"
"About three months."
"No!"
"Oui. You were in and out, man."
When they arrived, they went to their respective homes, changed out of their inconspicuous Alp-inhabitant clothes, and then met again at Haliburton - Tset was there long before Francois, leaning on the wall, talking with Yonatan, with yet another cigarette in his mouth.
"You are some sort of tobacco vampire!" Francois said, testily, as he went in.
Tset looked at Yonatan, shrugged, flicked the remainder of the stick and followed.
They saw the Men, who congratulated them, paid them a mil apiece, and told them they would be in touch.
As Tset and Francois were leaving, they asked Tset to wait.
When they were quite alone, "We haven't gotten a full report, we never do, it's a policy, but what we've pulled out of the police shows evidence of vampire activity within Frederique's cadre. How many vampires did you see?"
"Four."
"Four! Who were they?"
"Don't know who the first three were, but the fourth was the target himself."
"My God."
"Yeah, also, these weren't regular-strength vampires, neither."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, they were faster and stronger, my rings barely made them cringe."
The men asked to see his rings, he showed them. After a minute: "How much experience do you have with vampires, Mr. Tset?"
"These last four will make precisely seven confirmed kills."
Small shock, "Seven?"
"Yes, seven. Three just regular-strength, and then the four extra-strength at Archembeaux's compound. The only thing they reacted to was my sword." He unsheathed it and laid it on the desk at their unspoken behest.
The men stared at it, "This is a fine piece of work, where did you get it?"
Papillion returned to her sheath, "The supply man you hooked me up with, Tristram, had it imported for me. We'd already discussed the possibility of my hunting these things on a regular basis."
The men nodded, then one of them spoke, "Don't get too excited about it before we do our research and calculations. Otherwise, so long as you maintain our security and integrity, your business is your business. But do keep Tristram safe, give him this." A cell phone was slid across the table, identical to Tset's.
Tset nodded, "Anything else?"
"No. If we need your help again, we'll ask. Things are running smoothly."
Tset drove to Tristram's, feeling he had forgotten something, but, by the time he made it down the steps and into the shop proper, he remembered, "The photo! Fuck." He still owed it to Tyler.
He and Tristram greeted each other over the counter, "What can I do for you?"
"I talked to my guys at Haliburton - they want you protected, so gave me this cell phone for you to use. It's like mine, I guess, so it'll be more workable than your own in an emergency."
"Cool, cool. Anything else?"
>
"Yeah, let me get some more Emperials."
"Dude, the way you smoke, you've gotta cut down on your spending."
"What do you mean?"
"Twenty bucks a pack, a pack every two days, that's ridiculous. Plus, Emperials suck."
"They do?"
"Don't tell me you haven't smoked nothin' else."
"Fine, I won't, but it's what my friends in The Pit smoked, so I just picked up on 'em."
"So, change your brand. Everyone in 'The Pit's' an asshole anyway, fuck those low class sonsabitches pretending high-class by smoking a Communist Emperor's brand of cheap-shit choice. You're a Prep School Assassin, you need to smoke something either, ah, preppy, or go more badass."
"Let me take badass."
"Okay, here's this." Tristram slid a red plastic pouch over. Emblazoned across it was, 'Bali's Gold.'
"What the fuck's that?"
"Rolling tobacco and don't mind the name, American export. Virgnia cut. No filters, man, it's the fuckin' way to go."
"How do I make my cigs? Those little machines?" Tset was familiar with this form of tobacco consumption.
"Yeah, if you're a bitch, no man, you're going for an image." Tristram opened the tape and rolled himself an almost-perfect cigarette between his nicotine stained fingers. Then handed it to Tset. "Try that on for size."
Tset lit it, inhaled. "Wow, that's a cigarette." The smoke was thicker, had some flavor to it, too. Also, whereas before the Emperials were simply something to suck on, these almost burned Tset's throat. He rolled his tongue during his next draw, the smoke was sweet, "I actually feel like I'm smoking something."
"Right on. Fuck the Emperials. You can just breathe our fucked up air if you're going to smoke low-grade shit like that."
Tset grinned.
"Anyway," Tristram threw down a silver cigarette case with a wire catch, "That case and the 'bac's forty bucks altogether."
"Forty?"
"This is a thirty-eight dollar case. You're not walking out with it for free."
"Alright, lemme get some fluid and flints, too."
"Forty five buck's your total."
Tset then drove back to his hotel to pick up the Polaroid and then he was off to the Pit.
The ride was uneventful and in no way a preclude to what he saw when he got there. Not at all - it was chaos.
The upper part of the building, the dome, had been torn apart - the metal jags spiking into the morning skies, flames were about, the doors ripped off.
There were dead cooling in the blood red snow all around.
Tset was off his bike in a flash, racing in through the shorn doors, pulling his .45s - now loaded with silver no matter the circumstances. Humans didn't really care what slug slammed into them, they would die as expected, vampires demanded only finer metals.
He raced past some police holding down a now-open-topped corridor, they called after him to stop just as the vampire they were trying to hold off came around a door jamb. The creature would have slammed into Tset if it wasn't laying in a crumpled, bleeding wreck housing 2.7 calibers' worth of slugs around its fleshy person before anyone could blink.
Tset had to find Tyler! And, what had happened?
The police yelled at him to come back just as they lost sight of his back through a wall of flames.
More turns, more corners, halls blocked, one or two more vampires, and even a fighter, trapped and afraid.
He finally made it to Tyler's office through an act of impatience - the drywall and the 2x4 studs fells before him as he kicked and slammed his way through.
He crashed through the wall that had to be Tyler's.
Before he had time to wipe the sweaty drywall muck off of his glasses someone was yelling at him, "Don't move a muscle! I will shoot!"
Tset held up his hands, then quickly pulled his glasses down his nose so he could see. It was a police officer. In the background he saw Don, poking his head through the door into the hallway, "He's cool, copper."
Tset took a second to wipe his glasses, "I came for Tyler, Don, where is he?" The officer lowered his HK.
Don turned and looked, "We're getting him out of here. You made a hallway, this one's blocked and prowled."
"Prowled?"
"I think it's vampires, man, tons of 'em."
"Talk."
"At about four AM, these fucking guys in black leathers just start pushing in through the metal dome, using their heads and just bashing it apart. They started on the audience. Then the fighters. Hal got ripped in half negotiating. I've been hiding out with Tyler, the police showed up, but they were after daybreak, and by then, most of the damage was done, most of the vampires had high-tailed it," Don got teary, "... and they'd already... already..." He pointed to the desk.
There was Tyler. He was destroyed, but Tset saw the grin on his face and the intact eye regarding him the same way he had when they'd first met.
Tset was horrified. Jessie's death had passed easily at first, he'd been half-dead for it. But here was Tyler and Tset was fully awake.
"Ty."
"Tset."
"I brought you this." He held up the Polaroid.
Tyler took it with his good hand and brought it to his nose, peering at it close, "What is it?"
"The leftovers of the guy who did your chick in, man."
Tyler handed back the Polaroid, "Thanks, man. What do we do now?" His speech was surprisingly clear. They smiled at each other for a second, or more they smirked like a pair of meatheads. "Let's get out of here."
Tset lifted Tyler and threw him over a shoulder, his left hand gripping a pistol. He gestured with his head to Don who watched sadly, "Tête-à-tête's over, we're getting the fuck out."
Immediately a vampire came howling through the door, a nightmare of white skin, black and red wells for eyes, leather and honed claws glimmering in the diffuse light.
Tset shot it in the neck while it streaked towards him. It lost its footing and tumbled, gasped and clawed, trying to get the silver out. The smile Tset had now was that of an over-appreciative mother, "Lookit him flop."
The vampire rasped and choked, rolling on the ground, blood running out of its mouth. Tset stepped on its face when it reached a shaking, struggling hand up to him.
It stopped moving a few seconds later, "Ssh." Said Tset, soothingly, a pale ghost of a smile on his face. There sounded a crack and Tset removed his foot from the slightly distended head of the vampire.
The cop thought he was a freak, Don was a little numb, but horrified for it.
Tyler chuckled and bled, and Tset turned to his group, "Questions? I take point, Don, you get my other gun. Just shoot 'em quick, yeah?"
Don took the gun from the rib holster, nodding, a new light in his eyes.
The progression back was simple enough, and Tset's entrance to his hallway came out near enough to the front doors. They were in the snow in no time, Tset had no problems with any resistance they encountered, and the one vampire Don clipped thought it would be a better idea to go around front. He met Papillion briefly and intimately, falling back and apart as Tset needlessly hacked it away - it was more vengeance than necessity.
Tset lay Tyler in the snow. He was dead now. A tear rolled out from Tset's eye, "Really got your shit ruined, didn't you, Ty?"
He was quickly surrounded by police, demanding answers, Tset didn't understand their words, he just stared up at them blankly. The occasional muzzle barely even set him off.
Then an arm around his shoulder, the other cop, the one he helped break out, he spoke, Tset didn't hear a word, but then, like sand sifting away, he made out, "... just gotta ask you some questions. No problems. I'll speak a good word for you, they just want to know what happened."
Tset was a statue, "Got cocoa? Cocoa calms my nerves."
The cop grinned, and pulled his mask off, giving Tset a shock he hid well - this was the captain he'd met at Archembeaux's compound, the nice, silver-haired one who had been raging at Tset he would kill him on two occasions now,
'Oh, shit.'
"Shooter's nerves, yeah?" He didn't recognize Tset. Tset would play it safe.
Tset nodded, he was brought a blanket and a hot cocoa. He drank it as they covered Tyler over and loaded him onto a gurney.
He was taken to a tent where he told them he'd been a friend of Tyler's, that he was bringing him a photo, that it had been lost in the fire (a lie).
The captain, Larry, put in a good word and they didn't even search him. His ID showed he was licensed to carry weapons.
Don got far worse treatment. When Tset left the emergency tent, Don was being manhandled, shouting, "You got no right! You got no right!"
He was slammed over the hood of a police cruiser.
'Wait...' There was something wrong, Tset saw it, but couldn't put his finger on it - it was the cop. The officer handling Don was very small, and he was throwing Don around like a rag doll. Then Tset smelled their smell on the wind. A sort of dry-mouthed odorlessness they exuded, he recognized it for the first time.
The vampire shot a police officer coming to help him. This got everyone's attention, the demon's intention. He called, unnaturally loud, "I am looking for one called Tset. If he comes forward, this officer of yours can live." Don bucked suddenly, hearing the vampire in his tone before he spoke - the struggle angered the vampire but did not change Don's course, "THIS ONE DIES, HOWEVER!"
And just like that, Don was splattered over the hood of the cruiser. Shot in the base of the skull with a 9mm service pistol.
"Now! The officer's life, or Tset's. Tell me which."
The men stood frozen, hostage situation. This morning was why they didn't operate at night. Don's eyes stared sightlessly at the tent wall next to Tset.
Tset stepped off the sidewalk and came from behind, appearing suddenly next to the vampire. His cold apathy with howling undertones carrying him far closer than the thing would have liked.
He whispered to it, "I'm here."
It turned, fear, pain and victory flashing across in its triumphant smile - victory first.
Tset rended it barehanded, starting with its face, the emptiness never leaving his features. Tyler dead, Don dead, for stupid reasons. He had a slight sense of poetic justice at the feeling of the thing's skull and meat coming apart in his hands as it jerked pathetically for life, spitting great gouts in between curses then pleas for mercy while Tset opened it up inside. To finish, while it gargled harshly next to him, on its knees and sinking backward slowly, he backhanded it in the mouth, the blow an audible explosion. It was decapitated and now gave up its struggle, a torn heap in a snow drift feet from where it began.
Wight Page 12