Invierea

by Bruce T. Jones

  “Angelique, please call me Sam.”

  “All right, Sam. Please understand, although Nicholas is the father of my child, the two of you are bound in a destiny beyond my vision. As such, you must also learn to assume the role as Brian’s mother. Although I might feel slightly uncomfortable, even jealous, I knew the night I revealed his birth to Nicholas, that in time, you will assume a much greater role in his life.”

  The unexpected invitation caught Samantha completely off guard, all of the apprehensions she had held concerning Angelique instantly vanished. “I don’t know what to say.”

  “There is much to learn, for all of us. Apparently, this child is heir to the throne and as such, we must all nurture and protect him with our greatest abilities.”

  “Are you…?”

  “It is the right thing. Come, we will see him.” Angelique led the way to the sleeping child’s room. “I have a nanny who stays with him at night, when the need arises.” As they entered, the young girl popped a watchful eye over her book. Krista, the nanny, was seated in a recliner reading a book by mounted light.

  “This is my friend Samantha. Sam, this is Krista,” Angelique whispered.

  “Hi,” Krista replied, straining to see in the dim light.

  Sam was amazed, even in the darkness, every detail of the room shown as if the lights were on. Odd, Sam thought, that the room was decorated in the typical manner of any ordinary boy.

  “What were you expecting, a coffin?” Angelique whispered.

  “I’m sorry, I wasn’t …”

  “It is alright. I should apologize. Your thoughts are as open as a book. It was rude of me to intrude. In time I will show you how to prevent that.”

  “I wish you would, certain people take liberties whenever they feel the urge.” Samantha smiled broadly. Wasn’t he in for a big surprise? She walked over to the crib and gazed in.

  Looking down at the child, the crushing jealousy she felt only one night before was washed away, not by any instinctive maternal bond, but a deeper, darker source. A source growing, guiding, and shaping the renewed life inside.

  “You feel it, don’t you?” Angelique pointed out. She already knew the answer. Cautiously, she had monitored each and every emotion Samantha had experienced from the moment of resurrection.

  “How did you … never mind, it’s that thing again, right?” Sam whispered.

  “As I said, you have much to learn. For now, we should leave.” Angelique turned to Krista. “I may not return tonight.”

  “You girls go have fun. Brian and I will try to stay out of trouble.”

  Angelique looked at Samantha’s distressed attire. “This will not do at all. Let’s go to my closet and pick something out. We can’t have you walking all over Manhattan looking like the star of one of those zombie B movies, can we?”

  Samantha smiled, and followed Angelique’s lead. Angelique disappeared while Samantha slid the hangers, looking for something to wear. She looked down at the remains of what had been one of her favorite shirts. Simple white cotton, unbutton just enough to keep Nick’s attention. She looked at her jeans, which had only been worn once before tonight. Damn if they weren’t ruined as well.

  Having already sized up Angelique, Samantha decided her clothes should fit just fine, well almost fine, maybe one size smaller, she thought with a frown. She pulled a dark blue pair of jeans off the hanger and a black button up shirt. Simple enough. Happily, the jeans slid right on. Samantha looked for a mirror to inspect for any unwanted muffin top. With her bra in shambles, she decided for the trip home to forego borrowing any personal lingerie. Covering her breast with the shirt, she crossed the hall to the bathroom for inspection.

  “Well damn.” Samantha stared back at the empty mirror. “I guess makeup is out of the question.” Not that she thought Gabrielle needed any, but certainly this was the reason why she never used makeup. Samantha looked down at her stomach and breast as she buttoned the shirt. Things looked … firmer, the few wrinkles in her hand … gone. Pressing her breast and lifting she smiled. “Well hello, this more than makes up for the mirror thing.”

  Angelique suddenly appeared with another glass of blood and smiled at Samantha’s discovery. “It had its advantages.”

  “I’ll say. Guess I won’t be needing to lift the pups anytime soon.”

  Angelique laughed. “No, the only purpose for a doctor from here on out is an occasional snack.”

  Samantha turned to Angelique with a bemused expression.

  “I am kidding.” Angelique placed her hand on Samantha’s shoulder. “But tell me, Sam, what do you see when you look at me, or Gabrielle, or Nicholas?”

  “Beauty.”

  “And that is how you will be perceived, without makeup, fixing your hair, without any effort whatsoever.” Angelique straightened Samantha’s collar. “You are quite beautiful, but understand this, your outward appearance is combination of self-perception and inner beauty. If you choose, you can be quite monstrous.”

  “I wish I could see, just one last time.”

  “You get used to it,” Angelique chirped. “I got you a drink for the road.”

  As she handed the glass over, Samantha took her hand. “Angelique, I will never be able to express my gratitude.”

  “I am sure over the next hundred years or so, you will find a way.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  THE SQUAD ROOM was abuzz with speculation. The shooting, although not remarkable as a murder, was circumstantially remarkable. Captain Patrick had four detectives in his office, and was dutifully reciting the riot act.

  “What in the hell do you mean we’ve lost the victim’s body?” he screamed out.

  “Honest to god, the paramedic claims she got out of the bus on Houston, and headed into the Village, with another female who had joined them at the crime scene,” Detective Lennar struggled to explain. They all knew when Patrick was on the warpath somebody would have to face the ire of the captain and Lennar drew the short straw. The fact she was an overall great detective and attractive did nothing to defuse his rant, which was directed at her.

  “How in the hell does a woman who is beyond any reasonable doubt, dead as a doornail, get up and walk away. And who in the fuck let a civilian go along for the ride?” Patrick bellowed.

  “It was the driver. He let her in. The paramedic in the back, David Pearson, claimed this woman did some kind of voodoo ritual, talking in some foreign language, and the vic just popped back to life.”

  “Was she or wasn’t she dead at the scene?” Patrick grilled in derogatory tones as he stroked the top of his thinning hair.

  “They don’t get no deader Captain,” Lennar responded assuredly, with her hands on her hips.

  “Who else knows about this, this Jesus Christ wannabe?”

  “Besides the five of us, just the paramedics, who we have in interrogation two.

  “So please tell me, what in the hell else are you four Bozos doing about this clusterfuck?”

  “We’ve got ten squad cars and twenty foot patrols in the Village, with more on the way. We are canvassing the crime scene neighborhood with pictures of our mystery Spiderman, trying to get an ID on him. The second stiff, the shooter, is at the morgue getting prepped as we speak. Miller is going down for the autopsy.”

  “This guy in the morgue? He’s the one we believe the bullet proof spiderman mutilated?”

  “Yeah, Flash Gordon and Wolverine wrapped up in one guy.”

  “You know, all of this shit is giving me an ulcer. And you know how I hate fucking ulcers.” Patrick turned his back on the detectives and stared out the window. “This freak show had to be staged. I need you to find out how they pulled it off before I see the Chief of D’s in the morning, because if I tell him we’ve got mutants on the streets of Manhattan, he’s gonna send me to Bellevue.”

  “There is one other thing Captain.” Lennar hesitated, before continuing.

  Patrick wheeled around, glaring at the detective.

  “The shooter
, we think he’s a pro. The equipment he was packing, the shot he attempted, only a pro would have tried it. Special forces, CIA, something, but I am pretty sure when his people find out he’s dead and his mark isn’t … we won’t be the only people looking at this.”

  “How much does the media know?” Patrick growled, knowing the answer about to follow.

  “They’re all over it, boss, except the fact our victim has gone missing.”

  “Shit, that means we’ve got maybe until sun up before this goes national. I need this closed tonight.” Patrick, with his face blazing and veins bulging, slammed his fist on the desk. “Call in whatever resources you need, just get it done.”

  The detectives all stared in silence, as if waiting for their boss to collapse from a stroke.

  “What the hell are you waiting for, somebody to put their size twelve up your ass? Get the hell out of my office, and find that stiff, or start thinking about which parking lot you want to patrol!”

  Having finished my shower, and changed my clothes, I put a ball cap on to cover my rapidly healing, but still grotesquely disfigured skull. I returned to the living room. Dee was curled up on the couch, intermittently crying, but obviously feeling the effects of something Phillip had given her. Gabrielle had rounded up all the dishes and placed them in the dishwasher, bagged my clothes, and boxed my refrigerated blood supply.

  Phillip was busy wiping down anything he could think of with fresh prints on it. “The helicopter will be here any minute,” he reported, upon seeing me. “We have a car waiting out front.”

  Gabrielle returned to the living room and touched Dee on the shoulder. “We need to go now.”

  “We’ll be at my place, until we hear from you. Do you have any idea when that might be?” Phillip asked.

  “Tonight, maybe tomorrow night. I am not sure.” In no mood to think about timetables, I stared blankly at a home that now seemed foreign.

  “The cleaners will be here in an hour or two. I’ll have your juice at my place when you get back. If we are not there, have Julio let you in. I’m sure Dee will want to find out whatever she can in the morning.” Phillip put down his cleaning rag and sighed.

  I placed my hand on Phillip’s shoulder, and ushered him to the door. “Keep her away from the cops, no matter what, until you hear otherwise from me.”

  “I’ll have my people keep tabs on whatever they find out and call you.”

  “No, don’t call. I’ll check in with you when I can.” Pushing him to the hallway, I grabbed the doorknob. “Thanks, Phillip, you have been a good friend.”

  The defeated tone in my voice brought his foot to the door blocking its closure. “Been? No, don’t you even think about going there. Are, we are good friends. And we are going to get past this, somehow.”

  “Yeah, I know. I will see you when I get back.” I heard a helicopter approaching. I went over to my desk, unlocked the drawer and got Loretta out. I grabbed her muzzle. “One last job, baby,” I said as I turned off the light and stared back at my empty home. This house would never be the same again.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  IN A WORLD laden with communication technology, it is amazing how very often failure encroaches at all the wrong times. Phillip’s cell phone battery was sending warning shots of imminent battery failure, Gabrielle rarely carried a cell, and Dee was out cold, lying on her purse.

  The last text Phillip received from his sources ended with: cops searching Upper East Side for Spiderman. The part of the message Phillip did not get was more important. Cops searching the village for two women; one brunette, one blonde. See attached files.

  Had he gotten that piece of the text, he would have known the cops were searching for Samantha, her body missing, and some mystery brunette. Had he gotten the files, Gabrielle could have identified Angelique. But the message never came.

  Nicholas was on his way to Washington, and Phillip on his way home. It was just past two in the morning and had been one hell of a long day. Phillip sat there, looking at his wife. He knew tomorrow would be the worst day of his life. There would be no consoling Dee. Phillip was ill prepared to deal with tragedies; unpleasant circumstances he could not delegate away. He looked at Gabrielle staring out the window. So incredibly beautiful he thought. So powerful. He looked back at Dee, and a smile crept across his face. What a scoundrel he had been until he met her. She rocked his world in a way no woman ever had, or could … not even this most seductive vampire, sitting immediately across from him.

  Gabrielle was aware of Phillip’s roaming eyes and wandering thoughts. “Phillip, your attention is waning. If you want, I could make her sleep all night, and the entire day.”

  “Gabrielle! That’s not what I was thinking. I’m sure in my sick little twisted mind, there are at least a dozen ways to justify what you think I think, but fortunately, I’m not thinking anything of the sort. I have a heart. And this woman holds the key to it.”

  Gabrielle turned to Phillip and smiled. “I know, I just wanted to make sure you were still worthy of her love. Now that Sam is gone, I must look out for Dee.” Gabrielle straightened her skirt, and stroked Dee’s hair. “Thank you.”

  “For?”

  “It is nice, to be admired, even if it is strictly platonic.”

  Phillip sat back and welcomed a congratulatory broad grin. He was a changed man indeed. He was not far removed from the day where he would have spared no expense to get a woman like Gabrielle, even if only for a one night stand. Now he could admire, without the desire to have a sexual encounter for the solitary purpose of his own shallow, self-gratification. Oh god, is this the first sign that I’m getting old? he mused.

  “No, just the beginning of maturity,” Gabrielle chimed in magically.

  “Hey, you stay out of my head, you little eavesdropper,” Phillip quipped.

  Gabrielle chuckled and looked down the almost deserted, long, lit streets of Madison Avenue.

  Sleep, for humans and vampires, is a most wonderful thing. For both species, it can be quite unsettling to be woken from a deep sleep. A confusion exists, one that would immediately follow an intrusion into an individual’s deepest disconnection from reality. To a trained ear, the sound of a silenced Beretta firing across a darkened room might likely produce it. The impact of the bullet striking the headboard and the smell of a singed feather pillow beside your sleeping head would definitely do it.

  That was Paul Watson’s wake up call. The first shot, confusion; the second, the heat of the shot felt on side of his head, then fear.

  “What the hell?” he cried out into the darkened room.

  A third shot grazing the tip of his ear; pain.

  “Jesus!” he screamed as he cupped his ear.

  “Paul, what’s going on?” The wife cried out in a panic.

  I watched in amusement as he fumbled frantically for the nightlight. Neither could see me perched on top of his dresser from across the room. Suddenly the nightlight flashed on, and the two gazed in terror as they processed in the image before them.

  Watson fumbled for his glasses. “Nick?”

  “Yes, Paul, it is. Are you surprised to see me, alive?”

  “What in the hell are you doing? Have you lost your mind?” he screamed.

  “Save your breath, Paul. If you are trying to alert your bodyguards, they are taking the rest of the evening off.” In the old days I would have simply snapped their necks. But not deserving my wrath, thanks to Angelique’s incantations, they would live to serve another day. “And don’t bother with the silent alarm. You remember, Paul, I always cover the details.”

  “Why are you here? What do you want with me?” As he cupped his ear, blood trickled through his fingers.

  “Paul,” I jumped off the dresser, crossed the room, and hopped onto the footboard of the bed, perching like a falcon. “I have no time or patience for this stupidity.” I tossed his cell phone to him, the inbound text still reading: It’s done. “We both know who sent this.”

  He examined the text then l
aid the phone down. “Yes.”

  “And we know what he is referring to. The only problem is, Paul, it was my fiancée.” My tone was terse. “She was the only thing in my rotten life I ever loved. Now she is gone, Paul.” My tone was just a pitch below a scream as I pointed Loretta in direction of his wife.

  “Don’t!” he pleaded, as he leaned over to shield his wife.

  “Get over yourself, Paul. If my only purpose was revenge, you would have already seen her die.”

  “Nick … please. You know how the game is played. It was just protocol. No agent, with the knowledge you possess, has ever been permitted to retire. We can’t risk an agent selling services to the highest bidder, or worse, be captured and tortured until they start coughing up national security secrets.”

  “I promised you, Paul, things were secure.”

  “Secure? You, better than anyone, should know how dangerous a captured agent is. You’ve seen the results. Nobody in your department has ever retired. Over the last thirty years, only four, including you, did not die in the field. It is quite regrettable, but mandate forty seven requires any agent with intimate knowledge of covert ops be terminated for the sake of national security.” Watson cited the policy as if he were reading from the manual. “You were never meant to live.”

  Hearing the words from a friend and mentor, I felt a painful shock, as if the bullet had just now struck my head.

  “I am truly sorry about your fiancée, it was not the intent. But it’s policy, just plain business. There was a day you understood that better than anyone.”

  I lowered Loretta. Paul breathed a cautious sigh of relief. “I can take torture, Paul. I can take a lot more than you give me credit for.” I jumped to the floor and walked up his side of the bed. I handed Loretta over, grip first. With a shaky hand, he instantly aimed her at me. I grabbed the silencer and pulled Loretta to my chest. “Shoot me!”

  “No, Paul,” his wife objected frantically. “Call the police.”

  “Do it, Paul. You have already killed me more than you will ever know. Finish the fucking job!” He flinched. I saw the fear. Pathetic desk jockey. The pencil pusher had never spent one day in the field, never did a day’s dirty work personally. He only made the call.