Invierea

by Bruce T. Jones

  “Brian, why didn’t you contact me?”

  “Because I just wasn’t sure. I am still not one hundred percent sure, but there is a chance we may have located your mother. The legend of the Convent claims one of the ten had a child, but that child was taken away. Whether you are that child, I can’t say for sure. But I did learn the mother’s name.”

  “And you found my mother … are you going to kill her like the others?”

  “No. Things have changed.” I released an exasperated sigh at the magnitude of that statement. “I have changed. If this woman is your mother, her name is Sabine and she is here in New York.”

  “You have talked to her?” An expression of jubilation exploded across Isabelle’s face, one that I doubted anyone had ever seen.

  “No. But this is why I brought you here. I believe she came to New York looking for you. I am not sure why she thought you were here, but nevertheless she did. She may be in a situation that would require the persuasion of a long lost daughter to resolve. Apparently, she has created a large colony of vampires in Brooklyn. We really don’t know much at all about them. But even though we have not seen Sabine as of yet, we believe she is with them.”

  Another stiff breeze gusted, as Isabelle held her thoughts while a jet landed. “I enjoyed flying. I have seen planes for years, but never thought about going on one. And now here I am with you and we are about to find my mother.”

  Her childlike exhilaration was invigorating. Much like Gabrielle, there would be so much to experience outside the realm of the sheltered life she once led.

  “We should join the others, it sounds like there is much work to be done,” Isabelle suggested.

  I opened the door of the Denali. The sight of Daniel and Mitch, sharing Phillip’s scotch, brought a smile and a welcome feeling of confidence. The battle for Brooklyn was about to unfold. My crew: a suddenly love struck jarhead and two cronies ready to die for the cause, or maybe from heart attacks. Hoorah.

  Impatience; whether it was an unknown number of vampires holding up inside a relatively secure building in a densely populated neighborhood, or the need to resolve Isabelle’s overdue reunion, I felt it was time to bring this saga to a conclusion.

  As much as my own body craved sleep during the day, I would forgo the vital rest. I knew this would be my best opportunity to take them unaware. Therefore I would proceed peacefully to the brownstone just before sunrise, as they were retiring for the day. I would assess the enemy’s motives and counter any remaining resistance with extreme force. As in a few past military ops, my tactics did not meet the approval with the majority of my subordinates. The women were furious, but none had experience in battle, and vampire or not, their welfare could not be the focus of my concern. They certainly would be no match for a brownstone full of ornery Brooklyn vampires.

  Chuck had rounded up three former team members, but none were happy to provide back-up. Should Chuck and I fail in our primary initiative, plan B was much more to their liking. Blow up and torch everything. Phillip, Daniel, and Mitch on the contrary were quite happy to occupy the command center and provide intel and communications. Phillip had procured an empty apartment directly across the street from our targets.

  With the team at their post, we were ready to launch the covert urban assault. I knew the odds were stacked against us, but a larger assault group would certainly remove all hopes of any peaceful resolution with minimal civilian casualties.

  Chuck and I slowly approached up the car-lined street an hour before dawn. Nolan and Andrews, two former Seals I had worked with on several missions, stood ready by a moving van we had rented the day before. Chuck nodded to them as we passed in silence. I gave a slight wave to my friends watching from the third floor of the apartment across the street.

  “We are green.” I reported to the team.

  Outside the brownstone, two sentries studied our approach. In Chuck’s advance scouting, he had observed them outside the building during the daylight hours. Assuming our targets to be of reasonable intelligence, I was sure they had enlisted a few mortals to assist in their protection during the daylight hours. As we drew near, I spotted the distinct bite wounds of a vampire on one’s neck. I knew our two goons were under the control of some undead authority beyond the weathered oak doors.

  “Hey Boss, is Jessica Jones in da house?” Chuck asked.

  “Beat it jerk-off,” the Hispanic one barked.

  Chuck and I surveyed the street one last time for any witnesses. Both guards were on the ground in an instant. Andrews and Nolan appeared quickly, and dragged the bodies back to the moving van.

  “You sure you are ready?” I asked Chuck.

  “As ready as you will allow me to be. You know, I could be a hell of a lot more help if you’d share that curse of yours with me.”

  “Chuck, I thought we had buried the issue. I can not make others like …”

  “You can, but you won’t. Let’s just say for argument’s sake, your purpose is to make others like you. Peaceful cohabiting vampires, who would never dream of storming a building in the dark of night with intentions of annihilating an entire …”

  “Boys, knock it off,” Sam piped in on our ear buds. “Let’s focus on the job, so we can get the hell out of Brooklyn.”

  “Sho nuff Miz Vampirella. Now that you’re on his team why worry about ol’ mortal Chuck.”

  “Don’t worry Monsieur Chuck, I will be there for you,” Gabrielle said.

  Chuck sneered at me mockingly.

  Chuck and Gabrielle, the ultimate odd couple. Where their relationship was headed, none of us could begin to imagine. But in three short days, I had witnessed a transformation in the pair that warmed my soul.

  “Hey team,” Mitch cut in from his rooftop vantage, “I hate to interrupt the Jerry Springer show, but the clock has begun ticking and you’ve got forty eight apartments to clear.”

  “Roger that.” I looked at my smart-ass Jarhead friend. “We will finish this conversation later.”

  Chuck cut in front of me and headed up the steps. “If I’m still alive,” he said over his shoulder.

  Inside the lobby a single sentry stood by the elevator.

  “Who let you in?”

  “Carlos cleared us to relieve you guys.” Chuck said as he went straight for the guard.

  “I don’t know any …”

  Chuck was having way too much fun with this job. He dragged the unconscious guard past me to the front door. “You sure you don’t want to sit this one out old man?” Andrews and Nolan had taken up position at the front door and were ready to dispose of Chuck’s handiwork.

  “There will only be a couple more of these pushovers, then it’s gonna get dicey. So how about a little more serious attitude buddy?”

  “Hey Gabrielle?” Chuck whispered on his mic. “Promise me if we fall in love, you won’t turn me into a puss-ball like this guy.” Chuck winked at me as he moved toward the stairs.

  “You got us. Phillip?” I asked softly as I ignored Chuck’s banter.

  “I see Chuck clearly, and it looks like two warm bodies on floor two, and one on floors three four and five, all near the stairs. Other than that, everyone else is damn hard to make out.”

  “Daniel?”

  “I’m at the front door, in the lobby across the street,” he reported. “If any of your kind show, I’ll take them down just like your buddy in New Orleans.

  I cringed at the memory of Jimmy sprawled on the ground, courtesy of Daniel’s marksmanship. “Chuck, watch the stairs.” I ordered as I began to unlock the first apartment. Thanks to some pretty nasty persuasion techniques, Chuck had convinced the building owner to cough up his master keys. One by one, I entered the ground floor apartments, six in all, only to discover rotting corpses in most. From my initial search of the ground floor units I could surmise whomever we would encounter above, they had no interest in living peacefully amongst their neighbors.

  “Chuck …”

  Chuck was startled by my stealthy reappea
rance. “Dammit! What are you, the ghost of Rob? I could have broken your neck.”

  “Chuck, stop, it’s bad. I found nine victims. I think we’ve stumbled into a house full of Monique’s.”

  “Oh, that bitch.” Chuck appeared a little uneasy. “What’s the call?”

  “The call?” Sam interrupted from her position in the command post with Phillip, Gabrielle, Angelique and Isabelle. “The call is you get the hell out.”

  “Negative. We are proceeding. Allen, stand by.” Paired with O’Reilly, Stanley Allen was ready to fire Molotov Cocktails via grenade launcher from the roof across the street. Once day broke, the vampires would have nowhere to run. One way or another, they were going to burn in hell.

  Allen, a Star Wars nerd radioed, back, “Copy that Gold Leader.”

  Speaking of daybreak, the hour of dawn had arrived. Chuck and I moved to the second floor. While Chuck disposed of his handiwork to our team waiting out in the street, I checked the apartments of the second floor, working slow and methodically, leaving no closet unchecked. Seven more bodies. NYPD was going to have a field day with this. There was absolutely no way Paul Watson would ever be able to make this go away. From this day forward, the world would know of our existence.

  Nolan and Andrews kept busy cleaning up the sentries. Thus far, they were all mere mortals under the spell of a master being.

  The third floor held only two victims, and still none of my brethren. Upon arriving on the fourth floor, I did not need to search. Instinctively, I knew exactly where to look. My hopes of a peaceful remediation were gone. The massive casualties told me these vampires only cared about one thing, feeding. The victims had been a cross section of young and old and men and women. If any had been spared, they were surely amongst the living dead now.

  Chuck and I entered the apartment, Chuck behind me, his cross easily visible.

  “Shit, don’t this take you back.” Chuck whispered as we studied the two caskets.

  “You take the right, I will take the left. Let’s do this quick.” Chuck turned his back to me and I pulled two stakes from his backpack. Raising the lids simultaneously, the woman before me groaned and stirred ever so slightly. Unlike New Orleans, I took no time to consider her beauty, or lack thereof. I raised my stake, no mallet needed, and prepared to strike.

  Nolan’s words, “We’ve got a problem,’’ buzzed in our earbuds, just audible enough to wake our intended victims.

  As quickly as she opened her eyes, I sealed them shut forever with the driving force of an oak stake through her heart. Chuck, on the other hand, was not so lucky. His vampire immediately lunged from the casket and pinned him to the wall. I arrived with Chuck’s stake and delivered the fatal blow from behind. As I pulled him away, Chuck finished him off with speed and precision, severing the head with a powerful swing.

  I took two deep breaths as I studied the severed head and then gazed at Chuck’s wild-eyed look of satisfaction. Turning my attention to the voice of the untimely interruption I asked, “What’s up?”

  “We had a beat cop. He passed by, but I think he’s onto us.” Nolan reported.

  “Roger that,” Mitch replied. “He pretty much took off after he cleared the block. I’m gonna head down to the street and roll out the NYPD welcome mat.”

  “We should pick up the pace, bro. You know where to find them, so we need to quit looking for any possible survivors and get on with it,” Chuck suggested.

  It was just before eleven and we had covered half of the floors. Chuck had estimated thirty hostiles, including eight potential warm bodies. Seven of those were down and one remained on the next floor. With two vampires dead, if Chuck’s count were accurate, twenty vampires remained. As we moved up the stairs I began to feel the growing presence of a multitude of evil directly above.

  Three squad cars arrived within seconds of each other. O’Reilly had barely had time to set up by the front door, replacing Nolan and Andrews, who had pulled back to the moving van. Holding his badge above his head, he called out to the officers who quickly surrounded him.

  “Mitch O’Reilly, New Orleans PD. Who’s in charge here, boys?”

  “Never mind who’s in charge, you wanna tell us what’s going on here chief?” Joe Bonelli, with seventeen years of working the neighborhood, took exception to O’Reilly’s air of superiority.

  As several of the cops headed up the steps of the apartment, Mitch turned and warned the group. “Hey don’t go in there, the buildings not secure.” O’Reilly leaned in to close to Bonelli. “We have a situation here, but if you go in, the entire operation could go boom.”

  “Hold up guys,” Bonelli called.

  “While you and I talk this out,” O’Reilly began, “how about getting the guys to pull their squad cars back. I don’t want to spook our perps up there if it’s not too late.”

  “Do it,” Bonelli ordered. “Davis, get the Captain on board. Looks like we’ve got a situation here.” Bonelli straightened his holster and cut a glare at O’Reilly. “Okay O’Reilly, what the hell is going on up there?”

  “I’m here on assignment from New Orleans with the DEA. We’ve got a CI on the inside who may be compromised. Currently, we have two agents inside sweeping floor-by-floor looking for our girl. So far, all is quiet. If you guys go storming in that’s gonna change.”

  Bonelli studied Mitch’s face, looking for a tell. “Dispatch, hold all units back one block,” he ordered into the radio. “Davis, you find the Captain yet?”

  Chuck had taken out the last of the guards and moved on to search the left side apartments. I had moved on to the back apartment on the right, where muffled voices could be heard from within. Placing my hand on the doorknob, I turned it gently and slowly pushed the door open.

  Instantaneously, three vampires turned and studied my approach. Just beyond them, restrained on a table appeared to be an unconscious woman.

  “Yo, what’s up?”

  I sized up my options against the three. The mouthpiece was a monster, six feet eight and three hundred pounds. He would not go down easy. The other two were goons, a mere nuisance I would deal with before tackling the mountain of doom.

  “Yo, why you covered in blood, bro?” Joe White Castle put his finger into my blood covered shirt. “Damn Al, this shit’s fresh.”

  Al, the monster, moved from the rear of the table, but stopped short of leaving it unattended.

  “Vincent send you down here?”

  Attempting to get a better view of the restrained woman, I moved deeper into the apartment. My progress was arrested by Joe, who obviously did not realize how much I despised having hands laid on me.

  Unable to make a positive ID, I switched tactics. “Vincent wanted me to check on Sabine.”

  “Bullshit. Don’t nobody but me and Vincent check on Sabine.” Al’s aggressive tone forewarned there was no time left. “Angelo, go see what’s up. I think this motherfucker is trying to pull something.”

  Angelo and Joe, or whatever their real names were, had just breathed their last breaths. I snapped my forearms to the floor and two stakes slid from my sleeves to my hands. Joe first, just because he had no manners, then Angelo; within a second both were dead on the floor. My favorite kind of dead.

  “Motherfucker, what are you … some kind of fucking vampire hunter?” Al began to charge in my direction.

  I coiled, then lunged and followed through with a crushing two-legged kick high to his chest. Al crashed backward and stumbled over a chair. Just as he was rising to his feet, I grabbed his greasy ponytail and pulled with all the energy I could muster. Gathering just enough momentum, I swung him wildly in front, then shoved him through the curtain-covered window sending him crashing into the glass. One last well timed kick and he tumbled over the windowsill and fell five floors to the street below. I peered out briefly to see him sprawled in the street, the tree filtered sunlight forcing my retreat away from the window.

  He rose, only to discover his body was drenched in sunlight. With his flesh beginning t
o singe, he turned and began to sprint toward the shadows at the end of the block. Before he had covered ten yards, an indistinct thud halted his progress. Looking down, a wooden arrow had pierced his heart from behind. As he dropped to his knees, his body burst into flames.

  “Now there’s something you don’t see everyday,” O’Reilly chuckled. Before his words resonated in Bonelli’s ears, a solitary gunshot rang out. O’Reilly, unfazed by the gunfire, continued to chuckle as Bonelli ducked for cover.

  “Damn it, who fired that shot?” Bonelli called out on the radio.

  “I did. There’s a guy across the street from you with a crossbow. I think he fired the arrow that killed that guy. He ducked back into the building, but I think I winged him,” an excited voice reported.

  “Williams, you and Sturges get over there and secure that building, now.” Bonelli ordered. “Dispatch, we need backup and a bus. Got one perp down.”

  O’Reilly remained out in the open, laughing in the direction of the flaming corpse. “Well that certainly made my day worth getting out of bed for. Thanks, Brian,” he chirped into the com.

  “Get over here you crazy fuck,” Bonelli motioned to O’Reilly.

  “Just a minute son,” he said to Bonelli as he moved away. Redirecting his attention to the floor above he spoke into his com. “What’s that? You’ve got Sabine?” O’Reilly looked up to the fifth floor window and then back to Bonelli. “Okay, I’ll do my best.” O’Reilly walked nonchalantly back to the younger cop. “Looks like they found our CI. My man is bringing her down, but she’s been injured. Before you go and storm the building, The DEA would really appreciate it if you let them clear out before everyone starts blasting.”

  “You’ve got until my backup arrives.” The neighborhood was filled with screaming sirens of approaching squad cars. It would not be long.

  “I could’ve done that.”

  I turned to see Chuck standing in the doorway with his arms crossed. “Shut up and get over here.”