by Jon F. Merz
So, this drive home was really no chore at all. Just added an extra forty-five minutes on my commute time.
I rolled up to my house at half past three and was greeted by incessant chirping coming from Mimi and Phoebe who hadn’t been fed since last night. I fixed them dinner and then sat down in the study to phone McKinley.
He answered on the sixth ring.
"Yeah?"
Asleep, too. McKinley liked to keep daytime hours. "It’s Lawson."
He yawned into the phone. "Yeah, I figured there’d only be one wretched bastard who’d forsake common courtesy and interrupt a decent sleep. Did you get him?"
"Not yet."
"Lawson, what the hell are you calling me for then?"
Some people. "Your sparkling personality. I need information."
"About?"
"I don’t have many details. Female, I think she’s human-"
"You think?"
"Christ, McKinley, I didn’t get a chance to verify it."
"All right. What else?"
"Name’s Talya."
"Talya what?"
"I only got Talya."
"Anything else?"
I could hear him writing this down which was a good sign. McKinley kept great notes. "She’s a pro."
"You want information on a hooker?"
"A pro. A hitter. For crying out loud, McKinley, wake up!"
"Sorry. Okay, Talya, possibly human, assassin. Anything else?"
"I need to know where she’s been recently. Said she came in from New York this morning on the shuttle. Can you trace it?"
"See what I can do." He paused. "Lawson."
"Yeah?"
"What’s so special about the broad?"
I frowned. "I don’t know yet."
"She connected to this thing?"
"You know the guy Cosgrove took out on Saturday, Simbik?"
"Friend of yours, yeah, what about him?"
"Talya says she was his fiancee."
"You don’t believe her?"
"I’m not sure. I’ve got reason to believe she might be holding back on me. That’s where you come in."
"Gotcha. Twelve hours."
"I’ll call you tonight."
I made myself a cup of hot chocolate and promptly burned my tongue trying to drink it too fast. Outside the night was starting to bleed reds and oranges. Dawn was coming. A new day approached and I was no closer to getting Cosgrove than I had been before. Add to that mix the whole Talya thing and I was gearing up for some decidedly bad shit.
I flipped the television on in time to see some washed-up actress hawking new careers in computer repair, gun smithing, and accounting.
Suddenly, crunching numbers all day didn’t seem so bad.
Chapter Eleven
It took McKinley just over his estimated twelve hours to gather all the necessary information. I’d just finished another grueling workout when the phone rang. Sweat dribbled off me as I grabbed for the receiver.
"Yeah?"
"It’s me. Where the hell’d you find this chick?"
"A chat room on the Internet, McKinley. Where do you think? She was at Simbik’s funeral." I mopped my brow. "Why? What’d you find out?"
There was a pause and I could hear McKinley shuffling what sounded like fax papers. "Lots. First, and most importantly, she’s not one of us."
Was that good news or not? I had no answer for it myself. The fact that Talya wasn’t a vampire could be good news, but it could also signal some kind of alliance between humans and vampires. An alliance Cosgrove could be trying to forge. And that was bad. Definitely bad.
"What else?"
"Definitely a professional. Top notch murdering madam. History includes time with the KGB. She tell you that?"
"She drinks iced vodka. I guessed. She confirmed."
"Just because she drank iced vodka?"
"You ever known a woman who could put down three iced vodkas with no adverse effects?"
"No."
"Trust me, then, will you?" I paused. "So, what’d you find out?"
"Did a number of black bag ops for them in the early and mid-eighties. All successful. Had one of the best records for any international operative. She went freelance after Communism flunked out. Had assignments all over the world. She’s been employed by everyone from the Mossad to the Cali Cartel."
"Not very discriminating about her work, is she?"
"Doesn’t seem to be," said McKinley. "But she’s top drawer stuff. Her KGB file came via a friend of mine down in Virginia. She did training with Spetznaz Alpha Groups. Did some time in Afghanistan and Lebanon. She’s good. Hell, she’s excellent."
"Top percentile?"
"And then some. Here check this out," he paused. "Okay, Kabul in 1980, the local brigade commander is having trouble with a sect of very bad-ass Mujahadeen fighters. They’re led by the nephew of that bin-Laden puke everyone’s looking for nowadays."
"So?"
"So, the brigade commander keeps losing men and vehicles to these lightning raids. He’s out straight trying to find them and kill them. Can’t do it. So he calls Moscow and asks for help. They send this Talya chick."
"And?"
"She disappears into the countryside alone for two weeks. You ever been to Afghanistan?"
"No."
"Place makes Newark look like a goddamned rest home for the rich and famous. It sucks. Dry and inhospitable shit, Lawson. Anyway, your girl goes out there for two weeks, tracks this band of freedom fighters down and eliminates every one of them."
"How many?"
"Fourteen. Including two sixteen year old boys."
"Damn."
"Damn? Shit, Lawson, this kind of info rates more on the ‘fuck me very much’ scale. This is one nasty woman."
"I assumed as much from the way she carries herself."
"She a player in this?"
I frowned and took a sip of juice. "Seems to be. But I’m not sure how the hell she fits into it. She claimed to want to kill Cosgrove. I took her out hunting last night-"
"You did what?"
"McKinley, she’s got no clue about me. Relax."
"It’s your funeral if she does, Lawson. Might be your funeral anyway given her history. What happened?"
"We split up at one point. Basic recon of the place. I came back downstairs and saw her getting awfully friendly with Cosgrove."
"Shit. She see you?"
"Of course not."
"How friendly was she getting?"
"Laughing and carrying on like old buddies friendly. It didn’t leave a very warm spot in my stomach."
"I’ll bet. Did she know it was Cosgrove?"
"I think so."
"That’s not good."
"No shit."
Another pause. McKinley shuffled more papers. "How do you want to play it?"
"I’m not sure yet." And I wasn’t. Too many things seemed to be hurling themselves at me. Too much too quick. "Any fresh kills?"
"Police reports only got down some gangland stuff. Nothing attributable to our boy."
"He’ll strike again soon. He has to." I paused. "Say, McKinley, you have anything on Talya’s birth place?"
"Yeah, right here. File says she was born in what is now Kazakstan. Central steppes type area, couple of mountain ranges. Area borders China to the east."
"What language do they speak there?"
"Language? I don’t know. Why?"
"Well, last night when I was watching her talk to Cosgrove, they were speaking a language I didn’t recognize."
He laughed. "Hell, Lawson, you only speak fifty languages. Could be one you don’t know."
"This was different. Even if I can’t speak it, I can at least recognize most of them. This one was new to me."
"Maybe some type of regional dialect?"
"I was thinking, yeah."
McKinley sighed. "I can check. That will definitely take some time. But I’ll look into it. In the meantime, got any theories about this?"
"Not
really. The other night on the roof, Cosgrove was talking his usual take-over-the-world nonsense. I discounted it mainly because I was nearly dead and he always talks like that. Now, I’m wishing I’d paid attention to it."
"Can’t be helped now. But you think this Talya woman is mixed up with it? Whatever it is?"
"She’s either in it all the way or Cosgrove is using her for some reason."
"Not out of character for him to do that, is it?"
"No. It’s not. But she’s different. He’s only ever used fools before. Talya is different."
"So you keep saying, Lawson. What about if neither of them knows who the other one is?"
"You mean they just happened to be talking in a strange obscure language by sheer coincidence?"
"You never know."
"You know as well as I do, McKinley, that we can’t afford the luxury of believing in coincidences. There’s something going on, I know it. I’m just not sure about Talya."
There was a pause on the line. "Lawson…you’re not too close to this broad, are you?"
I smiled. McKinley could be a dope, but he could be a good guy too. "Like you’ve got anyone else who can handle this?"
He chuckled. "No. But you know what I mean."
"I know what you mean. I’ll stay cool."
"You do that. I’ll check out that information for you and call you back later." The phone went dead again and I sat there taking small sips of juice, pondering. After five minutes of getting absolutely nothing worthwhile, I gave up and took a steaming shower.
***
Basically, what it came down to was simple: until I could figure out exactly how Talya fit into this whole mess, I had to make sure she suspected nothing was amiss. That was the only way I’d be able to observe things as they needed to be. And then maybe I’d be able to get some more out of this. Maybe.
I called her after my shower.
"Where have you been? I was worried."
I’ll bet she was. "Asleep. It was a late night last. I needed some rest. Time to think."
"About blowing off what could have been an amazing night of passion?"
"Not really. Look, Talya, don’t take this the wrong way, but if we’re going to work together on this thing, I can’t be sleeping with you. You’re Simbik’s fiancee, for crying out loud!"
"Ex-fiancee, Lawson. He’s dead now."
"Whatever. Fact remains you were still a part of my friend’s life and I’m certainly not ready to discount that so quickly."
"You don’t find me attractive?"
"That’s not it and you know it. You’re a professional. I’m a professional. We have to stay objective about this."
"If you say so."
"I do." I just wished I meant it.
"Fine." She may have agreed but her tonality told me she was pissed. Well, she didn’t have to like me. I just needed to keep her around for now. Until I figured this all out.
"Are we on for tonight?"
"Yes. Same time, okay?"
"All right."
I hung up the phone and leaned back into the couch as Mimi came around looking for some affection. I stroked her fur and she responded by kneading her claws into my jeans.
The first time I’d hunted Cosgrove it had been because he’d left fifty bodies littering the streets of Boston. This was my town after all. That’s how it worked. Fixers were assigned a Control and a city to watch. We were the enforcers. We maintained the Balance. We made sure the locals obeyed the laws of the hunt.
What laws?
Well, there were a couple of minor ones that were so ingrained in us all we usually never had any infractions. We were only allowed to hunt at night. That one, I suppose was a carryover from that superstitious crap about us being deathly afraid of sunlight. In truth, as I mentioned before, we could exist easily in sunlight. But we were only to hunt at night. It helped maintain the Balance I suppose. No one really understood all of the rules, we just obeyed them. They’d been handed down from the Council, after all, and everyone obeyed the Council.
Well, everyone except Cosgrove.
By far, the absolute cardinal sin was to borrow more juice than could be replenished by the lender. In short, if you killed a human, and exposed the community, you were in deep doo-doo.
It meant a termination order got passed down.
And yours truly would get a phone call from McKinley.
Then the offender would get a visit from me.
Simple.
Effective.
It worked.
Until Cosgrove came calling.
His first act of infamy, which really should have resulted in a global hunt for the bastard, was when he was observed killing a human in Amsterdam by a Fixer stationed there. He tried to take Cosgrove out, and was entirely justified in doing so, given that he’d witnessed the crime.
Unfortunately, he wasn’t successful.
Cosgrove left him impaled on a church steeple. It took a frantic clean-up crew and the local Control two hours to get him off unnoticed before the locals started freaking out. And in Amsterdam, to freak out the locals, you knew it had to be bad.
But that was Cosgrove.
I warned the Council upon his arrival that he would do the same things he’d been doing across the globe. They told me to leave him alone. Like I said earlier, family counts a sickening amount in this community.
Fifty dead humans later, I took it upon myself to hunt him down. Truthfully, I wanted it finished. After the history Cosgrove and I had, it would be a far better world if he was dead and gone.We covered the outcome of my first endeavor earlier.
Mimi chirped some form of appreciation and went wandering off to beat Phoebe up. I stared out the windows and watched the sun begin its lazy descent in the West. Nighttime was right around the corner.
Time to go to work.
Chapter Twelve
I entered Fixer Training on a warm spring day in 1963. The camp, as the twenty of us called it, was a five hundred acre facility located in the Northwest Kingdom of Vermont. If you’re not familiar with the territory, it’s remote to say the least. Towns are few and far between and back in the early sixties, even more so. People up there kept to themselves and no one ever bothered us. Plus, the surrounding towns were primarily other vampire villages. They acted as a buffer zone.
Just past our centennials, the twenty of us were all brimming with unbridled enthusiasm and also feeling like a bunch of wild young studs. On the ride up to Vermont from my home, I’d talked to several other recruits who felt that being a Fixer was a prestigious career. They were proud of their destiny.
I was confused.
I didn’t know what to expect. In everyday vampire society, Fixers aren’t normally even discussed. I’d heard about them only in passing. And while it had always been in high-regard, there had also been a degree of fear attributed to them as well. After all, they were the guardians of our society. A sort of police force with absolute jurisdiction and ability to punish if the situation demanded it.
Off the rickety old yellow school bus, we were met by a small-framed man named Garza. He stood all of five feet tall and about the same width. But his voice boomed out a welcome I’d never forget.
"Welcome ladies. You are all now officially my bitches and I will bend you over and fuck you any time I damn well please."
Any murmurings vanished as soon as the words echoed across the camp.
If we’d had any women in the group, they might have been offended. But back then, the only Fixers were men. Even today, the profession is largely male. There are exceptions, however. And most of them are damned good exceptions.
But being men, instead of offended, we were terrified.
Garza looked like he could do it, too, if only on sheer confidence. He wasn’t the kind of guy you dicked around with.
But by and large, it was all talk. Garza was our equivalent of a drill instructor. For six weeks, he ran us ragged through a battery of physical endurance and strength tests. We started out with five
mile runs, added forty pound rucksacks packed with sharp-edged rocks, and then drew out the runs to ten and fifteen miles.
I hated the running with a passion that survives to this day. It’s so damned boring. Of course, that didn’t mean a thing. I didn’t have to like it. I just had to do it.
And do it, I did.
The obstacle courses followed and beefed up the stakes. For the first time, we competed against each other. Natural rivalries developed, crested, and waned under the duress of the training.
And when it became apparent that we were forming a more cohesive unit, Garza introduced us to hand-to-hand combat training.
Designed to be quick, dirty, and ultimately practical for our roles, the system was drawn from ancient styles of wrestling and bare-knuckle fighting. Brutal stuff that we practiced with little padding. Garza’s philosophy was that we’d never appreciate its effectiveness unless we experienced it first-hand.
We did.
The sand ring as Garza called it was an eight foot diameter circle bounded by a bluff of densely packed sand. Inside the ring, the sand was loose, soft to some extent, but unforgiving. A sudden misstep could cost us our life. And even if we weren’t working on the beach, our footwork had to be absolutely certain at all times. The sand would teach us.
The first time I stepped into the ring was against a taller, heavier recruit named Samuelson. Flush with Scandinavian blood, his blonde hair and rugged physique gave him the look of a Norse god.
Garza had smiled, blown his whistle and then stepped back.
Samuelson was on me so fast I hadn’t even had time to lower my hips to improve my balance the way Garza had taught us. Samuelson knocked me off my feet and landed on top of me.
I blocked his punches and jabbed him in the floating ribs, rolled him off of me and scrambled to my feet again.
He lashed out with a kick that caught me square in the pit of my stomach. I fell retching.
Garza called a halt and then leaned down by my face.
"You gonna give up that easy, boy? A man in this ring means to kill you dead and you’re gonna let a little kick take you out of the fight? Better work through that shit and keep your damned self going. This ain’t no Sunday school picnic we’re talking about here. It’s life and death, and not just yours at that. You fuck up and fail, could mean the lives of everyone in our society. You hear me?"