The Fixer: A Lawson Vampire Novel 1 (The Lawson Vampire Series)

by Jon F. Merz

  I nodded. And god knows I heard him. I worked harder than ever before to master the techniques he’d shown us. The next time I met Samuelson in the ring, things were different. I took him down in three seconds.

  But if Garza had been happy with my results, he didn’t let it show. It wasn’t his way. He was there to mold us into the rawest of materials suitable for further training.

  Six weeks after we started, Garza disappeared.

  James replaced him.

  About the same size as Garza, James looked like a miniature Jack Nicholson, complete with the sneer. He didn’t yell. He didn’t have to. The sight of him scared us all so much we were absolutely silent whenever he was around which was all the time.

  James’ attitude toward our training was different from Garza’s. Garza had been in charge of getting us into excellent physical condition. James was in charge of pushing us past the limits we thought we couldn’t surpass.

  Our first immersion to this new training came in the form of two weeks where we had a total of four hours of sleep and very limited quantities of juice. Energy levels absolutely sapped, we ran the obstacle courses again, fought each other in the sand ring, marched infinite hikes, and recited old nursery rhymes until we were blabbering fools.

  But we survived.

  We had to.

  James forged a new spirit within us. We wouldn’t quit. No matter how tired we were, no matter how hungry, no matter our state, we wouldn’t give up.

  "Give in to the littlest desire and the rest of your discipline will come crumbling down all around you. Then you won’t be Fixers anymore. You’ll be dead. Preservation of the Balance is the one thing you must at all times keep in your head. Protect it until you die. Never give up."

  We didn’t.

  And after another six weeks of physical and mental torture at the hands of James, he, too, disappeared.

  In his place stood the Buffalo.

  We never knew his real name. But he was our first glimpse of a real Fixer. Drawn from active service from wherever he’d been stationed out in the real world, the Buffalo would serve as our primary trainer for the remainder of our stay at the camp.

  He would introduce us to the real arts of being a Fixer.

  Compared to Garza and James, the Buffalo was soft-spoken, and almost unobtrusive. You wouldn’t look twice at him if you walked past him on the street.

  Which is exactly what made him so utterly effective.

  "You’ve all proven yourselves as capable, strong men. Naturally, you feel good about that, and as well you should." He smiled. "Now, I want you to forget it."

  He continued. "Drawing attention to yourself will get you killed. It will expose the nature of our society. It is the antithesis of your role as a Fixer."

  "You will be the living definition of low-profile. Discrete, mild-mannered, completely gray. Everything you do must not stand out. You must pass through the ranks of humans and vampires alike as if a ghost. Your success as Fixers depends on it."

  Only when the situation demanded it were we permitted to display the skills and prowess we’d worked so hard to gain. Only then could we set the scales of justice right, to protect the Balance and ensure the continued success of our people. But then it was right back to our low-profile.

  The Buffalo taught us how to dress and walk so we never aroused interest. We worked at blending in until we could disappear in the midst of a crowd.

  We went on international field trips to practice. Exotic cities like Moscow, Madrid, London, Paris, Rome, and Berlin became our playground. The stakes were always high on these outings, as high as they’d be once we graduated. Any mistakes meant exposure. And exposure couldn’t happen since it would mean the end of our society.

  We started out with small exercises designed to allow us to improve our skill with a controllable amount of risk. Gradually we got better. The exercises continued. The risk mounted.

  And we got better.

  The training progressed.

  It was after dusk when I parked the Jetta in the Transportation Building just past Stuart Street. I figured if Cosgrove was still keeping tabs on me, the last thing I wanted to do was stick to the routine of having the valets at the Four Seasons always parking my car.

  I walked over past the Park Plaza Building and along the rear of the hotel. This part of the city, despite attempts to prove otherwise, could still be dangerous at night. A cool breeze blew and in a few weeks the first snows of the winter would loom over Boston. This would be a bad winter.

  I passed a couple hurrying along towards the Theater District, mumbling about being late. I smiled.

  That was when they hit me.

  There were two of them and they came out of the shadows easily, as if they belonged in them. Their movements were practiced, flowing. They’d done this before.

  If it was supposed to look like a mugging, it lost every flavor of it as soon as I watched their attack unfold. Whoever they were, their goal was obvious: to put me away. These were killers.

  Unfortunately, I wasn’t subscribing to the idea of going without a fight.

  The first one moved fast, and I barely had time to glimpse the blade he’d concealed in the palm of his right hand before it was out and lunging straight in at my chest. A killing thrust by the look of it. Plunge the blade into the subaortic cavity and wrench it back and forth a couple of times. You bled out inside your chest cavity within twenty seconds.

  Even if it wouldn’t have killed me, it still would have caused a loss of blood. I’m not real happy about losing any blood.

  As he came in, his energy committed, I pivoted back on my front heel, allowing his attack to go past me. I got a feel on his knife hand and then found his wrist. I pivoted again, bringing the wrist back into a painful lock and at the height of the takedown, I kicked his throat, making him gag uncontrollably as I sent him flying sans knife into the shrub-lined brick wall.

  Thug number two took a look at number one’s inert form and decided running was a more pressing engagement. I stooped over thug number one and rifled his wallet, looking for identification, but I didn’t find any.

  I did find a neat roll of hundred dollars bills, though.

  And a picture of me.

  Friends, there are times when life suddenly looks real gloomy. This was definitely one of those times.

  I’d been set up for a hit.

  And while these clowns had had no clue that they’d never be able to successfully complete it, someone had set me up regardless.

  The bills were fresh. They still smelled like ink and the serial numbers were all in order.

  The picture drew my attention, more, though. Since I don’t photograph all that well, and since I had no idea where they would have gotten it, it became priority number one.

  I know some of you out there who are still feverishly clinging to the old stereotypes will no doubt be cursing silently about vampires not being able to be photographed. Sorry to spoil your fun, but that’s another myth. Oh, sure you could pass it off in the olden days. But try having a driver’s license, passport, or any other form of identification with no picture on it. Hell, try going out without being able to see if the part in your hair was straight or not.

  Of course we can be photographed. And yes, we cast reflections and shadows.

  The presence of this photograph made my stomach hurt, however. As with any covert operative, I tended to shy away from having too many pictures available. The less I existed on film, the better.

  But this was a recent photograph. Grainy. In black and white. And when I examined it under the glow of a streetlight, it became apparent where it was from. It was a video still from a security camera.

  I had another hunch that when I walked the remaining block to visit Miss Talya, the background in the picture would match the background in the front lobby of the Four Season’s Hotel.

  Have I mentioned how I don’t believe in coincidences?

  And have I mentioned my sudden pressing need to have a long-overdu
e sit down talk with my new best buddy Talya?

  Well, consider them both mentioned.

  As far as I was concerned, it was time to stop observing and trying to be Mr. Subtle. I wanted answers.

  I picked up the knife from the ground, intending to drop it down the nearest sewer drain. Instead, my breathing stopped.

  The blade wasn’t steel. In fact, the entire knife was carved from a single piece of wood and painted to look like a real blade. If they’d stabbed me, I would have died.

  Staked.

  I don’t scare that easily. Sure, Cosgrove freaks me out. But by and large, I’m not that given to the willies.

  This, however, scared the piss out of me. A kill team had been set loose on me. And what bugged me the most was that it didn’t feel at all like Cosgrove’s style.

  I used the remainder of the walk to Talya’s hotel to slow down my heart rate. The doorman gave me a wink and I stopped long enough at the front desk to find out what room Talya was in before I made my way up in the elevators.

  Out of professional habit, I stopped one floor below hers and took the stairs up. The fire door opened with a small squeak, but my footsteps were hushed by the thick carpeting on the hallway floor.

  A single camera monitored the hallway so I tried to walk as casually as possible. Outside her room, I paused for a minute, listening.

  Nothing.

  I would have preferred to kick the door in, but you never knew who could be on the other side.

  I stood just off the door and knocked, half expecting a blast of buckshot to splinter the door. But none came. In fact, no one answered the door.

  I knocked again.

  Still nothing.

  The door was locked from inside and the door had an electronic card reader on it. The kind where you slip the card in and the little light goes from red to green and then grants you access.

  Not too easy to jimmy.

  But above the door was a key lock.

  And those are easy to pick. Even for someone like myself who’s not too skilled in picking locks.

  It took me thirty seconds to get in, and I was sure if anyone was awake downstairs at the security console, it would be maybe two minutes before I had an unwelcome welcoming party.

  Inside the room there was light from a table lamp in the corner. A magazine had been left open on the table. A small carry-all in black ballistic nylon sat in the corner of the otherwise empty room. The bed was neatly arranged. It hadn’t been slept in by the look of it.

  I moved to the bureau and opened the drawers. There were only a few articles of clothing, mostly composed of the variety of bikini panties that I like so much. I like a woman who knows how to dress in her underwear.

  In the night stand, I came up with an envelope of money. More hundreds. And guess what? The numbers continued the sequence I’d gotten off the thug downstairs.

  "Looking for something?"

  I wheeled around and found myself staring at Talya’s naked body. Water dripped off all the right protrusions and found their way to the floor. Her hair was slicked back, eye bright, but narrowed. She glistened like a lithe predator and seemed totally comfortable with the fact that she completely nude. I watched rivulets of water work their way south, converging at the thin mohawk of pubic hair running ever further into her deepest regions.

  If she hadn’t been leveling a 9mm pistol on me, I might actually have enjoyed the sight.

  "You don’t need that," I said.

  "No?" She gestured toward the bed. "Move back slow. This thing’s been modified and the trigger has a hair pull on it."

  I made a show of holding my hands up. "Put it away Talya."

  "Not yet, Mr. Lawson. Not until we have a chance to talk."

  That was rich. "Well, what should we talk about? The weather?"

  "How about my almost getting offed by two thugs this afternoon in the Public Gardens."

  "What?"

  "You heard me. They even had a picture of me. A security photo by the looks of it. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?"

  "Why the hell would I have someone kill you, Talya? It makes no sense."

  "Might be exactly the reason why you would."

  I smiled. "Mind if I show you something?"

  She frowned. "Nothing funny, Lawson. I’ll shoot you if I think I have to."

  I reached into my pocket and brought out the photo of myself. "I just found that on some of my own would-be attackers downstairs." I tossed the picture onto her bed. "They tried to hit me as I came in."

  She glanced down at it. "So what?"

  I took out the roll of hundred dollar bills. "Something else." I tossed the roll on to the photograph. "Seems someone paid for their services out of the envelope full of hundreds you keep in your night stand."

  Her face showed distress and the gun wavered. "What?" She turned to the night stand still keeping the gun on me with one hand as she rifled through the envelope. I leaned back and admired her rear assets.

  She stood up. "I had five thousand dollars in here. A thousand’s gone."

  I pointed at the bed. "That would be it."

  She frowned again and lowered the gun. "What the hell is going on?"

  I shrugged. "Seems fairly obvious. We’re being set up to be killed."

  "But-"

  "But nothing, Talya. That’s it. Someone got access to the security cameras downstairs, to your room, and then went about hiring some young guns to waste us."

  "But they were so untalented. I mean streetwise, yeah, but not professionals." She suddenly seemed aware of the fact that she had no clothes on and began dressing. I watched her bra encompass the fullness of her breasts, watched as she slid on the high-cut bikini panties. She pulled a turtleneck on first and then black stretch pants. I cleared my throat.

  "Well, they knew where to stab with a knife, which is a cut above most. They might easily have succeeded against people lesser trained than us."

  "But what was the point?"

  I made a calculated decision, which in my books means I took a wild guess. I hoped it would prove to be the right one. Sometimes you just had to jump blind.

  "Talya, when we were in the bar last night."

  "What about it?"

  "Remember I went to look upstairs for Cosgrove."

  "I remember. I stayed down at the bar."

  I nodded. "I came back down and saw you talking to someone. A man. He was sitting next to you."

  She shifted then, looked away. "Oh yeah…what about him?"

  I started to say it, started to explain that it had been Cosgrove sitting with her, talking to her, started to want to ask her all about their conversation and the language they spoke. I started to.

  But I didn’t complete.

  Because at that moment, the entire room shook, rumbled and exploded, shattering my reality into a million pieces of combustible hell.

  Chapter Thirteen

  There’s nothing quite like being in the middle of an explosion to make you appreciate the sensation of pain. There’s that real special moment when you feel the concussion wave smack you every which way, followed by the intense flash of heat and fire. If you’re really lucky, you’ll have the added bonus of some fragmentation. You could term it as acupuncture done at mach 5 and come away with a rough idea of what it feels like to be pierced through with a million shards of burning metal.

  Fun stuff.

  Really.

  I got it all and more it seemed. And when I woke up in the hospital bed, McKinley was looming over me, frowning.

  "Jesus."

  I tried to smile. "It’s Lawson, you prick. How soon you forget."

  "I see your sense of humor survived the explosion. That’s always a good sign."

  I took a deep inhale of air and grimaced. There’s always been something about hospitals that makes me edgy. I don’t know whether it’s the sterile smell of antiseptic, the pale green and white color scheme most of them employ to calm down patients, or just the overall environment. If
nurses still dressed in short little uniforms, I might like them a lot more. But they don’t, so hospitals never make my list of cool places to hang out.

  "Get me out of here."

  McKinley shook his head. "No can do."

  I tried lifting myself out of the bed. "McKinley, get me out of here. You know what could happen-"

  He held up his hand. "Relax, Lawson, you’re all set in that regard. Your doctor’s one of us."

  Thank god for that. All I needed was some eager young intern discovering I didn’t exactly function like your everyday living human being. Hell, I’d have to off myself if that happened.

  I slumped back against the pillows. "What the hell happened?"

  "You mean besides the obvious? Someone had packed that little hotel room you were in with enough explosive to send you to the damned moon, Lawson. What the hell were you doing there?"

  "What about the girl?"

  McKinley frowned. "What girl?"

  "Talya."

  "Talya? You mean the one you wanted me to check out for you?" He shrugged. "When we got to the room, you were the only one in the rubble."

  That wasn’t possible. She’d been right near me. I tried getting out of bed again. McKinley held me back down. "Lawson, you’re not going anywhere yet."

  I slid back down, suddenly aware of the waves of pain rippling through my body. "Ugh. What’s my diagnosis?"

  "Severe fragmentary damage. Doc’s already pulled about fifty little souvenirs out of your body. You lost a lot of blood, which is actually good news for you since you get a couple of pints to chow down on. Don’t binge now, you hear?"

  I smiled. "When can I get the hell out of here?"

  "They just took another set of x-rays a short time ago. Once they figure out if you’re clean, you can go. The doc will get you out hopefully tonight." He sighed.

  "What else, McKinley?"

  He looked away. "Cosgrove struck again last night."