by Jon F. Merz
Zero came up behind me. "Slow down, Arthur."
"Who’s that then?" He squinted into the light. "That you Zero?"
"Who else would be able to smell that horrible breath a mile away?"
Arthur, the butler, chuckled. "It’s me rotten gums." He lowered the shotgun just a bit, still ready to bring it to bear though. "What are ya doing here?"
"It’s an urgent matter, Arthur."
"It’d have to be, sneaking around here, wouldn’t it? But ya’d better explain yourselves all the same." He stepped back and waved us into the main foyer.
Zero led the way and I trailed behind him. Despite appearances, Arthur seemed well capable of bringing that shotgun back up in a hurry and Zero shot me a look that told me not to try to disarm him.
"So, what gives Zero? What’s so urgent ya can’t ring up an old chum and ask for his help?"
"Didn’t want to get you into trouble, Arthur. Better that way, believe me."
"Yeah? Since when did we care about a spot of bother anyway? This is me, remember?"
Zero smiled as if he was remembering an old movie. "I remember, Arthur. I would have loved to involve you. But I couldn’t."
"Well, ya have now." He frowned. "It’d be ’bout that Cosgrove character, wouldn’t it?"
"How’d you hear about that?" I asked.
Arthur fixed me with a quick stare and shot a look at Zero. "That dumb question just an act or are we really training the stupid ones these days?"
"Hey…"
Arthur looked back at me. "You listen to me, sonny. I’m the butler around here and I do a bleeding good job of it, no complaints from the Council at all. And more importantly than serving as best I know how, I also keep these gummed up miserable pieces of cauliflower open for tidbits and whatnot. I hear stuff. And I’m not so far gone I can’t piece it together, understand?"
"Yeah."
"Right." He nodded at Zero. "Spill it, you old cracker."
"It’s about the Balance, Arthur. We initially thought Cosgrove was trying to form an alliance with the humans, and he may well still be doing that."
"But?"
"But there’s something else."
Arthur nodded. "The Elder."
"Yeah. He’s trying an ancient ritual it looks like. And to do that, he needs the pieces of the ceremony puzzle. He’ll be looking to figure out where they’re kept."
"He won’t be able to, though, will he? It’s not…" He glanced in my direction. "General knowledge."
"It’s okay, Arthur. He knows about the loyalists."
"But Cosgrove -he can’t have figured it out, can he?"
"He can," I said.
"What makes you such an expert, then?" asked Arthur.
"I’ve been tracking him for years. We go way back. And he’s damned smart. He’ll figure it out eventually. He might even come calling here."
"You’ve been on him for years, have you? And you haven’t gotten him yet? I’m not impressed, Fixer."
"It’s not for a lack of trying, Arthur," said Zero. "Lawson here was kept in check by the Council."
Arthur sighed. "I’m too old for this, Zero. I told you I was so happy doing next to nothing except waiting for these bones to rot away into the night."
"Like I said, Arthur, I didn’t want to involve you."
"Yeah. Yeah, I know it all."
"You’re not going to tell them, are you? We’re not sure how far up the conspiracy goes yet."
"You’re not implying-"
"Yes. Yes, we are," I said.
"Bollocks." Arthur sighed again. "All right. It’s against my judgment but then I’ve never really been a decent sort at that anyhow. Get yourselves out of here the way ya came. Just make sure you shut that damned window when ya leave."
Zero shook his hand. "Thanks, Arthur."
"Sod off, you old wanker. But take care just the same."
"And you, too, old friend."
Zero pulled me toward the staircase and I followed him upstairs. When we were in the bathroom I nudged him.
"What was that all about? Who was that guy?"
"Can’t you figure it out? He was a Fixer. But he got tired of the killing. Some say he lost his cool. But I’ve known him a long time. He just got tired is all. He needed a break from it. hell, he needed to get out of it. So, the Council hired him as their butler and caretaker of this place. It’s crap work but it suits him fine. We’re lucky it was him we ran into and not someone else."
I nodded. "Now what?"
Zero patted his pocket. "We’ve got the information. Let’s go check it out."
***
Weston lies west of Boston by about ten miles. Not far on a good day, but traffic along route 9 can tie things up trying to get to route 128. Especially during rush hour. And since rush hour now has become rush-three-hour due to corporate America insisting people give up normal lives in favor of their employers, Zero and I got bogged down.
Finally exiting 128 north, he directed me to a small side road that wound down through Weston’s outskirts. We passed the Case Estates, a tract of land belonging to Harvard University and Zero asked me to slow down.
"We’re almost there."
The clock on my dashboard read eight-thirty. Darkness had long since bled all over this suburb masking shadows with infinite hidden possibilities. Street lights seemed a forgotten concern out here.
"Kill your lights."
Normally, this would have been impossible since Jettas don’t allow their lights to ever turn off. But I’d tinkered with my electrical system so Zero’s request was no problem.
I coasted the last few feet before pulling over to the gravel road side. Stones crunched beneath the treads, popping and shearing against one another.
Zero pointed. "There."
It looked like a fairly nice house. Two floors, easy. Probably four or five bedrooms, two baths, maybe a sun roof over the back porch. Real estate ran expensive in Weston, but if this was the loyalist house, they were probably receiving a fairly decent allowance from the Council. A little money always helps ensure trust.
Shrubs ran along the front walk, at about waist height. They’d help mask our approach.
Beside me, Zero was automatically checking his piece while never taking his eyes off the house. He was theorizing how it would probably look inside. If we’d had time, we might have even scared up the house plans filed at Weston’s city hall.
But there was no more time.
"How you wanna do it?"
Zero placed his gun back in its holster temporarily. "We have to hit it hard. If he’s in there, you can bet they won’t be alive much longer."
"And if he’s not?"
"Have them send the bill to the Council," said Zero. He nodded up. "Interior?"
"Never goes on when the doors open."
"All right. I’ll take the front. You can have the back."
I pulled my door release and we oozed into the sea of inky darkness.
Cold night air immediately tried to nip at every exposed piece of skin. I felt my pores slam shut, stinging sensations ran along my jawline.
Zero crept along the hedge further ahead of me. Our area of vulnerability right now was being along the road side. I didn’t think Weston’s finest would take very well to two armed and very proficient vampire hitmen sneaking along a shrubbery. We needed to get inside the house.
I found a small cut-through in the bushes, tapped Zero on the hell and gestured. He nodded, held up his hand showing five fingers.
Five minutes.
Light poured from a few widows on the first floor but I kept my eyes averted. I had to be careful not the trip over the several dozen toys littering the yard. So they had children.
That would complicate things.
Taking a house down is fairly manageable if you can control everyone in the shortest possible time. Two adults faced with guns will usually accept their situation. Children panic. That makes the adults nervous and unpredictable.
Naturally we had no intention of
hurting anyone but Cosgrove, but we still had to use shock to get inside and make sure the house was under control as fast as possible.
At the back of the house, wooden steps led up to the back door. A screen door before heavy wooden door. Oak by the look and feel of it. Probably a dead bolt on the other side.
If I’d been Zero, I would have quietly picked it. But picking locks was one of those things I sucked at. Like fixing cars. Or bowling.
I’d have to take the door down. Or go in through a window.
The closest one was two feet to the left of the door, leading into the kitchen. It was dark inside, and as luck would have it, the window itself was unlocked. I eased the screen up and then got the window up just as smoothly. Modern windows don’t make much noise, thankfully.
I’d been counting down since I’d left Zero and knew I had about thirty seconds before he went through the front door. I’d wait a second more and then move in from the rear.
The reasoning was simple. If we went in simultaneously, accurate though we were, we might mistake each other for an enemy. And I certainly didn’t want a slug from Zero’s piece embedding itself in my heart. Talk about ruining your day.
My heart beat began accelerating and it was during these times I always worried the most. Vampires have acute hearing. And a hammering heart makes a sound many vampires can hear. It an unfortunate byproduct of adrenaline and fear.
But there wasn’t much you could do about it either. I didn’t know any Fixer who was able to go through hell and back without getting worried. No matter how skilled, no matter how experienced, you still got the Willie’s.
The bang when it came jolted me. Zero had kicked in the front door by the sound of it. I crashed through the swinging kitchen door and headed down a small hallway that led to the front of the house. I had my pistol in what experts refer to as a "low-ready" position with the barrel dipped just below the horizon. It allowed a rapid target acquisition by bringing the rear sights up and then aligning the target on the front sights. Sight-acquire-fire. It worked and it was fast.
My breathing was short. Sporadic. It was always tough to keep from going tunnel vision especially in the tight confines of the home. Walls filled with framed photographs suddenly loomed closer. And you had to keep moving.
I got to a doorway and dropped to one knee, poked my head around the corner-
nothing.
"Living room – clear!"
I could hear Zero shout the same thing from the room bordering the room I was in. We linked up and he frowned.
"Where the hell is everybody?"
"Upstairs?"
He nodded and we moved to the main staircase together.
Stairways are tough to move up without exposing yourself to unfriendly fire from above. The method we used was to go up the stairs backs to each other. Zero headed up facing front, his gun ready to take anything ahead of us, while I went up backwards aiming high above us at any position where fire could rain down on us from above.
It was tough moving in concert unless you’d practiced it. Zero and I had.
Still, by the time we finally cleared the stairs and rested a moment on the landing, we were out of breath. I sucked a gulp of oxygen down-
and stopped.
Zero had too.
The air up here was tinged with the smell of copper – the smell of blood. Death.
Zero was up and moving down the hall, but I could tell from his body language he wasn’t expecting to find Cosgrove here. I wasn’t expecting to find anyone alive here, either.
They were in the master bedroom which must have been quite nice only a few hours ago. But the walls were literally dripping with blood now. The bodies of the loyalists, man, wife, and two small children were torn apart, utterly dismembered.
I knelt by what must have been one of the children. A small tuft of blonde hair sat still, an oasis amid the sea of sticky coagulating blood.
"-even the kids." I shook my head. "Jesus Christ, Zero. Even the goddamned kids."
Zero was searching the room for anything he could use to cover the bodies. "We’ll have to call in a clean-up team. There’s no way we can leave them like this."
He was right. There’d be too many questions. But I wasn’t so sure that the Council would be the best resource right now. "They’d want to know how we found out. That could make things uncomfortable for Arthur."
Zero nodded. "What do you think?"
I surveyed the scene, grimacing, feeling the already painful ball in my throat grow larger. Words didn’t want to come out of my mouth. "Fire," I said finally.
"Yeah," was the best Zero could manage.
We did a rudimentary search for the address of the next loyalist family but we both knew there’d be nothing to find. Cosgrove was a thorough bastard and he certainly would have unearthed all the information he needed prior to killing the loyalists.
Instead, we concentrated on preparing the house for the coming inferno. A liberal application of household cleaners and old newspapers situated at key points of the house would ensure a rapid acceleration of fire. We spent some time in the bedroom last, dousing the bodies with a small can of lighter fluid that Zero had found under the kitchen sink.
"This is no way for someone to die."
"Especially loyalists," said Zero. "They knew the risks and did it anyway." He looked at me. "Lawson, when this is all over. You’ll see to it they’re buried properly, yeah?"
"Where you going?"
"Nowhere, but if anything comes up, you know-take care of it, okay?"
I frowned, trying to remember if Zero had ever witnesses any of Cosgrove’s handiwork before. I couldn’t recall, so if this was the first time, it was a helluva shock, even for someone with Zero’s experience.
Zero knelt down a few feet away from the bodies, struck a single match and watched the flame lick its way to the bloodied bodies. In an instant, the crackling of fire encased the four corpses. Zero and I ducked out of the room and back down to the kitchen. The fire would rage undetected for only a few minutes before it got noticed. We had to get out of there before it was.
We got back to the car without incident and headed back to Boston. In the dim green light cast by my dashboard, I turned to Zero.
"Now what?"
"You’ve got to kill him, Lawson."
"And you?"
"I’ve got to figure out how far this damned thing has gone. Try to find someone we can trust. Because after seeing what I saw tonight, it’s pretty obvious we’re going to need some help. A lot of help."
Chapter Twenty-Five
I got back to the Charles Hotel at ten-thirty and parked in the garage. Upstairs, I slumped into a high-backed chair by the front door of the bar, ordered a Bombay Sapphire and tossed it down my gullet, feeling the warmth hit seconds later. Outside, the rapidly increasing November rain only added to my gloomy mood.
Gloomy because of Cosgrove’s reappearance in my life with his damned conspiracy, his damned ceremonies, and his god damned dementia.
And gloomy because of all the things missing from my risk-laden life, I wanted love the most. Talya’s love. Angry because of everything I could have longed for, I wanted the most forbidden of all. And disgusted because obsessions like this were so typical of my personality, and as many time as I thought I’d learned my lesson, I never really changed.
Hell, I could trace it back to childhood. I’d become obsessed with wanting to fly. Not being able to change myself into a bat like the legends said really pissed me off. But I hadn’t let reality intrude on my fantasy. The large oak tree that grew in back of my house had seemed a stable enough platform from which to experiment with flight. So I climbed up. High. And once at the top, I simply spread my arms and jumped.
Reality came crashing back into my life about the same time my head made contact with the ground. But I never stopped obsessing about other things. Things like Robin. My career. And now, Talya.
Of course, I’d never stopped obsessing about Cosgrove.
&
nbsp; I drained my drink.
The waitress put another one in front of me.
I started to say thank you when a voice cut me off.
"Bad news?"
Talya. Behind me. She’d had the waitress bring me a refill. I hadn’t even noticed. I turned in my seat and caught her smiling at me. Shit. Talk about a pro.
"No. Not bad news. Just wanted one before I called you." I checked my watch. "It’s not eleven yet."
She nodded. "I figured you’d be down here. I wasn’t doing anything so I thought I’d join you." She cocked an eyebrow. "That okay?"
"Yeah, sure." I took another healthy drag on the fresh glass.
"Slow down, Lawson. It could be a long night."
"It’s already been a long night," I muttered. "That’s the problem."
She frowned. "Don’t turn into a grumpy drunk on me. I hate men who can’t handle their drinks."
I slid the drink back on to the table. "Won’t affect me, anyway."
"Why? Did you take the same course on how to drink alcohol without getting drunk that I did?"
"Something like that." I wished I had. I wished I was just another ordinary human, sitting at a bar slowly getting drunk. Pickling my brain cells. I wasn’t. Alcohol didn’t affect our blood the same way it did humans. I’d have to drink three bottles of straight gin to even get a buzz.
She smiled. "A man of mystery." She leaned closer. "I like that."
"Really." I couldn’t help myself. Despite the shit I’d seen tonight, Talya had a way of making me feel okay. She was so damned attractive. I drained the drink and looked at her. "How are you feeling?"
She shrugged. "Like someone shredded my insides with a chainsaw."
I toasted her with another sip. "Colorful. You’ll be a poet yet."
"Nothing I haven’t experienced before. Granted, the method was a little different."
"Different’s a good term for it."
She rubbed her neck. "I couldn’t find the puncture marks, Lawson. Why?"
"They heal very fast." I finished my drink and wanted another. "They have to. Vampires can’t afford to have victims walking around in public with gaping holes in their necks, or anywhere else for that matter. It’d start a panic."