Graveyard Shift

by Michael F. Haspil

  Sure, their business came with more threats, and they wanted personal delivery from him and not one of his guys. With the money he was going to make this week alone, he could give up the whole gig. Hell, by the end of the month he might just do that, what with some of the sangers attacking folks in the open. He didn’t need any of that shit. He’d go somewhere that got lots of sun. Maybe Hawaii or somewhere like that. But not back to Haiti.

  For now, he had to keep his head in the game. He’d already had some hiccups tonight. He was still waiting on half the expected shipment, and that asshole Stan hadn’t called him. Zagesi’s folks would be pissed if it was late.

  He had a couple of beauty addicts to meet, too. A little bit of the old red stuff from a sanger could take years off a person for a short amount of time, if you used it right. All the Hollywood stars were using it, just to keep their careers going for a few more years.

  Filip had his regulars. No one famous. Just vain men and women pushing it a little too hard for Botox to be much help, looking for some kicks for a day or so, and going through their whole if-only-I-knew-then-what-I-know-now phase. With a little bit of the sanger good stuff, you could actually exploit that knowledge, which most of the time boiled down to who you’d be sleeping with that night. Filip smiled. He knew a couple of those broads would be hard up for his product. He’d normally send Mitch to meet them, but Filip could actually use a freebie himself tonight, so maybe he’d go instead.

  He might even give them a discount if they agreed to do him a favor or two, after they’d dosed up of course. There was no point getting a blowjob from an old biddy. In the end, the discount wouldn’t amount to much.

  He’d give them half off, or more, that first time; then afterward they’d all pay whatever he asked. If the women didn’t, their husbands did. A couple grand for the special occasion, and their aging husbands would get to diddle a twenty-five-year-old again. Who wouldn’t pay? Even knowing that as soon as their tired heads hit the pillow after the deed, their wives would be out and about, hunting for younger fare, if only for the night. They were frantic about it, desperate, fucking against the clock, before the blood effects wore off and they were pumpkins again. Cinderella had nothing on these bitches.

  What he didn’t exactly advertise was that when the stuff did wear off, well, the human body wasn’t built to take that kind of stress. They would come out on the flip side feeling just a little bit older, a little more tired, a lot more used up. There was a good reason for that. As far as their bodies were concerned, they were older. Sanger blood could knock back time for a day or so, but those years came back in a hurry and brought a few friends back with them.

  He pulled onto Fifty-third Street, where his small corner bodega—the front for his whole operation—squatted between Lemon City and Buena Vista. Lemon City sat right on the other side of the Tollway. His clients could come and go quickly and it allowed for easy deliveries, and getaways, if the situation warranted.

  He drove by for a quick look-see, more out of habit than anything else. Emil was working the counter. The kid was a little slow, but Filip needed someone to run the front so he could work the real clients. Everything looked okay. He took a turn around the block and pulled the van into the small lot in the rear. He honked the horn once, put the van in park and shut it off, then honked again.

  He honked the horn two more times.

  Mitch opened the back door and waved to him to kill the headlights. He did, and then stepped out of the van.

  “What’s going on?” Mitch asked.

  “Not much. I got two coolers in the back we need to unload. Who else is around?”

  “Me and Emil.”

  “That’s it? Where’re Gus and Lonzo?”

  Filip stepped to the side of the van and unlocked the side door.

  “They headed off to the Pork and Beans,” Mitch said. “In case Stan called. Figured they’d already be kind of in the area.”

  “Did he?” Filip asked.

  “Did he what?”

  “Call. Did Stan call?”

  “No. Haven’t heard a word,” Mitch said.

  “Shit. Think he got pinched?”

  “Don’t know.”

  Filip didn’t like that at all. One set of customers would like it even less, since now he’d have to tell them he only had half their order. Filip slid the side door of the van back. Inside were two industrial stainless-steel coolers roughly the size of refrigerators.

  “Holy crap, Filip, we can’t move these. Not just us two.”

  “Well, we’re going to try. I ain’t having these things sit here all night and everything getting ruined. Go get the handcart, will ya? Give Lonzo a call. No point having those jokers driving around all night. Never mind, I’ll call him.”

  Mitch moved back inside, muttering as he went. “I should get a cut of their share. They ain’t ever around to do the heavy work.”

  “Quit your bitching. It’s not like you’re working for a living.”

  Filip tried to reposition one of the coolers on the pallet cover to make it easier to prop onto the handcart. It wouldn’t budge. He stepped inside the van to get more leverage. Nothing.

  Bright headlight beams shone directly into the open door of the van, partially blinding Filip. Someone pulled into the rear lot. He patted his back to reassure himself the pistol was still there. He stepped out of the van, shielding his face with his left hand from the light. The lights died, but his night vision was still shot and he could only see silhouettes as they opened the doors of their small truck.

  “I hope that’s our stuff.”

  Filip recognized the voice. And a little bit of tension eased out of him, replaced by annoyance.

  “Nico? Are you out of your fucking mind coming down here?”

  Nico was a petty thug who had hit the big time through his association with the vampires. A chusma Cuban lowlife who was likely to wind up with his throat slit for his trouble. The sangers didn’t abide small-timers.

  “Our boss, well he got a little impatient.” Nico stepped close. He swished a bit of toothpick from one corner of his mouth to the other.

  Three other men stood behind Nico. One stood a head above all of them.

  “Shit, do you have any idea the risk you’re taking? You could blow everything.”

  “Fucking that’s your problem, cabrón, not ours.”

  “Prick,” Filip muttered under his breath, but he couldn’t deny that Nico was right.

  The rear entrance of the shop opened up, sending a triangular spear of light into the small lot. Mitch backed the handcart out of the doorway.

  “Well at least you brought some muscle. Let’s hurry up and move this shit.”

  The four men stepped toward the van, and as the big man stepped into the light, Filip realized he was a vampire.

  “Whoa. Is he gonna be okay? I’ve seen what this shit does to sangers.”

  “Watch your mouth, little man,” the vampire shot back as he brushed past Filip.

  “He’ll be fine. So, these are both ours?” Nico asked.

  “No. Only the one on the right, and not all of it is yours either.” Filip braced himself for Nico’s reaction.

  “What the hell? This isn’t what we agreed to,” Nico said.

  “Well, it’s all I’ve got. One of my suppliers didn’t come through. I can still make good on the order, I’ll just need a minute.”

  “Again, not my problem, bro.”

  The men stepped into the van and muscled the cooler toward the door, sliding it back and forth.

  “Hey, you can’t take the whole cooler. Like I said, not all of it is yours.”

  “For the amount we’re paying, we should be able to take whatever we want. I have a good mind to withhold payment until we get full delivery.”

  Nico opened the cooler and stared inside a moment. Mist from the dry ice inside spilled over the lip and briefly looked like liquid as it ran down the side. He reached in and came up with a package of frozen plastic-wrapped meat. “
Oye, what the hell is this shit?”

  “Camouflage. You know, in case someone asks why I have two huge coolers in the back. Look, I can hook you guys up with some other stuff at a good discount to make up for this. That other cooler’s got some sap juice, all blood types and you know my stuff is always clean.”

  The big vampire answered, “We can get that shit right from the source. And better quality than you can offer.” He moved quickly, for effect, and seemed to melt from his location near the van to be standing right next to Filip and talking into his ear. “Now, where’s our order?”

  “Shit!” Filip took a big step back. “Under the meat.”

  Nico dug around and found that the bottom of the cooler was full of large bags of blood. He held one up. The frozen contents crunched as the bag shifted.

  “What do you think?” Nico asked.

  The large vampire’s nostrils flared, and Filip saw his fangs extend as if he was ready to feed.

  “That’s the good stuff right there,” the vampire said.

  “Okay, great. Hurry up and take it and get the hell out of here,” Filip said.

  Nico and one of the other men began scooping the packages of meat out of the cooler, dumping them onto the van’s floor.

  “Make a mess why don’t you.” Filip hoped the dry ice would burn them as they did.

  “We shouldn’t have to be doing this. Your service is slipping, Filip.”

  “If you’d waited for me to deliver instead of coming down here to take the shit, I’d have had it ready for you.”

  The large vampire and the two other men manhandled the cooler out of the van and onto the handcart. Mitch helped them load it into the back of their truck.

  “Hey, and the money?”

  “You get it when we get the rest of our order, bro.”

  “Not how it works.”

  Nico got right in Filip’s face. “Fucking that’s how it’s gonna work this time. You don’t do right by Mr. Zagesi and he doesn’t do right by you. Claro? Unless you want to talk to him direct.”

  Filip was on unfamiliar ground. “No. No. I don’t want to talk to him.”

  That brought chuckles from the other men. “He doesn’t tolerate fuckups. I’m already going to pay for your screwup. So I’m holding on to your share until you come through.” He spit the bit of toothpick at Filip and it bounced off his chest.

  “You better hurry if you want to see any of that cash.”

  The men got into the truck and left.

  As both men watched the truck’s red lights disappear into the night, Mitch asked, “What are we gonna do?”

  “Fuck if I know. Tell Lonzo and Gus to go in and see what the hell Stan’s up to. What choice do we have?”

  Filip balled his fists up and kicked absently at the ground. “Those assholes. They think they can just push me around like that, like I’m a fucking nobody? Prick thinks he can keep my money? I’ll fucking show him.”

  7

  9:35 P.M.

  Alex pulled up at Aguirre’s church complex and parked in the front. Aguirre had built the church, and the associated campus, out of gray stone. Years of acid rain and pollution had pockmarked the stone and turned some of it black, especially where the water had run down the little channels in the mortar between the large blocks. The church was traditional Gothic construction. In many European towns, it would not have stood out as exceptional in any way, except for the enclosed walkways connecting it to the other buildings on the campus.

  The church looked far more ancient than it actually was, just as Aguirre had intended. There were even rumors that he’d had it brought over stone-by-stone from somewhere in Europe and reassembled here in Pinecrest, an old-money suburb of Miami. Alex doubted that, suspecting that it merely duplicated an existing structure.

  Light streamed from above the double doors of the entrance, illuminating the short set of stairs leading up to it. A modern white sign with black replaceable letters advertised the hours for services. This being a nocturn-only church, all the services were at night. The illumination inside backlit the stained-glass windows. Alex’s gaze went to two words at the bottom of one of the large windows, SANGRE SANCTI. He shook his head.

  Those poor misguided fools. Well, if they found solace in it, what harm could there be? The double doors opened and two recognizable figures stepped out onto the top steps: Father Lopé Aguirre in his monk’s robe, and Marcus in a black tailored suit. They looked so “normal”—Aguirre the stereotypical monk and Marcus the sharply dressed executive—yet one was a former conquistador and the other a former Roman governor. Each of them was responsible for his own particular brand of genocide. Both were pretty much assholes. That was one price of immortality, along with the tendency of friends to become enemies and enemies friends.

  They spoke for a short moment, and then Marcus broke off and came toward the car with long strides, which effortlessly ate up the distance.

  Marcus was a little over six feet tall and had the patrician features to go with his history. He wore his dark hair slicked back, and along with his pallid skin tone, it made his vampire look unmistakable. Marcus couldn’t pass for anything else.

  “You are late.” He opened the passenger-side door of the Explorer.

  “Sue me. I had to get a pep talk from Roberts.”

  “Oh? Did I miss anything good?” He closed the door and waved at Aguirre.

  Aguirre raised a single hand. Alex couldn’t tell if he meant the gesture as a farewell, a salute, or a blessing. He decided to wave back as he drove away.

  “Some good, some bad,” Alex answered.

  The radio interrupted him. “Two-seven-three Delta, in progress, residential. Nocturn support requested four-eight-two Charles, Le Fanu Court.”

  It sounded like a domestic dispute gone out of hand. The request for nocturn support meant that there was a vampire involved.

  Alex ignored it.

  “Constance got the promotion. She’ll be heading the full-blown Nocturn Affairs Bureau at the start of the month.”

  “Excellent.” Marcus didn’t sound like this was news to him. As connected as he was, it probably wasn’t. “The way things are getting, the field’s not for her.”

  “You afraid she’ll relapse?”

  “Things have been tense lately.”

  Marcus changed the subject. “When was the last time you were in the church?”

  “Been a while.”

  “You really should go see it. Lopé put a small garden in the cloister. It is quite remarkable.”

  “Huh. You don’t want to hear the bad news?”

  Marcus stayed silent.

  “Well, bad news is that your hunch was right. Feds confirmed Abraham’s in our neck of the woods.”

  “All the signs have been there for some time. We are sure it is not some protégé?”

  “Nothing’s sure. Might be. They screwed up royally this morning and got one of Lelith’s decoys. Shows the war is heating up if they’re willing to take a potshot at a target of opportunity like that.”

  “I’ve heard,” Marcus said.

  “Figures. Here’s something you might not have heard already. Roberts and I had a little chat. He was just the messenger understand, but someone in the leadership is asking for the UMBRA treatment for this special case.”

  Marcus sat up a little straighter. “Do they understand what they are asking?”

  “No. You know how it is. It all sounds sexy on paper. Things would be a hell of lot harder to cover up now, that’s for sure. It jibes with folks believing it’s really Abraham. They’re scared.”

  Marcus changed the subject again. “What is to be our first stop?”

  “Roberts wanted us to shake down some CIs. I figure we’ll start with Filip. His hands are always dirty.”

  “We’ll have to stop before we go there.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m famished and I do not want to face one of his special offers on an empty stomach.”

  “I figured. I grabbe
d you some Sangri.”

  “Always thoughtful.”

  “Not an entirely pleasant experience, by the way. Some folks felt they needed to share some opinions with me.”

  “News got out, I take it?” Marcus twisted around and reached back for the bag in the back seat of the Explorer. He grabbed two of the bottles, a Sangri type O and a Sangri type A. He looked at the two bottles, grimaced, and put the type O back in the bag.

  “Yeah. I figure we’re in for a rough night. Hey, if that stuff’s bad, you’re not going to go all blood-frenzy on me when you swig it, right?”

  “It would have to be especially potent to affect me. Besides, it is not as if you have got anything to worry about.” Marcus sat back down in the front seat, straightened out his suit jacket, and opened the bottle.

  “Wasn’t worried about me,” Alex answered, “was worried about having to chase your ass down.”

  Marcus sniffed cautiously at the bottle, and then took a long pull.

  “Ah, Sangri-A, there’s nothing like it.” He pronounced the word “sangria.”

  “That joke never gets old, does it?”

  “One of life’s tiny pleasures, but it really should be warmed, you know.” Marcus chuckled to himself, but then his tone turned serious.

  “Disturbing news from Aguirre and his sources. There’s evidence that there is another Ancient in the area.”

  “And he didn’t check in to catch up on old times? How rude.”

  “I am serious. There are few enough of us about, and I do not have to remind you the rest of them do not have anything but their own interests at heart.”

  “You say ‘the rest of them’ like it doesn’t include you.” Alex got no response for his prodding. He decided to let it go. “Aguirre say who it was?”

  “There is no hard evidence, just the unusual ripples that occur when a large fish splashes into the pond. Some movement indicators and lack thereof from Our Friends in the See. They’ve asked me to take a professional interest.”

  “Our Friends in the See” was a euphemism for the Order of the Eternal Watch, the Vatican’s organization that had dealt with all things vampiric throughout the ages. Marcus had been a knight commander a long time ago. If anyone checked, Marcus had severed ties with them, but Alex knew firsthand that a person could never truly leave those kinds of organizations.