“That’s no way to speak to your potential benefactor, Fionan. Besides, I think you’ve got things a bit turned around. I’ll chalk it up to blood loss. This pint here could save your sorry hide.”
That was a lie. That pint might keep him talking long enough for them to get what they needed. It was looking like that might be a long shot.
Roeland pulled out a knife and poked a tiny hole in the bag. He let the blood drip over Molony’s face and into his mouth.
Despite his defiance, Molony struggled to get at the blood.
“Now, boyo, we’re going to have ourselves a little chat. And if you’re very good, I might just drop this bag for you and leave you to the fates, instead of ending you for certain.”
“Fuck off.”
“Fair enough. I could kill you now. But from the looks of things, you’ve got some unfinished business with my fucking bitch thrope friend, as you put it.”
He saw the light of fear ignite in Molony’s eyes. Rhuna had really done a number on him. It must truly be a terrible thing to be an oldblood killer and have all your century of power stripped away by a hundred-and-twenty-pound girl.
“What do you want?” Molony was clinging to the only hope there was. He had little choice, really. No honor among vampires. Roeland had made a career of exploiting that particular flaw.
“You’re going to tell me everything I want to know about Lelith and what she has going on at Haley House.”
Arthur and John came into the room. For a brief moment, John wore a look of bewilderment on his face as he saw the aftermath of Rhuna’s handiwork. Then John moved toward Rhuna. The poor lad had no idea what he had a crush on.
“Room’s ready,” Arthur said.
Roeland held the bag of blood over Molony’s head. The blood dripped out in a steady stream.
“Talk fast, laddie.”
14
11:32 P.M.
Alex saw two SRT vans and a hunter truck. There were at least twenty cruisers, probably more, forming one side of a perimeter; their spinning lights pulsed against the tenement buildings, first blue and then red. Technical crews were setting up the large tactical lights. In another ten minutes, the whole area would be lit up like a ballpark.
This was standard policy. The city responded to any thrope reports with an overwhelming show of force. The illusion of control hadn’t been a problem until a year ago when Joe Bag-o’-Doughnuts found out about what had been there all along. Someone had always been able to cover it up. Most times what Joe Public didn’t know made solutions a helluva lot easier.
The press trucks erected their sat-feed antennae, set up their cameras, and dolled up the field reporters. If the threat was real, there’d be no chance of covering it up this time. But it was likely all this hoopla was for a false alarm. A thrope’s cycle might not coincide with the lunar cycle, but that was rare.
In the first days when therianthropes surfaced publicly, people reacted with more fear than when nocturns revealed themselves. There was something even more primal about the idea of a person actually transforming into an animal and losing control. Things shut down at the first hint of darkness, as if whether it was day or night affected thropes—it didn’t. Society developed a sudden and acute case of agoraphobia. It couldn’t last. Everyone knew that. However, it stirred local and federal governments into action. They had to show they were doing something.
It wasn’t the transformation so much as the lack of control that most people feared. TV shows, films, books, role-playing games popularized the transformation part. The public should have known. Where there were vampires, there were thropes. But the truth was a lot darker.
The public couldn’t deal with the feral lack of control, with confessions from victims of the disease that in some cases they had been aware of what they were doing but unable to stop the beast within. In the end, there was just something about thropes that people feared and abhorred because they had no way to relate.
Alex parked the Explorer near the patrol cars, killed the lights, and pressed a switch to unlock the rear door. He and Marcus got out and met at the rear of the vehicle. Alex opened the rear door and unlocked the large metal case that was standard issue for all nocturn units. He lifted the heavy metal lid on its hinges, uncovering a hoard of weapons and equipment: silver-plated spikes, four SPAS-12 assault shotguns, a pair of razor-sharp machetes, two high-powered tactical flashlights, night-vision goggles.
“Looks like they’re starting without us.”
“I’ve always hated these ‘hunts.’ The best outcome is unpalatable.”
“Heard that. Badge.” Alex tossed an extra police badge on a chain to Marcus. He threw his own around his neck, where it hung like a gaudy necklace.
Alex grabbed a pair of the night-vision goggles. Both he and Marcus picked up SPAS shotguns from the small armory and loaded them with silver-shot rounds. First, several slugs, rounded out with double-ought buck.
Thropes normally closed with anything that attacked them, so the theory went. You could supposedly hit one at about forty yards with the buckshot. That was the official range, but in practice, you really didn’t do much damage until about twenty-five yards and closer. Past that, all you were going to do was piss it off. As it got closer, the plan would be to try to finish it with the slugs. If you missed with the slugs, you wouldn’t have to worry about it. It would be the next guy’s problem.
Alex secured the Explorer; then he and Marcus proceeded to the center of activity. As he entered the perimeter, Alex called out to some uniformed officers, “Hey guys, anything go down yet?”
“Nothing yet. Who’re you guys?”
“Nocturn Affairs. Where’s the primary?”
“Over by the hunter truck.”
Alex waved his thanks and they made their way in the direction the officer had indicated. As they walked away from the squad car, he heard the officer mutter to his partner, “Nocturn Affairs. Sangers and thropes, like letting the fox guard the henhouse.”
The hunter truck loomed before them, a large bread-truck-looking monstrosity slightly smaller than a fire engine. The official name for it was the NTFRV, the Nocturn/Therianthrope Fugitive Recovery Vehicle, but even as an abbreviation that was a mouthful, so everyone just called it a hunter truck. It came equipped with everything a team would need to hunt down a fugitive nocturn or rabid therianthrope: machetes, a dome-shielded infrared camera on top, night vision, and enough firepower to give just about anybody a run for their money.
It had a small containment compartment in the rear, little more than a cage, in case they managed to take a thrope alive. Never mind that only a fool would try. Official policy was to resolve such incidents without loss of life, but Alex couldn’t recall anyone even making the attempt.
There had been a case of a thrope beginning to transform back into a human when the hunters cornered it. The pursuers hadn’t hesitated in opening fire, even though the creature was in midtransformation and at its most vulnerable. Had they waited a few moments they could have apprehended it easily and taken the human into custody.
There were several cases where police had arrested thropes wandering naked and confused near the remains of their latest victims. The trials were hard for everyone involved, but prosecutors had so far made criminal negligence stick, on the grounds that the thropes refused to remain medicated. In those cases, the courts had been careful to avoid associating their rulings with the death penalty. Officially, those thropes had been “euthanized.”
In any case involving thropes, there were only victims.
There was a small group huddled near the passenger-side door of the hunter truck. Alex could pick out several SRT members. Their M4 carbines and other tactical equipment gave them away. He could see Zorzi and the new kid, Garza. Zorzi also saw them.
“Marcus! Buona sera, you old long-tooth. You hear about Const … the lieutenant?”
“I have, and we’re well into buona notte, my friend.”
“So we are, so we are. And what’s
new with you?”
“You know, the same old thing. Had a lovely chat with our friend Aguirre, I must tell you of it.”
Alex could see the incredulous look on Garza’s face. Many of the SRT members’ faces shared the same look. Here they were at the inception of a major operation and these two vampires were jovially greeting each other and gossiping. Alex could tell them the truth, that when you got right down to it, the vampires just didn’t care. At least, these two didn’t, and he could throw himself in and make it a threesome of apathy. They’d seen it all and worse. Garza took it upon herself to get the situation back on track and cleared her throat theatrically.
Zorzi and Marcus seemed to notice everyone again.
Alex spoke up. “Who was first on scene?”
Zorzi rolled his eyes in their direction. “They’re over by the EMS truck, say they responded to an unknown-trouble call and discovered the two pretties by that van.” He indicated a van parked near one of the buildings. Even from where he was standing, Alex could see the blood spatter.
“Unknown trouble, huh? That’s an understatement.” Despite the situation, Zorzi’s mood remained jovial.
“So what have we got?”
“Just like old times, eh, Alex? Always to business with you. Very well. We’ve got a wolf again, friends. This time a young, damned fast one.”
“Are we sure? I would have guessed we’d have another week. Couldn’t it be someone trying to make it look like a thrope—”
“Alex, I’m hurt. Do you think all this is due to a stray dog? We have tracks showing size and speed and we have the aftermath over there. At least four down in total.”
Alex looked back at the van. He could make out officers covering the bodies while SRT members stood guard.
Zorzi continued, “We’re safe to say it is not over there. Eyewitnesses spotted the last kill and saw it dart down that way.”
“How big is the perimeter?”
“Roughly two square blocks. We’re as sure as we can be that it is still within the boundaries. We’re still evacuating the last of the buildings. That’s where the bulk of the men are. When they’re finished, which should be any moment now, we’ll try to drive it this way.”
The first of the several bright light stands turned on. Even Alex winced at the change in lighting. Zorzi and Marcus shielded their eyes.
Marcus swore under his breath. “Blast, there goes any advantage we had.”
With loud cracks, two more banks of lights turned on. Alex saw more lights warming up on the far side of the perimeter. He was sympathetic to Marcus, but could relate to the officers. Somehow, making things brighter made humans feel braver, more in control. An air horn’s loud blast violated the night air. It was followed by another and then, farther away, two more.
The evacuation was complete. Now the hunt could begin in earnest. The horns also served a secondary purpose. The blasts could work in either of two ways: to drive the thrope off or attract it. You never could be sure. It varied by the animal.
A powerful howl, haunting and eerie, full of anguish, answered the horns. Alex felt his stomach drop to the ground and something press at the back of his throat, making it hard to swallow. No matter how many times he heard it, his reaction was the same. If there had been any doubt they were dealing with a werewolf, it was certainly gone now.
Marcus hefted the shotgun in his hands and looked at his watch. “We best get to it.”
He headed toward the building with the truck and the latest victims in front of it.
Zorzi called after him, “Marcus, do you want this one?”
For the first time that night, Zorzi’s tone was not buoyant, but deadly serious, almost pleading, hoping Marcus could rescue him from running this operation. Zorzi hadn’t been at policework very long. Before the Reveal, he had done government work as a technical advisor on the NSA’s UMBRA special program. He was ill suited to fieldwork.
“No, old friend. You have this well in hand. Besides, would you rather be going after it?”
“Va bene. I had to ask. You are far more qualified at these things than I am.”
“You know I’m better at getting my hands dirty than at coordinating and commanding.”
Alex was a bit surprised at the pretext. Marcus was giving Zorzi an out so he wouldn’t look sheepish in front of the other men. To anyone who knew Marcus, it was an obvious lie. Marcus had been governor of Lower Pannonia, once upon a time, not to mention the countless other offices he’d held throughout the millennia.
“When we call for the cavalry, just make sure to haul ass,” Alex said.
They reached the van with the recent victims, the side of it grotesquely coated in arterial spray. Two SRT members stood with the building and the truck at their back, their eyes scanning ahead of them for any movement. Alex knelt next to one of the bodies and lifted the sheet covering it. He immediately wished he hadn’t. The corpse had a wide slash from the shoulder to the hip. The thing had ripped a chunk from the neck so large Alex could easily see the man’s exposed trachea. He dropped the sheet back into place.
As Marcus moved ahead, his eyes dropped, scanning the ground for signs of the thrope. The harsh lighting from the banks of tactical lights made the dark streaks of blood stand in sharp contrast to the rest of the pavement.
Marcus stopped in front of the stoop that led into the building.
“I have a good print here. It’s most likely a female, wounded, but not seriously. Part of this trail is thrope blood.”
Alex hung back so as not to spoil Marcus’s sense of smell. Marcus raised his head, sniffing the air deliberately.
“There is a lot of blood. And something else. Chemicals. Ammonia or bleach? There are more dead inside, and something strange. I can’t tell from here.”
“Drug lab? Easy guess for this part of town.”
Marcus didn’t answer. He was looking at the ground again. Alex tried to see what he was looking at. The tracks bounded across the sidewalk and continued through a small basketball court. Marcus followed them.
Alex started after him. The stark tactical lighting was throwing harsh shadows everywhere. He remembered the night-vision goggles hanging from their straps. He switched them on and looked through them. The night became much too bright green and everything looked overexposed. There was too much light now; these were useless. He hoped the lights weren’t affecting Marcus’s eyesight the same way.
Marcus moved in on the basketball court. He stood still for a moment, then started spinning in a seemingly random circle. It would look strange to anyone who didn’t know what was happening, but Alex had already figured it out. Marcus had lost the scent and he was trying to find it again. Then Marcus stopped and looked up at the twelve-foot chain-link fence that surrounded it. In one fluid motion, he crouched down and then hopped over the fence as if he were taking a flight of stairs two at a time.
Some of the SRT members near him gasped involuntarily. Marcus turned and motioned for him from the other side of the fence. Alex and the SRT members near him were falling too far behind.
One of them said, “Copy that.”
“What’s going on?”
Alex led the team around the fence.
“Squad Three says they have movement. They’re going to investigate.”
Marcus reversed and bounded back toward the main group.
“Tell those men up there not to move. I can hear it. They are close.” Marcus projected his voice to them. It wasn’t loud, but every single one of them heard it.
The SRT officer started to relay the message but it was already too late. Another howl shattered the night—then growls, screams, and gunfire. Everyone moved at once. Marcus melted away. Alex broke into a dead run, shotgun stock at his shoulder, the barrel swept back and forth ahead of him; the rest of the team performed the quick-step “Groucho walk” favored by tactical shooters as they cleared the basketball-court fence as quickly as they could.
As soon as they cleared the corner of the next building, Ale
x could see the men easily. In addition to their silhouette in the banks of lights, the men had activated the tactical lights on their weapons. Alex could see they were surrounding another man, who was down; their backs were to the inside of the small circle they had formed.
Alex heard a man shout, his words unintelligible with fear. The beams of light swung as one, and then muzzle flashes dazzled Alex’s eyes.
Then he saw it—a quick streaking shape, silhouetted by tactical lights, bounding across his field of view. Damn it! It was between them!
Two sharp cracks split the air nearby and Alex instinctively hit the ground.
“Check fire! Check fire!” he shouted at the top of his lungs, hoping they heard him. Those men were so worked up they were going to shoot at anything that moved. He looked behind him. The other SRT members were all prone. One of them was shouting into his headset. Another shouted something at Alex. Alex looked at him, puzzled, and then realized the man was asking if he’d been hit.
“No. I’m okay.”
Alex looked back. Marcus hadn’t stopped. He had just changed the course of his run. Alex stood up, hoped the other men had regained a measure of discipline, and ran after him.
Marcus slowed without looking, letting Alex catch up to him.
“Look there,” his voice hissed out, full of tension. He held his arm outstretched.
Alex looked, his mind scanning for a wolf or something wolf-shaped. He saw nothing.
“What?”
“There.”
Then Alex saw what Marcus had seen, a storm drain leading down away from the street. “Aw hell.”
Chasing a wolf into sewer tunnels was a nightmare he didn’t want to relive.
“It’s like Paris again. Damn.”
The face Marcus made told Alex he was thinking along the same lines. “Try to distract it. I’m going to make sure it does not go down there.”
“Try to distract it?” Alex laughed. “How the hell am I supposed—” Another thought interrupted him. If Marcus wanted him to distract it, then Marcus knew where it was.
Graveyard Shift Page 12