by Skye Knizley
WEST WABANSIA AVENUE
PRESENT DAY
A BITTERLY COLD MORNING ROSE over Chicago just after seven a.m., the sun’s orange and yellow glow reflecting off of dirt-covered snow and icicles hanging outside Chen’s Minimart at the corner of West Wabansia and Keystone. The morning light made the blood freezing in the gutter look dark and viscous, glistening with an oil-like sheen where it dripped into the iron grating at the end of the slope.
The woman had been placed in the hollow in front of the store beneath a street light, her arms and legs together as if she were sleeping. Her black hair fell around her in a cloud of dark silk in contrast to her skin and the pale white bones peeking through her shattered chest. Her belongings had been left in a pile around her and the strange letters written in her blood next to her right thigh, which was tattooed with a depiction of the Virgin Mary.
Raven knelt next to the victim, examining the stack of clothing. Like all the others, she’d been well-dressed, this time in leather pants and a blood-red sweater. A pair of red-soled Louboutin ankle boots sat on top of the pile.
“Coby Soren, twenty six years old, has a permanent resident card dated last September,” Aspen said.
“Let me guess, she’s from the Netherlands.”
Aspen bagged the wallet and started going through the rest of the victim’s possessions. “Yeah, how’d you know?”
“I had a fifty-fifty chance,” Raven said. “So far our vics are either Romanian or Danish.”
“I’ve got something else.”
Aspen held up a business card for Titan security. The name on the front was Tosh Vann.
“Did we ever get an address on him?” Raven asked.
“Yeah, it finally came through last night. He was hard to track down, I’ve a feeling he isn’t a real person.”
Raven stood and pulled off her gloves. “Finish up your preliminary and get me the address. I think it’s time to find out who or what he is.”
When she turned around, it was to find Lieutenant Frost standing outside the crime scene with a cup of coffee.
“Good morning, Lieutenant, you’re up early,” she said.
“And you’re dressing even more informally than usual,” Frost said. “Rough night?”
“Nothing I couldn’t handle,” Raven replied. “What brings you out here?”
“Checking up on what you’ve found,” Frost replied.
Raven passed under the crime scene tape and turned toward the Shelby, which she’d parked just down the street. “Not much. The man we’re looking for leaves almost no useful trace. But I think we’re piecing things together. I’m following up another lead as soon as we’re through here.”
“Where’s your partner?” Frost asked.
“Following up another possible lead as we speak. I’ll catch up with him.”
Frost nodded, took another look around then turned back toward his silver Lincoln Zephyr parked a short distance away, the red light still flashing on his dash.
“Can I ask you something, Lieutenant?” Raven asked.
Frost looked back over his shoulder.
“Where did you get the photo of me? I was under the impression the building had burned to the ground.”
“Some of the security tapes survived in a fire resistant box,” Frost replied after a beat. “The marshal recognized you and thought I should look into it, given your penchant for violence.”
“Mm, makes sense,” Raven said.
In a pig’s eye. Who are you trying to protect? she thought.
The Lincoln drove away and she waited until it was out of sight until she turned around to Aspen.
“Asp, do you have access to fire marshal files?”
Aspen looked up from her work. “Sure, everything goes through the lab, why?”
“When you get a chance, see if you can get into the Kryptorium investigation. I want to know if the fire marshal found a safe with any dvd’s or drives in it,” Raven said. “And keep it between us, huh?”
“Sure.”
Aspen looked sheepish for a moment. “Do you want to talk about what I did?”
Raven turned toward her waiting Shelby. “Later. We’ve got a murderer to catch.”
“Later? Am I in trouble?”
Raven looked back and smiled. “No. Text me Vann’s address and call me if you find anything else.”
Aspen smiled and Raven couldn’t help thinking how sweet she looked, even kneeling beside a murder victim. Not every crime scene technician had Aspen’s heart. Or talent.
Raven put on her sunglasses and slipped behind the wheel of her car. She hadn’t kissed another girl since she was in college. It was different and very unexpected, but not unpleasant. She and Aspen definitely had something to discuss, but it would have to wait.
She put the Shelby in gear and headed across town. She needed coffee. By then Aspen should have the address for her.
CHESTNUT STREET, CHICAGO
PRESENT DAY
RAVEN PARKED HER SHELBY IN one of the parking garages the city had an agreement with and walked the three blocks to Tosh Vann’s apartment building, her Doughnut Vault coffee clutched in her hand like the One Ring.
The building in question was an eighteen story building made of beige stone. It had a glassed-in main lobby and exercise room, but otherwise was nondescript. You would never guess it was home to luxury apartments from the rather boring exterior.
Raven passed through the revolving door and walked through the large marble-tiled foyer to a small reception desk that looked more like it belonged in a hotel than an apartment building. Behind the desk was a young woman with red hair and horn-rimmed glasses. She smiled when Raven approached.
“Good morning, ma’am, deliveries are usually taken through the service entrance,” she said.
Raven looked down at her white tank top and jeans then back at the clerk. “I’m not here for a delivery. I’m Detective Storm, homicide. I’m looking for Mr. Tosh Vann, it’s my understanding he has an apartment here.”
The clerk visibly flushed and she turned to the computer partially concealed by her desk. “My apologies, Detective. Yes, we have a Mr. Vann, he’s on the seventeenth floor, apartment C1. Would you like me to ring him?”
“No thanks,” Raven said, turning away. “I’d like to surprise him.”
She stepped into the polished chrome elevator and winced her way through a Muzak version of Van Halen’s ‘Jump’ before she stepped out on the seventeenth floor where she was greeted by soft grey carpets and off-white walls punctuated with copies of seventeenth century painters. Raven recognized work by Bartolomeo Bassi and Cesare Fracanzano on her way down the corridor and wondered who they had the on the twelfth floor.
Apartment C1 was at the end of the hallway. Raven paused outside and knocked twice. There was no answer, but her sensitive nose detected a familiar scent, that of death. She kicked the door and drew her pistol in one motion and moved through the door, senses on high alert.
The foyer had dark wood floors and white walls and turned into a hallway just a few feet from the door. In one direction was the door to the master bedroom, the other led into the rest of the apartment. Though the lights were off, the morning sun pouring through the far windows was enough to see the disarray in the living room. The light blue sofa had been pushed into the wall, the rug was flipped over and a glass table of some kind lay in pieces on the floor. In the middle of it all was a desiccated human body.
Raven squatted and ran a practiced eye over the corpse. By the looks of things he’d been dead for several days, but strangely he didn’t look as if he’d been killed in a fight or any other violence. He didn’t have a visible mark on him and his body position indicated he had sagged to the floor like a marionette with its strings cut. The violence and broken glass had occurred sometime before the man’s death.
She donned a pair of gloves and made a quick search of the body. His wallet indicated he was indeed Tosh Vann and he’d died with a stack of credit cards on him as well
as keys to a late model Jaguar, either ruling out theft or confirming a really stupid criminal.
Raven placed both items on the floor next to the body and straightened. From here she could see the short hallway leading to the second bed and bath in one direction and the kitchen in another. She was turning to check the kitchen when a black-clad figure ran past on the bedroom patio. She didn’t hesitate; she picked up a piece of the table’s wrought-iron frame and tossed it through the nearest glass. The window shattered and she jumped through, only a half dozen paces behind the running figure.
“Halt, Chicago police!” Raven yelled.
The figure didn’t slow. He kept running until he reached the gap between this building and the next where he jumped, out of Raven’s line of fire.
Dammit, why do they always run?
She took off after the fleeing figure, her boot heels ringing out on the hard flagstones that led across the roof. She slowed when she reached the edge and could see that the fleeing figure had landed on the opposite building’s fire escape and was making his way down by jumping from floor to floor.
“Freeze!” Raven yelled, aiming down the Automag’s barrel.
The figure jumped to the next landing and ran into the building without a backwards glance. Raven gathered herself and leapt, crossing the distance and letting herself fall to the level below. She vaulted the next two landings and kicked through the window into the hallway above her fleeing suspect. With her head down she ran as fast as she could toward the opposite end of the corridor and smashed through the window. She could see her quarry below her and reached out an arm to turn her dive into a tackle.
“Freeze means stop, bub! Don’t you speak English?”
She grabbed the man around the waist a split second before they crashed into a construction dumpster below. When the dust cleared, Raven rolled the man over and put her gun to his chin. The blond man was bleeding from a cut on his forehead and was having trouble breathing, but otherwise looked none the worse for wear. He smiled, showing bloody teeth.
“Well done, Detective Storm, well done. I am surprised to see you.”
“Lupeski?”
“Indeed,” Lupeski said. “You seem to have recovered remarkably well from your trial last night, the Master will be most impressed.”
“What’s going on, who are you people and what are you doing in my city?” Raven demanded.
Lupeski coughed and spat out a gobbet of blood. “In good time, Detective. The Master wouldn’t want me to spoil your surprise. He wanted to meet your father, but of course that isn’t possible. You will do and I think he might find you far more interesting prey than your father.”
“I’m no one’s prey. Neither was my father. Tell me what the hell is going on! Did you kill those women?”
“Alas, Detective, I did not. That was not my role to play, though I would have, gladly,” Lupeski said. “As the Master bids, so shall it be.”
Raven holstered her pistol and stood, hauling Lupeski to his feet. “No more games, no more riddles. Who is the Master? Give me a name, goddammit!”
Lupeski coughed again, a horrible bone-grating sound that ended in more blood. When he could breathe again he smiled. “I can’t tell you, Detective, and my time here is short. I fear I was injured quite badly in the fall. You see, I’m not a dhampyr, lycan or a familiar. I’m just a man, devoted to the cause.”
“Dammit!”
Raven lifted Lupeski in one hand and lowered him over the side of the dumpster. She dropped him as gently as she could and jumped out next to him.
“Don’t you die on me, you bastard,” she growled.
“I fear that is out of the hands of either of us, Detective Storm,” Lupeski said.
Raven pulled her phone out of her pocket and dialed 9-1-1.
MERCY HOSPITAL, MICHIGAN AVENUE
PRESENT DAY
THE SMELL OF HOSPITALS ALWAYS annoyed Raven. It wasn’t the mixture of ammonia and chlorine assaulting her nose or the chemical smell of medications, it was the underlying scent of disease that no amount of scrubbing was ever going to clean well enough to keep away from her sensitive nose. She could tell every room someone had died in that day simply walking past. It was depressing and did nothing to lighten her mood as she sat outside emergency surgery.
“Detective Storm?”
Raven looked up from the cup of black coffee she was holding to see Sloan Patlii standing nearby. The diminutive doctor looked different with her hair in a businesslike bun and her golden eyes hidden behind blue contacts.
“Doctor Patlii, hi, how is Lupeski?” Raven asked.
“He isn’t faring well, I’m afraid, Detective,” Patlii replied. “I did what I could, but he suffered massive internal injuries. It’s a miracle he survived the impact, the paramedics said it was a six story fall.”
“He jumped first,” Raven said. “I tried to soften the impact with a dumpster. Can he talk? I still have questions for him.”
“Not at the moment,” Patlii said. “He has slipped into a coma. I will let you know if he regains consciousness. I’m sorry, Detective, I’m not hopeful about his condition.”
“It isn’t your fault, doc. Thank you.”
“Good work, Storm,” Frost said from behind her. “It looks like you’ve managed to pulverize your only suspect. What’s your next trick? Assassinating the captain?”
“I was trying to save him, Lieutenant,” Raven said. “He had already jumped out of a sixth floor window when I caught up to him. If I hadn’t been there, you’d be scraping him up with a spatula.”
“Jumped, or did you throw him off?”
Raven spun, grabbed Frost by his lapels and slammed him into the wall.
“You listen to me, Lieutenant,” she growled. “I do my job to the best of my ability. I have never killed anyone who wasn’t trying to kill me, and if I was going start, it wouldn’t be with Lupeski. It would be with a pencil-necked blowhard too stupid to stay out of my way.”
She let go of Frost and turned away.
“That’s it, Storm. You’re suspended,” Frost yelled.
Raven turned around again, her rage building. “On what grounds? Telling you you’re an idiot?”
“Assault, for starters,” Frost said. “Give me your badge and gun, you’re under arrest.”
Raven ripped the chain from around her neck and slammed her badge into the wall hard enough to crack concrete and leave her shield embedded sideways in the cinderblock.
“Here’s my badge,” she said. “My department issue is in my drawer. Take them, but I don’t think I’ll let you arrest me today.”
“Let me arrest you? How do you intend to stop me?” Frost asked.
“Go ahead and try, Chris. I’ve got nothing to lose.”
She glared at him, letting her rage show in her eyes. Frost looked away first.
“Go home, Storm. You’ve got until Internal Affairs finishes their investigation, then I am personally going to lock you in a cage.”
“What happened to you, Chris?” Raven asked. “You were Dad’s partner. A solid guy and a friend of the family, but for the last year it’s like you’re someone else. You’ve seen what I’m up against first hand and you’re still acting like it’s normal police work.”
“I’m not the one who changed, Raven. You’ve gone dark.”
Raven turned away and saw Sloan waiting patiently nearby.
“Thanks for your help, doc,” she said. “Call me if Lupeski wakes up.”
“You’re suspended, Storm,” Frost said. “I don’t want you within two hundred feet of that man.”
Raven ignored Frost, nodded at Patlii and exited before she killed someone.
LINCOLN HIGHWAY, MERRILLVILLE
FALL 1999
IT WAS A PERFECT, WARM, October day. A cloudless sky, bright yellow sun and fresh-cut grass that glittered like a field of emeralds darkened only by the clay of the softball field below. Mason Storm sat in the bleachers at Merrillville High School, his eyes hidden behind the Ray Ba
n aviator glasses his daughter had bought him for Christmas. He’d laid his brown A-2 jacket on the seat next to him and sat in his blue Henley shirt and jeans to watch her take the field with the rest of her team. She was hard to miss with her flaming red hair and wrists full of black leather bracelets.
Raven took her place at third base and Storm leaned back to watch, fighting a smile. They didn’t always win, but they were always entertaining. The kids played for fun and he liked to see Raven acting like a kid. Winning was secondary, but it didn’t mean they didn’t play their hardest.
It was the third inning before anything went wrong. A larger girl on the opposing team ran into Raven at full speed, sending her sprawling into the dirt. He stood and was partway down the steps before she stood. Her glare slowed him and he stopped at the bottom to see what she would do.
Raven straightened and moved back to her position, standing next to the larger girl without either dusting herself or saying a word, but Storm could tell she was upset. Gone was the child she’d been a few minutes before, replaced by the woman she was becoming.
Lord don’t let her lose her temper, Storm thought.
The next batter hit a line drive straight toward first base and the large girl took off for home. The ball bounced a few feet from first base and the baseman caught it with one hand and threw it back to home plate with as much strength as she could muster. The large girl, player number twelve, turned and charged toward Raven who now stood blocking the base. Storm watched, holding his breath as the taller girl pounded toward his daughter.
It must have been like hitting a brick wall. Number twelve hit Raven, skidded and fell flat on her back with the wind knocked out of her. Raven hadn’t moved an inch. She then dusted herself off with just the hint of a smile on her face.
“That’s my daughter,” Storm said to the nearest spectator. “She’ll be sixteen this year.”
He was stopped from saying anything else by Frost who had just arrived. As usual he had a clipboard in one hand and a Lucky Strike cigarette in the other.