Bishop hoped his car would be done by Saturday. Not just because the oxygen in his blood was being rapidly replaced by carbon monoxide, but because even if they got the tickets, there was no way he could drive this wreck to Zaki’s estate. He was going to need a back-up plan. Bishop made a mental note to call Rain as soon as he figured out how to get the Falcon out of second gear.
- 13 -
The Guardian Building was a thirteen-story stone edifice on the edge of the downtown business district with a view of the lake. The bottom five stories were built in stepped layers, like a square wedding cake. A massive, septagonal tower sat exactly in the middle of the top layer. The whole structure had been called The Braithwaite Building when it was built in the 1880s, but soon everyone was calling it The Guardian Building or The Angel Tower because of the twenty kneeling stone angels that guarded each corner of the five first floors. They were massive sculptures adorned with wings. Each one leaned slightly out over its corner, some watching the ground below, others with their heads tilted sideways or up toward the sky.
Ariel had never looked closely but she had been told that each angel had a separate, distinctive face. The fourteen angels that guarded the tower itself, stood upright, two to a side, framed by their folded wings and dressed much like Knights Templar -- long tunics over chain mail, hands resting on the pommels of their swords, points touching the ground between their feet.
The Guardian Building was in the state registry of historic buildings and would never be torn down.
When she visited the building, Ariel always took a moment to look up at the angels. In her imagination she saw them suddenly taking flight, rising to circle the sky, swords ablaze, propelled by the graceful sweep of their massive wings to do battle against the powers of darkness.
Unfortunately, child-stealing demons weren’t important enough to wake the angels, it would take a full blown apocalypse to get them off their stony butts and into the fray. That’s why there were Raptors. They took care of the little stuff so avenging angels could save their strength for the end of the world.
She pushed her way through the brass and glass revolving doors into the lobby. She had only been to see The Guardian a few times since she had been assigned to the city, and next to the angels, the doors were the best part of the visit. She was always tempted to go around more than once, but the guard at the security desk was already giving her the evil eyeball.
The ornate clock over the elevators said two fifty-five. The guard called up to the tower, then signed her in. She had timed herself so she would reach The Guardian’s office at exactly three o’clock. The Guardian considered punctuality a virtue, but he would also make her wait. His time was extremely important. Hers was not.
The Guardian’s offices occupied the top three floors of a tower set on the exact center of the Guardian Building roof like a medieval keep. In actuality, his public offices occupied only the lower two. The absolute top and its roof observatory were reserved exclusively for The Guardian, a protocol that was strictly enforced. The ceilings at the tower level were much higher than on other floors. It was an impressive space. The walls were lined with rows and rows of gently curving bookcases containing thousands of books, most covered in various shades of leather, stacked side by side in dark oak shelves. The floors were polished marble and the ceilings were painted with celestial scenes of clouds and sky and winged beings with swords or spears in their hands and grim expressions on their faces.
The effect was to make a visitor feel like he was about to have an audience with the pope, not a stuffy, uptight librarian with wings.
A private elevator let Ariel out on what she liked to think of as the thirteenth floor. A woman sat behind a massive, antique desk directly across from the elevator. It was placed for maximum impact between broad, twin stairways that curved toward each other like an incomplete embrace.
The woman always reminded Ariel of the mother superior of some prison convent for wayward nuns. Her dark business suits were pristine and perfectly fitted, her white blouse buttoned to the neck. Pale blue eyes under dark brows carried the same warm welcome that an iceberg carries for an unwary ship heading in its direction. Her unnaturally black hair had been severely coiffed and lacquered into place. Ariel thought the style made her look like the Wolverine in the X Men comics -- minus the side burns, of course.
The only acknowledgement the Wolverine made of Ariel’s presence was to pick up the telephone and announce, “The Raptor has arrived.”
There was no offer of a seat, a glass of water, a magazine or an estimate on how long it would be before ‘the Raptor’ would be graced with a few minutes of The Guardian’s time – just another obscure lesson in humility that Ariel would allow to go right over her head. As always, she stood in front of the woman’s desk, feet spread, hands clasp behind her back, and stared down at her until Brother Gregory, The Guardian’s poor, overworked clerk finally came to get her.
Brother Gregory was a mouse in clerk’s clothing, perhaps not literally like Mouser was a hawk, but Ariel wouldn’t have been the least surprised to see him turn into something small, grey and whiskered, dashing for a hole in the baseboards.
The little man was a scuttler. Never fully erect he bobbed in place, reinforcing the lowliness of his position, then scuttled up the stairs in front of her to open a set of large brass doors at the top. On each side of the doors, the balcony was lined, floor to ceiling, with bookcases. They gave off faint overtones of old leather, slightly moldy paper and the merest hint of incense. Ariel knew there were even more books below in a large library guarded by the Wolverine.
The Guardian was at his desk, flanked by open balcony doors on either side of the huge room. One set faced the vast expanse of the lake that gave the city both its beauty and its commerce. The lake itself was a continuous horizon, uninterrupted by the sight of land. The other view was of the city, a forest of tall buildings stood behind the Guardian Building, as if they expected the angels to defend the perimeter against attack while their busy inhabitants performed their own small evils in the name of business.
As she expected, he let her wait a few moments longer than necessary while he finished the page he’d been reading in the open tome that lay on his desk. Finally, he stood up and his flat, steel-colored eyes gave Ariel an evaluative look.
The Guardian was tall and lean, the way some men in their sixties tend to be after all the padding has left their frame, leaving only bones and sinew behind. The planes of his face were sharp, emphasizing his long, nose and thin, bloodless lips. Today he wore a light grey suit with a darker grey tie over a white shirt. His thick, silver hair was shot with threads of black and he wore it swept off his high forehead, barely touching his collar in the back.
“Raptor,” he said. He was using his disappointed, schoolmaster voice. Ariel stood with her hands respectfully behind her back, but she refused to hang her head. She’d been ordered to kill Tesslovich, and she’d done her job. A weapon wasn’t responsible for the results it caused, the one who aimed it was.
“Sir?”
“You failed your assignment. Explain this to me.”
Ariel had learned through experience to never apologize to the Guardian. It only made him even more condescending than he already was.
“I beheaded Nicolai Tesslovich in his office three nights after I received the order,” she told him. “That has always proved an adequate method in the past.”
“It seems from later evidence that Mr. Tesslovich failed to die.”
Ariel spread her hands, “When I left, he was as dead as I could make him without burning the body.”
“And now his security has tripled.”
“I intend to keep trying.”
“That won’t be necessary,” The Guardian said.
“Sir?’ Ariel was startled. “But what about the children?”
“Children? What about them?” The inquiry was bland, barely interested.
“There are kids missing all over the city. Tesslovich is
involved in the kidnappings. We need to stop him!”
“Tesslovich’s indiscretions will be dealt with when I decide the time is right.”
Ariel was incensed at the cavalier way The Guardian was taking her information. “The time is half-past right already, sir. How can we let this go on? I think they’re doing medical experiments on these kids. And now they have my messenger!”
“The hawk?” The Guardian waved a dismissive hand. “Replace him. You have enough candidates from the riff-raff you insist on associating with at that café place.”
“I don’t want to replace Mouser. I want to get him back!”
“You will not question my decisions, Ariel. There is a higher plan at work here. It requires great patience and discipline—two things that you seem to lack. One misstep and all, all could be lost. If you defy me on this there will be consequences.”
The Guardian looked down at his book.
“In the future,” he said without looking up. “You can expect your orders to be more specific.”
She was dismissed.
Ariel gave the Guardian a short bow and spun on her heel to leave. The ‘consequences’, as always, were undefined. As she descended the stairs, she heard the Guardian bellowing for Brother Gregory. He was the one who penned the messages and he was obviously about to hear something about his own deficiencies.
Ariel caught a small smile of satisfaction on the Wolverine’s face as she passed her. Luckily the elevator was right there, waiting. She hated elevators. They were painfully slow and claustrophobic with no room for an angry Raptor to pace off her frustration.
She wished instead she could have flown away from the top of the Angel Tower, thrown herself into the air as she sometimes did, falling toward the ground like Icarus, only to catch the updraft, wings beating furiously to pull herself above the city canyons toward the open sky and the race toward home. It would have been some release from the anger she was feeling. But daylight, and the risk that she would be seen, made that impossible.
Screw the higher plan. She spun herself out through the lobby doors with a force that kept them spinning another full turn. The Guardian could take his damn instructions and . . . well anyway, she wasn’t going to just sit around while demons did whatever they wanted. She was going to get Mouser out of Zaki’s clutches along with as many other kids as she could manage. Ez would help her, Timmy Jon would supply her with a way in, and Bishop, lame human that he was, was still better than no ally at all.
- 14 -
Bishop had arranged to meet Rain for a late lunch at The Forbidden City. He’d just been served his order of Mu Shu Pork with extra pancakes, General Tsu’s Chicken, and spicy pot stickers with hot pepper sauce when Rain eased through the booth’s curtains with a large Tsing Tao beer in one hand and a bottle of sparkling water in the other.
“MmMmm,” he said, “all my favorites. You must want something special.”
“Eat,” Bishop told him, building himself a Chinese burrito stuffed with plum sauce and Mu Shu pork from the ingredients piled on his plate. “This is serious.”
Rain loaded his own plate. “Tell me about it. Sister Catherine trapped the Captain in his office this morning and started taking him apart for not doing anything about her missing kids. He tried to palm her off on Missing Persons downtown, but she seems to think the kids are being sold into sex slavery to rich, foreign perverts who bring their boats across the lake to pick them up. She claims they have diplomatic immunity and that’s why we’re not doing anything about it. That lady is a terror once she gets rolling.”
“You think there’s any truth to that?” Bishop asked.
Rain shrugged. “I ‘spose it’s possible. Hasn’t hit my radar.” He grinned. “The Cap’n looked like he’d been whipped through a briar patch when the fine sister got through with him. He was sweating like a pig and his eyes were all bugged out. I thought they were going to shoot out of his face and ricochet around the room like ping pong balls. He kept yanking at his collar like she’d tried to strangle him with his own tie. The Weasel almost called 911. Cap’s been locked in his office with the shades down ever since. I hope we find him in the morning with that vodka bottle he keeps in his desk clutched, empty in his cold, dead hand.”
“Hope springs eternal,” Bishop said. “But about that favor.”
“You didn’t get another goat head, did you?”
“No, and thanks for spoiling my lunch. The little mutant trashed my car. It’s in the shop and they gave me a loaner, but I can’t drive it out to the Kiriyenko estate on Saturday. They’d laugh me out of the place.”
“You got invited to the arena?” Rain asked, chopsticks half way to his mouth, awe and envy battling for supremacy in his voice. “Man! How did you manage that?”
“A friend of mine thinks she can score some tickets.”
“How many?”
“Um, three.”
Rain chewed thoughtfully, making Bishop wait. He took a sip of water, patted his lips dry with his napkin then used his chopsticks to pick up another bite.
“What’s it going to cost me to get your car for the evening?” Bishop finally asked.
“The third ticket,” Rain grinned.
“Yeah. I saw that one coming. It’s a little complicated, though. First we have to actually get the tickets, then I’ll see what I can do.”
“I hear some heavy betting happens at Zaki’s games.” Rain wasn’t even listening to Bishop. “Man, I’d like to get in on that.”
“It could be way out of your league,” Bishop warned, thinking about the type of people Zaki might invite.
“Nothing’s out of your league if you know the odds,” Rain threw his napkin on the table. “Well, gotta go. Need to take the old lady to the beauty parlor. Get her all ready to style.”
Bishop knew he meant his prized 1962, maroon Mercedes Benz sedan. Rain treated the car like it was a dowager queen. He only drove it on weekends and special occasions.
“I’ll call your cell and let you know if it’s a ‘go’,” Bishop told him.
“Zaki’s games,” Rain was saying to himself as he pushed through the booth’s curtains. “Mmm, mm mmm, mm, mm!”
- 15 -
The steps and curb of the runaway shelter looked like school had just let out. Kids were bunched together on the sidewalk, hanging, talking, smoking; being rowdy, cool or bored, but there was tension under the bravado and none of them were moving too far away from the building.
Bishop had to climb over a few to get up the steps and through the door. They eyed him suspiciously and somebody muttered ‘cop’ under his breath. Bishop thought that was better than ‘perv’.
He found Sister Catherine in her office. The room looked like the same disorganized mess it had always been, but the bulletin board now held twenty photographs of missing kids and a list of names longer than that. Cate didn’t look like her usual feisty self. A deep weariness had settled into her features and Bishop could smell that she’d started smoking again.
“You look like shit,” Bishop told her.
“Flatterer,” she said. “How many times do I have to tell you nuns don’t date?”
“I’m serious, Catie.” Bishop lifted a stack of files off one of the chairs in front of Sister Catherine’s desk. There was no place in the office to put them so he set them in the hall by the door. “You need to get some sleep. Have a decent meal. You can’t keep going like this.”
“Where are my kids, Bishop? I’ll rest after I find them.”
“I hear you worked the Captain over pretty good today.” Bishop smiled. “I wish I could have seen that. Rain said you went all Ride of the Valkeries on his ass. The squad’s hoping to find him dead of a heart attack in his office tomorrow morning. Nobody’s going to check on him ‘til then.”
“I’m going to have to confess that, you know,” Sister Cate told him. “If I killed the bastard I’ll be saying rosaries until I’m ninety.”
“Rain says he hasn’t heard anything about a child s
ex slave ring operating in the city.”
“That doesn’t mean it isn’t true.”
“I know, Cate. I’m not having any luck on my case either, although some possibilities have come up.”
“What, Frank? If you know something, please tell me. These kids are so tough and so fragile all at the same time. They don’t have anyone to look out for them. The shelter’s packed. I’ve got them sleeping in bathtubs, in the laundry room, on every square inch of floor space. I’m letting them in whether they’re using or not. I know that’s going to be a problem, but I don’t know what else to do. Every one of them knows somebody who’s disappeared.”
“Before I say anything I need to ask you a question.”
Cate just looked at him over the pile of papers and abandoned Styrofoam cups of stale coffee on her desk.
“Do you believe in demons?”
“Me, personally or according to church doctrine?”
“You, personally.”
“Are you serious?”
“As death, Catie. I need to know.”
“Okay, but if you tell anybody about this I may be forced to commit a mortal sin on your head.”
“Before I took my vows, I was a probation officer. I was assigned some pretty bad people, who’d done some really bad, unspeakable things. And a lot of them got away with it. Those unspeakable things usually weren’t what they went to prison for, even though everybody knew they were guilty. They’d just sit in my office when they checked in and smirk at me, because they knew I knew and couldn’t do a damn thing about it. I thought those guys must be demons, but they were only an example of how really evil humanity can become. They were the ones that made me decide to become a nun. I thought the church would help me make the world a better place.
Raptor: Urban Fantasy Noir Page 16