“Who picks them up?”
“A Council extraction team, from the looks of it,” he said. “Very apologetic, of course.”
“I have an acquaintance on the Council. I could ask her to make your shop neutral ground, if you want.”
“What does that mean ‘neutral ground’?”
“If she agrees, it means your shop can be a meeting place for mediations and accords,” I said, looking around. “You would have to clear out some space and put in some tables, but it would mean no more attacks on you or your shop.”
“No more attacks, really?” he asked. “Just by adding tables?”
“Well, tables and agreeing to let all supernaturals meet here as a safe space.”
“And I won’t get any more visits from the rookie welcoming committee?”
“Trust me, if this is neutral ground and someone is going to attack, it will be major league dangerous,” I said.
He smiled. “At least that I can deal with. These attacks are more annoying than anything else,” he said. “They scare off my customers and I can’t hire help.”
I nodded. “Council takes it seriously when an attack takes place on neutral ground. It brings the hammer down—hard.”
“How hard? Since they aren’t stopping these attacks and I’m pretty sure someone on the Council knows about them.”
“Violation of neutral territory is usually answered with execution.”
“Well, shit,” Jimmy said and rubbed his beard, “they sound as serious as Weres. If you could swing that, Simon, I can guarantee you the freshest cuts of meat for the rest of your life, on the house.” He sniffed the air. “You aren’t vegan, are you?”
I laughed and pointed to my bag from Polanco’s.
“The beef is mine, but the salad is for my partner. That’s some nose.”
“Okay, just checking,” he said. “I smelled the salad too. So how about it—free meat for life?”
“How about you owe me a favor and we call it even?” I said, extending a hand. “Deal?”
“Deal,” he said, smiling as he shook my hand and threatened to dislocate my shoulder.
He sniffed the air around me. “You’re human, but there is something a little off about you,” he said and shook his head. “Something not quite right.”
“So my friends tell me. I should be seeing my Council contact later tonight. I’ll bring it up and let you know.”
“I would appreciate it. It means I could hire some employees if I don’t have to worry about monthly attacks.”
We shook again and I left the butcher shop, heading for the Moscow, when my phone rang. I picked it up on the third ring.
“I hear you’ve been making some new friends.”
It was Hades.
“You could say that. Any way you could put a leash on him?”
“We need to talk.”
“I thought that’s what we were doing?”
“Strong, one day your mouth is going to get your ass in so deep, no one will be able to save you.”
Getting my ass in deep was just too easy so I opted for defiance. “Who says I need saving? We’ve been doing fine so far.”
“Only because you don’t know what you’re facing. I have new information for you,” he said. “Come see me when you’re done. Oh, and if I were you, I would hurry home—you have visitors.”
“How the hell do you know—?” Several seconds went by before I realized I was speaking to myself. Hades had hung up. I started running. I stopped on the corner and made a call. I had a feeling I knew who the visitors were.
I entered the Moscow as a deep purple 1967 Pontiac GTO cruise machine with tinted windows screeched to a stop in front of the building. I took a brief moment to appreciate the classic, lovingly referred to as the Goat, and turned back to Andrei as I pulled out my phone to call Monty.
“Has anyone come in here in the last few hours?” I asked him. “Men in suits, dark glasses, with guns?”
“Nyet, no. No men in suits.”
“Thanks,” I said as I headed for the stairs. I pressed Monty’s speed dial on my phone and heard the ring behind me. Monty was entering the building and handing some keys to the valet.
“He called you too, I assume,” he said as he caught up to me. “Since when does Hades make courtesy calls?”
“Since never,” I said as we headed up the stairs. “This smells like a setup.”
I opened my coat to access the Ebonsoul and gently pushed the second floor stairwell door enough to look down the hallway. Our front door was ajar and I could hear voices inside.
“Monty, Olga will kill us if we destroy her building. Well, she’ll kill you and hurt me,” I whispered. “Can we do this with minimal obliteration?”
“You say that like my sole purpose is to go around inflicting property damage,” he answered.
“Less property damage would be great, especially in the building where we live and do business,” I said, poking my head out again. “You don’t see me shooting up everything in sight, do you?”
“You’re firing bullets,” he said. “I’m casting spells and unleashing unstable forces of energy and matter.”
“Exactly. I would appreciate a little more stability and precision from your end, if you don’t mind. Don’t they teach you control in mage school?”
“If they didn’t, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Let’s go.”
We slid up to the front door and stood on either side. I noticed the offices of Christye, Blahq, and Doil were closed for the day, as usual. I was beginning to wonder if they did any business at all. Voices drifted out to us from inside our space.
“Get that door open or I swear I’ll kill you where you stand,” a voice said. “And move that mountain of filth away from me.”
“Sounds like Yama is down,” I whispered and slid across the wall. “What accent is that?”
“It’s a brogue, Irish, which means they’re after our guest,” he said. “Let’s try diplomacy first.”
“Are you sure? That one didn’t sound in a diplomatic mood.”
Monty pushed open the door and I took in the scene. It was a smaller group than what we faced at the blood bank. Three vampires were working on the vault door with blowtorches. Two more stood near the kitchen, one of them looking in my fridge for I don’t know what. Another two stood to the side of the door and pulled guns similar to the one I had seen in the butcher shop.
“Is there a sale on these things?” I said as I stared down the barrel of another oversized hand-cannon. “Compensating much?”
The leader I guessed was the angry-looking vampire standing behind the three working on the door. He turned to us as we entered the room. He was tall and dressed in what I started to call the “trenchy villain” look—long black trench coat, lots of black clothing underneath, accessorized with black highlights. Ken would be proud.
They all wore a similar uniform and I figured this must be their version of a hit team. No dark suits, just lots of trench coats. Each of the coats had a red emblem I recognized on the right shoulder. It was a Claddagh with a sword running through the center of the heart.
“How can we help you?” Monty asked and unbuttoned his jacket.
I didn’t see any orbs of energy in Monty’s hands, which meant he was really going to try to talk them down.
“You could start by opening this door,” Angry Leader said, pointing at the darkroom.
“I’m afraid we can’t do that,” Monty answered, slowly shaking his head. “The young woman in that room is under our care.”
“That bitch is shunned!” the leader yelled. “Now either you open the door or we force you to open it.”
“She is currently being protected by the Dark Council,” Monty said. “If you violate that protection—”
“Does it look like I give a flying shite about your Dark Council? Teigh transa ort fein,” he said and spit on the floor.
“I’m going to guess that’s not Irish for ‘let’s be friends,’” I sai
d. “Is it?”
Monty shook his head again and flexed his jaw. Never a good sign.
“Open the door,” the leader said, “before I drain you both.”
“We can’t,” I said, holding my hands up. “It locks from the inside and I don’t think she wants to come out and say hello to—who are you guys, anyway? The Unfriendlies?”
“Then what use are you?” he said. “Kill them.”
“Well, that’s just rude,” I said and ducked as I pulled out the Ebonsoul.
I stabbed the vampire to my left in the leg and rolled next to him as the one on my right fired at me and missed. Monty advanced on the leader. I shot the vampire next to me with Grim Whisper, and he crumbled into a pile of dust. So glad I remembered to pack the runed bullets.
This mobilized the rest of the room.
“Monty,” I said, as a bullet punched through my shoulder and spun me around into the fist of the vampire who had missed earlier. My head rocked back from the blow and stars filled the edges of my vision as I staggered back. He buried a kick in my stomach and sent me across the room. “Shit, don’t kill them all,” I managed to get out as I landed hard on my back.
The air rushed out of my lungs as the vampire leaped at me. I pressed the orb on the mala and he froze several feet above me for half a second with a surprised look on his face. The shield reversed his direction and slammed him into the ceiling. He landed in a dazed heap. I walked over to where he lay and put a bullet into him. He went from vampire to dust in less than a second. My shoulder was screaming at me as I felt it heal.
“Monty, keep the leader alive,” I said as I caught my breath. “We need information.”
“No,” Monty said, and I didn’t like the tone of his voice. “They have entered our home and should suffer. They deserve to die.”
“Whoa, Monty? Deserve to die? What happened to diplomacy?” I said quickly as I holstered Grim Whisper.
“I’ve realized that it doesn’t work.”
“That lasted all of ten seconds. How about we dial it back a bit?”
Black rotating discs of energy formed in his hands as he advanced. The whirring sound they made transported me instantly to a dentist’s chair. It set my teeth on edge and raised the hairs on the back of my neck.
“Stay back, Simon,” he said, his voice full of menace.
“Monty, what the hell is that? That is definitely not dialing it back.”
He let the discs go. They hummed through the air—two buzz saws of death. The vampires near the kitchen never had a chance. The discs sliced through them effortlessly before cutting holes through the wall and disappearing.
Their upper bodies fell away from their legs. Screams of agony filled the room as their torsos flailed briefly on the floor before growing still.
“Bloody hell, Monty,” I whispered. “What’re you doing?”
“I’m neutralizing the threat. I’m tired of playing nice, of observing rules of warfare. No more.”
“This isn’t you, Monty,” I said, slowly raising my empty hand. “Don’t do this. Not like this.”
“You don’t know me; this is what I do best.”
He turned to face me and I saw his irises. They were solid black with a glowing ring of gold. In that moment, I realized three things: Monty was still seriously pissed about Roxanne—so much for venting, the vampires in the room were all dead—they just didn’t know it yet, and he was scarier than anything we had ever faced.
The three vampires at the vault door dropped the blowtorches and bolted. Monty sent a disc after them without taking his eyes off the leader. I sliced through it with the Ebonsoul and it exploded with a thump, launching me over the sofa as I landed with a thud.
“Monty, stop.” I groaned as I stood shakily.
“No, Simon. I told you to stay back. Don’t get in my way again.”
His voice had gone down a few octaves and I considered running for the door myself, but he was my friend, not a cold-blooded murderer. He would never forgive himself if I let him continue this way.
I did the only thing I could do.
NINETEEN
STOPPING TIME IS a lot trickier than it sounds. According to Monty, I wasn’t actually stopping time but stepping outside of it. I wasn’t a quantum physicist, or any other kind of physicist for that matter, so he explained it as simply as possible. Time is similar to a river and when I activated my mark, I stepped out of the river for a short amount of time while it continued to flow.
I couldn’t go back or forward along the river. I had to step back in wherever I stepped out. At that point in the explanation, I began getting a headache.
Bottom line was I could stop time for ten seconds. When the ten seconds was up, I would be in the same location chronologically before I activated the mark. Anything I altered would take effect after the ten seconds were up.
In this case, what I wanted was Karma to show up. I needed her to stop Monty from bisecting this vampire and I didn’t think ten seconds was going to be enough time to act.
I placed my right hand on my left, making sure to touch the two points of the endless knot with my thumb and index fingers, and focused. White light raced from each end and connected at the center and the world around me took on a hazy feel. Everything fell out of focus as I looked around.
The smell of lotus flowers filled the room and I smiled. Karma materialized in front of me. She was doing the college student look again—blue jeans, comfortable boots, and a black sweater. She wore a black baseball cap that read BITCH in bold red letters, and the smile across her lips looked dangerous. The little voice that warned me of imminent threats began wailing. This may have been a mistake.
“Did you just try and summon me?” she said coyly and stepped close. The lotus smell wrapped itself around me, making it hard to breathe.
“I need your help,” I whispered. “It’s Monty.”
I pointed behind her but she ignored my gesture. The backhand rocked my jaw, lifted me off my feet, and planted me on the floor in front of her. The room swam for a few seconds as I got my bearings. After the earlier vampire treatment, a concussion wasn’t out of the question.
She crouched down so that we were face-to-face when she spoke. The feral look in her eyes made me instantly regret calling her.
“I’m not your genie, that you think you can call when it all goes to shit. Do you know who I am?”
At this point, I wasn’t sure who I was, but I didn’t say that since she was being so giving with head shots.
“Karma?” I hazarded a guess. “The Karma?”
“Exactly. Now listen closely, Simon,” she said and cupped my chin and stood, bringing me effortlessly to my feet. “I don’t care if Monty wants to dust this vampire.”
“But you’re—?”
“I’m the aftermath. I reap what you sow. I’m the effect to your cause,” she said. “I don’t do interventions—I do reckonings.”
“I thought—” I started.
“You thought wrong and I’ve interfered enough,” she replied and her voice softened. “I like you, Simon, I do. You even wear my mark, but I can’t have favorites.”
“I’m not asking to be your favorite,” I said. “I just need you to—”
“Don’t try and summon me again,” she said, her voice hard. “If I could I would remove your mark—don’t make me remove your arm.”
“I won’t,” I said, my mind racing. Monty was going to kill this vampire in a fit of rage and I couldn’t stop him. “My arm?”
“You’d better hurry and help your friend. Your twenty seconds will start the moment I’m gone.”
She gave me a quick wink, smiled, and disappeared.
Twenty seconds?
I had to act fast. It was ten seconds more than I usually had. I didn’t know how she did it, I only cared that she had given me more time.
I pulled out the silver restraints we used for werewolf takedowns. If I put them on Monty, he would blast right through them and the vampire. Silver didn’t slow
him down much. I’d seen him take a silver round and not even blink as he responded with a fireball.
My only option was the vampire. The restraints weren’t designed for them, but it was the best idea I had. I ran over to the leader of the Unfriendlies and attached them to his wrists. They gave off a brief orange glow as they locked closed.
I moved back to Monty, moved him out of our office, and locked the door on him. The four-inch slab of steel was only slightly weaker than the vault door to the darkroom. It made me wonder how they got in in the first place.
We really need better security.
Monty had runed it himself and I requested he make it everything-proof. I gave it about a minute—two, tops before he shredded it. I really hoped those restraints would slow the vampire down. I had just locked myself in a room with an angry vampire, and the one person with the power to take it down was locked outside. I pulled out Grim Whisper and took aim.
Everything snapped back into focus and time flowed.
“Bloody hell! Simon!” Monty yelled from outside. “Open the door!”
He pounded on the door hard enough for me to be concerned it would crumple under his assault.
“I’m not opening it until you calm down, Monty,” I yelled back. “Do some breathing exercises or whatever it is mages do.”
“I’m calm, now open the door,” he said.
I could hear the tension in his voice as he spoke through gritted teeth.
“Liar. Go take a walk around the block. I got this.”
The leader of the Unfriendlies looked at me and grinned.
“You’ve grown tired of life, boy?” he said. “You’re no match for me, even with your magical bullets.”
Since he wasn’t writhing on the floor in agony, I figured the restraints weren’t working, until I smelled burning flesh. Smoke was rising from his wrists. The vampire began clawing at the restraints, ripping his own flesh in the process.
“Won’t work,” I said and kept Grim Whisper pointed at him. “You can’t take them off.”
“I’ll kill you!” he screamed as he kept at the restraints. “I’ll drain you dry and then make you beg for death.”
Montague & Strong Detective Novels Box Set: Montague & Strong Detective Novels Books, 1 through 3 (Montague & Strong Case Files) Page 12