Swing Shift: Book 2

by William D. Arand

  “Not to mention this is all new stuff. Vamps couldn’t really get loaded on their own before all this came to market.”

  “Out of curiosity,” Indali said. “What are the drugs made out of? Could we go for that part?”

  “Ah… probably not. Vamp drugs are made from other Paras,” Gus admitted. It was always amusing to him how Vampires figured out how to get high in the end. “Paras with poisons, diseases, or venom. Three really good examples are… well… Were blood, Were saliva, and Were semen. Technically Weres have a disease, just like Vampires. When you reduce it down to the disease, add some other things, and combine it into a liquid or a powder… there you go. Makes a Vampire’s disease and body kinda go into overdrive in response. Then the other additives do their thing.”

  “Were… semen?” Trish asked, sounding rather curious.

  “Yeah… like I said. Not something we can really go after,” Gus said with a shrug.

  “That makes sense. How do we proceed then?” Indali asked.

  “Night clubs,” Chloe interrupted. “The smaller ones. Make some low-level busts and start carving into the area that way. Always made the bosses paranoid and angry when the cops started singling them out.”

  “That, yeah,” Gus said. “On top of that, we’re going to go the traditional route at the same time. Wiretaps, listening devices, being an obvious nuisance.”

  “Let’s get their liquor license pulled,” Melody said with a laugh. “And if they’re doing blood running, we should start spreading rumors that they’re selling tainted blood. Maybe pay some people off to claim they got sick from it.”

  Gus nodded at that. It wasn’t exactly the best way to go about this, but it wasn’t a bad way either. It’d definitely put the hurt on the SA.

  “That, too,” he said.

  “We should have their buildings inspected,” Vanessa said. “I’m sure we could get some inspectors ruffled up and make them check things out. Fire escapes, foundations, elevators, everything.

  “If our goal is to hurt their business and start engaging them, there we go.”

  “That’d give us a window to put stuff in, right?” Trish asked, looking around. “Like the listening devices? Could we recruit the inspectors to do it for us?”

  “No,” Gus said. “We couldn’t recruit them. But we could probably join them. Plant the devices ourselves. The paperwork for all those things is already signed off. We just can’t do any search and seizures.”

  “Are they active in the community at all?” Hailey asked. “Places like that usually try to get active in the community to help shield themselves.”

  “Not sure on that one,” Gus said, then looked at Chloe.

  “Don’t look at me,” said the Vampire. “Never really did any of that.”

  “I’ll check,” Trish said. “I’m sure I can just call around and ask. They wouldn’t be protective of that information, would they?”

  “No,” Melody said. “They wouldn’t. If anything, they might be more than happy to share that stuff, especially if you insinuate you’re writing a piece for the local paper.”

  “Just… keep it legal,” Gus said, feeling a bit of concern. He was surrounded by people who were the very definition of “criminals,” other than Vanessa.

  Even Trish had technically been living her life illegally as an unregistered Sorceress.

  Like I’m any better.

  “In the meantime… I’m going to see if their CEO is willing to chat with me,” Gus said. “Wouldn’t hurt to open the lines of communication. See what I can get out of her.”

  “Definitely a meeting I won’t be going to,” Chloe muttered. “If I see her, I’ll try to kill her. Then again, she might try to kill me. Never know, could go either way. She wasn’t in charge when I was there, and we didn’t see eye to eye.”

  “I’ll go with you, Gus, if no one else can make it,” Vanessa said. “I’ve already finished going through the CIs and I’m just waiting on information right now. Reaching out to some PIDs to see if they can send me any CIs they’re willing to share or part with. I could probably make it work.”

  “Great,” Gus said. “Should be fine with just the two of us.”

  “I’d… like to go out on assignment with someone,” Indali said in the silence afterward. “I’m officially registered for training… and I spoke with Deputy Director Ehrich. He signed off on an order for me to do some Fed work ahead of the classes. So long as I’m never alone.”

  Reaching into a coat pocket, Indali pulled out a piece of folded paper.

  “Okay,” Gus said before she could finish opening it.

  “I… what?” Indali looked up from the half-opened order.

  “I said okay. If you want, you can come with me on this one. It’s just a touch-base and meet-and-greet sort of thing,” Gus said. “While you’re waiting for the Fed courses to begin, it wouldn’t hurt to learn PID procedure as well.”

  “That’d probably be better,” Vanessa said with a smirk. “I’m sure I’d end up getting bombarded with calls the moment I made plans to join you.”

  “Oh! You can borrow all my textbooks,” Melody said, turning toward Indali. “It took me a bit, but I’ve actually finished with them all. Some of it was really quite dry, but worth knowing.”

  Indali nodded at Melody, looking rather excited.

  “What?” Hailey asked. “How the hell do I get to be an agent? Right now I’m just a mechanic.”

  Grimacing, Gus ran a hand through his hair. In a way, he’d expected that response from Hailey at some point.

  “Need a clear record,” Melody said, looking at Hailey. “Did you ever actually get caught for anything?”

  “Ah… no. Just… just by Gus. Gus caught me for boosting cars.” Hailey looked sheepish. “No one else ever caught me.”

  “And you didn’t charge her, right?” Melody asked Gus.

  “No. I didn’t even write a warning. Didn’t write her as a CI either, cause that can get you flagged too,” Gus said.

  “Oh? Perfect!” Melody said, turning to Hailey. “I’ll get you in Indali’s class then. You two can be class buddies!”

  Great.

  That’s… what we needed.

  “…get someone hired to help cover the desk,” Indali said, looking excited.

  “Okay. That’s all I had for this one. Read over your packets and toss them on the table here when you’re done. Otherwise, let’s start moving pieces around,” Gus said.

  After dropping his own packet on the table as an example, he moved over to the snack cart.

  He wanted something sugary right now, and it felt like a donut was calling his name.

  “Gus?”

  He reached the cart at the same time as he heard his name, then turned partly to one side.

  Indali was standing there.

  “I… brought my original material form,” she murmured. “I’d like to show it to you, if you don’t mind?”

  “Oh!” Gus said, remembering he’d once asked to see it. “Yeah, that’d be interesting. Is it at your desk or…?”

  “I put it in your office,” Indali gave him a strange smile.

  He imagined his casual removal of her record had put her on edge around him.

  “Right. Let me grab this,” Gus said, fishing out a donut, “and we’ll go look.”

  Chapter 9 - Handle Polishing

  Gus opened the dark wooden case sitting on the middle of his desk.

  Inside was a revolver. An older model he didn’t know the name for. On top of that, it didn’t really look like any revolver he was familiar with.

  He could tell it was a model with a cylinder and barrel that slid free from the handle at the top.

  Or what was known as a top-break.

  Unless his memory was failing him, that meant it was definitely an older revolver. The point where it latched together had ended up being a problem over the long term. They’d simply stopped making revolvers like this.

  Also in the case were six speed loaders that loo
ked to be custom made, a cleaning kit, and several extra pieces he couldn’t immediately identify.

  Since a Construct couldn’t really touch their own body he could only figure she had it made for someone to use her. After all, contact with their true self would instantly deconstruct their projection.

  “I wouldn’t expect you to know what I am,” Indali murmured from beside him. “I’m a Webley. A Mark Four to be specific, if that matters.”

  Gus nodded. He had indeed heard the name “Webley” in his time. He’d never held one, seen one, or fired one, however.

  British. Her accent is slightly British. Just not the way I think of British, I guess.

  “You can pick me up, if you like,” Indali said.

  Gus suddenly regretted ever having asked to see her like this. This was going in a different direction far too fast for him.

  But he couldn’t really back down now.

  Reaching into the case she’d clearly had made for herself, Gus picked Indali up.

  Because that was the reality. This revolver was Indali. What she was, what she always would be, and what she always had been. The projection standing next to him and speaking to him was only just that—a projection, made and controlled to be what it was.

  She had a good weight and fit in his hand rather well.

  Very well, in fact.

  “May I?” Gus asked, brushing a thumb against the top-break release. If he was already going this deep, he might as well explore her. He’d never seen the like of Indali, and he wasn’t sure if he ever would again.

  “Certainly. You can dry fire me once or twice as well if you like,” Indali said. “Though you might find the trigger pull a bit odd. I’m not… I’m not young. These newer constructs are always so… whatever.”

  Pushing against the latch release, Gus watched as the revolver split at the top. He reached up and gently peeled it apart, then watched as an auto-eject system moved up and slid back into place.

  “I’ve… never been modified,” Indali said. “Though thankfully, being a Construct, I’ll not suffer the fate of most of my kin. My latch won’t fail, no matter how many rounds go through me. Nor will my barrel. The parts in the case were part of my original sale and serve no use to me, but… I just couldn’t throw them out.”

  Looking down into the chamber, Gus had to wonder. It looked like a forty-five to him.

  “I’m a forty-fifty-five caliber weapon. With how rare my ammo is, I’ve bought as much as I’ve been able to over the years,” Indali said. “I also collect any brass I find on the market. I’m quite good at hand-loading spent casings now.”

  Gus closed the revolver back up and then pointed it toward the floor, looking down the sight.

  The aperture was neither great nor terrible. He’d worked with better and worse equally.

  Sliding his finger against the trigger, he slowly pulled.

  When it went off, he could see what she meant. It just didn’t feel right to him.

  Thumbing back the hammer this time, he tried the trigger again.

  Once more it just didn’t feel right. He’d almost say it was bad.

  He wasn’t going to say it out loud, however. That’d be like telling someone they were ugly.

  He moved to put Indali back in her case, then hesitated. She felt really good in the hand.

  So much that he’d momentarily thought about asking a weird and stupid question.

  If he could actually carry her around as a service weapon. Even with her severely limited ammo capacity, she felt correct in his palm.

  “I’d say yes,” Indali said. Either she had noticed, or she felt the same way he did. “I might not fire Para rounds, as they’re called, but I can guarantee whatever I fire will have a greater effect than Para rounds, or lesser if you wished. Anything… anything I shoot, I can modify by my own desire.”

  “Like what?” Gus asked, still holding on to Indali. He tightened his hand around her wood-grain handle.

  “Incendiary, hollow point, semi-jacketed with and without hollow point, or a full metal jacket,” Indali said.

  “Silver?” Gus asked, staring at the revolver in his hand. It felt odd.

  Because it felt right. Indali felt very right in his hand.

  “Some,” Indali said. “Maybe six in a day. Or you could hand-load some silver rounds yourself and take them with you. I… have a holster, and a speed-loading belt that goes with it. In my car. I wasn’t really expecting this, to be honest. I thought it was just going to be me showing you myself. Like you asked. I didn’t think it’d feel so…”

  Indali’s voice trailed off, staring at herself held tight in Gus’s hand.

  “Right. It feels right.” Gus finished the sentence for her with the same thought in his head. “Let’s go get that holster then. I have a meeting with the SA coven head in a few hours.”

  He didn’t want to put Indali down. He set her back in her case, then picked it up and tucked it under his arm instead.

  His intention was to take her case to his house and put it in his bedside table. Along with her at the end of the day.

  “We should go get some ammo,” Indali said, giving her head a shake. “And my holsters.”

  Gus didn’t disagree.

  ***

  “Good afternoon. I’m Agent Hellström. This is acting Agent Jaya,” Gus said to the receptionist. “I have an appointment to meet with Miss Sobol.”

  The young man behind the desk frowned at Gus, then looked at Indali next to him.

  “I’m her twelve-thirty,” Gus said neutrally. He really was trying to play equitably with the SA coven. He didn’t want them to feel like it was personal, like he was going after their homes or families.

  He was going to arrest them and send them to prison. Not murder them or hurt their loved ones. With any luck, they’d return the favor in kind.

  Clicking his tongue, the young man looked at the computer and typed something in rapidly. Then he turned back to Gus.

  “I’ve let Miss S—”

  Three rapid-fire chime-like noises came from the man’s computer.

  “Uhhh, oh,” he said. Then he stood up and quickly moved away from the desk. “Miss Sobol will see you immediately. Is there anything I could get you?”

  “No, but thank you for offering,” Gus said.

  “No thank you,” Indali said.

  After walking through a hallway in what Gus could only describe as a quick march, the man reached the end and opened a door.

  Gus and Indali walked in, and the door was immediately closed behind them.

  “Agents, thank you so much for making an appointment.” It was a woman’s voice.

  Looking at the owner, Gus found she was standing behind a large desk set in the corner, with windows on either side of her.

  They were ten stories up, in a decent building in a good neighborhood. It was clear the SA coven was making money.

  “Of course,” Gus said, walking over to the woman.

  She looked exactly the same as the picture he’d been working with. Though she did seem to be wearing just a bit more makeup, and she’d dressed up considerably.

  In fact, he’d say she was bordering on professionally sexy rather than professionally dressed.

  He took the hand she held out to him and shook it firmly with a smile.

  “I figured it would be a good idea to have a professional and polite meeting with you,” Gus said.

  Miss Sobol smiled at him, showing off her fangs as she shook Indali’s hand.

  “I appreciate the courtesy, Agent Hellström,” she said, then gestured at the chairs in front of her desk.

  “Call me Gus, Miss Sobol,” Gus said, taking a seat.

  “Then please call me Dunyasha,” said the Vampire as she sat down at her desk. “How would you like to begin? To be perfectly honest, I’ve never had such a meeting before. Usually they storm in, demand answers of me, and then leave.”

  “Ah, well, I’m afraid I’m not here for the pleasure of seeing you,” Gus said with
a smirk. He’d found in the last month that he could get more out of people—women, more specifically.

  He could put just a little pressure on them if he allowed himself to flirt. To compliment them and draw them in. He’d done it with Indali most recently and had clearly turned her inside out with it.

  Gus’s natural predatory instincts helped him, and he knew it. They gave him an in he wouldn’t have otherwise. Made it all the easier for him to bring women in to eat them.

  Dunyasha grinned at that, her cheeks coloring very faintly. Using the opportunity, Gus worked a speck of power into her mind and then sat there.

  Waiting.

  “I felt it would be good to let you know of several things that either have happened, are about to happen, or are happening right now,” Gus said. “Maybe answer any questions you have and let you know what I’m doing.”

  Dunyasha was still grinning, but she looked confused. Setting an elbow on her desk, she propped up her chin on it, clearly wanting to hear more.

  And she did.

  He could hear her thoughts. She wanted to know more about him, what he was doing, and how he tasted.

  “I know you’re the head of the SA coven,” Gus said with a shrug. There was a flicker of surprise in her mind that he simply came out and said it. “You’re managing it very well, and clearly you’ve brought them up from where they were. You’re succeeding where others failed, so clearly you’re not all beauty but also brains. Regrettably, that’s where our paths intersect.”

  Dunyasha was feeling incredibly complimented right now, and interested in Gus, but also extremely wary. Her thoughts were moving quicker than he could follow as he spoke to her, which was always a problem and why he normally didn’t lead interviews. Her current thoughts were moving through all the changes she’d made.

  From personnel to buildings to expenses, legal activities and illegal ones. The list of changes almost seemed endless.

  It was all also rather worthless to Gus. None of it would help him to bust her coven to nothing.