Requiem: A Montague & Strong Detective Novel (Montague & Strong Case Files Book 13)

by Orlando A. Sanchez

  I materialized Ebonsoul and closed my eyes. I took several deep breaths and channeled the energy into my blade. When I opened my eyes, an iridescent violet shield covered my skin.

  Monty’s brow was covered in sweat and I saw him juggling a pair of larger teleportation circles—only, these were perpendicular to the ground, not flat on it.

  “Now!” Monty yelled, getting to his feet. “Go!”

  I jumped over the hood of the car and slid across in my best TJ Hooker move. Douglas turned at my sudden movement and extended a hand in my direction.

  “Ignisvitae!” I yelled as I charged him, extending my own arm.

  A beam of bright violet energy shot forward, slamming into Douglas. He fell to one knee and began laughing. I kept charging. He extended his arm palm first, aimed at me. The now blue beam of energy punched into me, but I still kept charging. Douglas opened his eyes wide in surprise and poured more energy into the beam.

  It turned a deep blue and I could feel the heat cooking my skin even through the dawnward. My charge had been reduced to a slow walk and I could hear Douglas laugh.

  “Your shield can’t hold out forever, Strong,” Douglas yelled. “I’m going to end you where you stand, and then I’m going to blast this place to atoms.”

  Douglas extended his other arm, firing another beam of deep blue heat. The two beams merged into one as it hit my dawnward. I was no longer moving forward. Douglas was covered in orange energy as he poured more power into reducing me to ashes.

  I didn’t dare look away. Keeping the dawnward up was taking all of my concentration. If I looked away, even for a second, I would lose its protection and Douglas would disintegrate me.

  “Anytime you feel like lending a hand would be great,” I said through clenched teeth as I started slipping back and losing ground. “I’m beginning to get a third-degree suntan here.”

  “No one is going to mourn you, Strong,” Douglas said with another laugh. “You will be forgotten. Your life was meaningless, but your death will help me usher in a new age. Goodbye.”

  Douglas took a deep breath and poured even more power into his attack. I started seeing parts of the dawnward thin. Douglas was bathed in orange energy and I saw blood start to pour from his nose and eyes.

  “Shit! Monty?” I yelled. “He’s going to blow!”

  “I know,” Monty said. “Hold on.”

  I saw the first teleportation circle hit Douglas and disappear him just as my dawnward failed. When he reappeared, he was easily a hundred feet above us and falling. Monty moved his hands in a circular motion and whispered something I couldn’t understand. The second circle turned on its axis and became parallel to the ground. It went from green to violet tinged with black.

  Monty stepped forward and stomped on the ground, creating a shockwave that blasted me away as he extended his arms upward into the second circle.

  The second circle raced upward and intercepted the falling Douglas, vanishing him from sight.

  “Where did he go?” I said, stumbling over to where Monty stood looking up.

  “There,” Monty said, pointing. “That’s him.”

  I saw a distant orange glow that looked like a mini-sun. It pulsed several times, increasing in size.

  “That’s him?” I asked, surprised. “How far up is he?”

  “I would say about fifty kilometers,” Monty said, gesturing again. “Avert your gaze.”

  I turned away as the mini-sun exploded. Monty formed a dark violet shield above us, diffusing the light from the blast. I felt a flash of heat as Douglas detonated in the atmosphere and lit up the night sky.

  All of the windows in the buildings adjacent to Haven shattered, along with the glass in all of the vehicles surrounding the building for several blocks.

  Car alarms screamed into the night, a symphony of chaos as the blast from Douglas’ explosion slowly expanded across the sky.

  “He’s dead?” I asked. “I mean, really dead?”

  Monty narrowed his eyes and looked up into the night sky. After a few seconds, he nodded.

  “He’s gone,” Monty said, before heading toward Haven’s lobby. “It’s over.”

  “Can we not do that again, ever?”

  “I didn’t want to do it this time,” Monty said and touched my arm. “It would seem the jacket was projectile resistant, but not heat resistant.”

  I looked down and realized I was in my charred shirt. My arms were baked a dark red, but my curse was working overtime to heal the damage from Douglas’ blue beam of death.

  “It did its job,” I said as we walked slowly into Haven. “Feelds tried to put three in me. It stopped them all.”

  “Did you…?”

  “I let her go,” I said. “Maybe she won’t make the stupid choice next time, if there is a next time.”

  “There is always a next time, Simon,” Monty said, pressing the button to the elevator. It took us a moment to realize all the electronics in the building were disabled. “The explosion must have unleashed an EMP.”

  I pulled out my phone as it rang.

  “I guess the pulse wasn’t strong enough, or Hack has some next level equipment,” I said, looking at the number and wincing. “Ramirez.”

  “That one is all yours,” Monty said. “I’m going to go upstairs and sleep for a few days. Enjoy the conversation.”

  Monty headed for the stairwell and went upstairs.

  “Angel,” I said in my most cordial voice. “How are things?”

  “How are things?” Angel said, then took a deep breath. “HOW ARE THINGS?”

  I held the phone away from my head as Angel spent the next five minutes cursing me out. Most of the curses were in Spanish, and all of them were extra creative. I winced at some of the suggestions. A few of them were just anatomically impossible, though that didn’t stop him from repeating them several times. When I felt he had calmed down, I brought the phone to my head again.

  “You might get a call from the government about an explosion above the city,” I said and held my breath waiting for another outburst. All I got was silence. “Angel?”

  “Why would I be getting a call from the government about an explosion above my city, Simon?” Ramirez asked, his voice sounding tired. “Don’t you dare bullshit me about this. I need all the details. If not, I will be directing them to a certain explosive detective agency I know.”

  “I’ll explain it all over dinner,” I said. “Masa, on me.”

  “You better believe it’s on you,” Ramirez said, somewhat mollified. He loved Masa and leapt at any chance he got to eat there. “Bring your wallet, because I’m bringing my appetite.”

  “Deal,” I said, suddenly weary. “It’s been a long night, Angel. I’ll call you in a few days.”

  “You do that,” Ramirez said. “West Broadway is a mess, with some fatalities.”

  “How bad?”

  “One John Doe and plenty of property damage. The manager of the TINYs got caught in some kind of blast a few blocks away, but he’s going to pull through. His staff wasn’t so lucky, though. Three of them were incinerated on the spot; I don’t know how he survived.”

  “It wasn’t his time, I guess.”

  “Guess not.”

  “Any information on what caused the blast?”

  “My team is leaning toward to gas main Why? You have any information?’

  “No,” I lied. “Just wondering. I’m going to call it a night. Be safe out there.”

  “If you’re going to be indoors, it’s safer already.”

  Ramirez hung up and I looked up into the night sky. Douglas’ blast cloud was still spreading out like a borealis. My curse had restored my body, healing me. It couldn’t do anything about my mental exhaustion; I would have to deal with that on my own. I shook myself alert and headed over to 2nd Avenue.

  I just had one more stop to make.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  Douglas’ trailer sat alone near the pier on the East River.

  I knew it was a trap. I was co
unting on it. It had taken me the better part of three hours to find it. I reached out to some old contacts and needed to call in several favors, but eventually, I managed to locate the double-wide trailer.

  I knew it was too large to hide in a conventional parking garage. The damn thing was just too wide to fit down any of the ramps. No self-respecting garage in the city would let that beast in. The only alternative was to get it out of the city by boat.

  My contacts had informed me of the ghost ferry: an illegal ferry service used to move contraband. Anything you wanted could be smuggled out of the city—for a price. Douglas’ trailer was on the schedule for tonight.

  The ferry was scheduled to arrive in an hour. There was no way I was going to let that trailer leave the city. This was going to be a world of pain, and register high in the suckage factor, but it was the only way to make it look real.

  It was still early. The East River esplanade was empty in the early hours of the morning, except for the Shadow Company trailer, which easily took up four spots. I walked down 34th Street to the parking lot, keeping an eye on Pier 11, which was where the ghost ferry would dock to pick up its cargo.

  This was going to go one of two ways: Either I would reach the trailer and together, we would go up in a blaze of glory, or I would reach the trailer and get dropped the second I reached the door. Both options required pain, but I was tired of being flambéed tonight. I was really hoping for the second option.

  I smiled and shook my head when I realized that out of the two options, getting gunned down was the one I preferred. My life had seriously become twisted.

  I reached the trailer door and felt the first suppressed round hit me. Contrary to the illusion of film, suppressed rounds aren’t whisper quiet. That only happens in the imaginations of directors. A real suppressed round isn’t much quieter than a normal round fired from an unsuppressed weapon.

  A rapid series of clack clack punched into my midsection, spinning me away from the door. I drew Grim Whisper, staggered for a few feet and collapsed, falling backward and remaining still—waiting. My body flushed hot as it dealt with the rounds and damage. They hurt like hell, and I wished I still had the runed jacket. I heard the footsteps a few minutes later.

  “That’s what happens when you get old and slow,” Carlos said into the night. “You get dead.”

  He raised his weapon for the killing blow. Shadow Company SOP was three body shots center mass and a double-tap to the head. I was counting on Carlos following protocol. I got lucky—if he had managed the double-tap, I’d still be recovering.

  Or I’d be dead.

  I raised Grim Whisper and fired twice, blowing out each of his knees. He screamed into the night. Combat armor is especially good at keeping major organs protected; the joints, less so. The material around the knees is thinner by design to allow for mobility and running. Great for evasion, horrible for stopping rounds. He fell to his ruined knees with a grunt of agony.

  “Hello, Carlos,” I said, stripping him of his gun. “You waiting for Douglas?”

  “He’s going to fuck you up, freak,” Carlos snarled. “When he gets here, you’ll see.”

  He started laughing and for a brief moment, I pitied him. He had drunk the Kool-Aid and bought into Douglas’ line of human superiority. Together, they were going to cleanse the world of all non-humans and create a utopia where Douglas would rule, and all who didn’t fall in line would be eliminated, or cast out.

  “You are truly too clueless to live.”

  “Douglas is going to end you, old man,” Carlos said in between the laughter. “You are so dead.”

  “You first,” I said, putting a round through his temple and ending his life.

  I picked up his lifeless body and placed it in the trailer. I moved back what I thought was a safe distance and focused.

  “Ignisvitae,” I whispered, sending a beam of violet energy at the trailer.

  The beam widened as it crossed the esplanade until it was two feet wide. It punched into the side of the trailer, detonating the ordnance inside. A massive fireball bloomed into the sky. I stepped back and sent two more beams of energy at the trailer, making sure nothing was left except molten slag.

  A few minutes later, I heard the helicopter and walked away, staying under the FDR overpass until I was several blocks away. Sirens filled the night and my phone rang.

  I looked at the screen and saw Ramirez’s number. I let it go to voicemail. I would explain it to Angel in a few days. Right now, all I wanted was a strong cup of coffee and my bed.

  I made my way over to 1st Avenue and hailed a taxi. I took my life into my hands and stepped into the first one that stopped.

  “Out late tonight,” the driver said with an infectious smile. “Where to?”

  From his accent, I could tell he was from Southeast Asia. The Randy Rump would be an unwise choice right now, so I opted for my fallback coffee shop.

  “Last Gasp,” I said. “Do you know it?”

  The driver nodded. I read his identification tag on the dash and saw his name was Raj Chandran. His picture was next to his name. The same infectious smile beamed at me. At least he enjoyed his job.

  “Best coffee in the city,” Raj said with a chuckle. “Crutch keeps it open 24/7 now. All the cabbies drink there after the night shift. Before, too; all the time, actually.”

  “Perfect,” I said, resting my head back and closing my eyes as the sun peeked over the horizon. “Coffee is what I need right now. That, and about a week of sleep. Raj, I’ll double the meter if you get me there in one piece.”

  “No guarantees,” Raj said with a head wobble, laughing as he floored the gas. “Hold on.”

  I held on.

  THE END

  Author Notes

  Thank you for reading this story and jumping back into the Monty & Strong World.

  Disclaimer: The Author Notes are written at the very end of the process. This section is not seen by the ART or my amazing Jeditor—Audrey. Any typos or errors following this disclaimer are mine and mine alone.

  Here we are…13 books in and counting! WOW!

  Thank you for joining me in this incredible adventure. If you had asked me when I first started writing Monty & Strong how many books long the series would be, I would have answered, this is going to be a trilogy.

  No more.

  Obviously MS&P had other ideas. Those of you who are in the MoB Family know of my trials and tribulations keeping my stories to a predetermined length. In the case of M&S, I never thought it would go this long back when I started Tombyards & Butterflies. That quickly changed.

  REQUIEM was a nice departure from the usual M&S story. We uncovered some of Simon’s past (Monty’s too) and dealt with the subject of our present being formed by the choices of our past. This will come up in future books. Badb Catha will not forget the terms.

  The next few books will deal with themes that have been interwoven in the previous 13 books. There will be much upheaval, danger, death, and explosions—or what M&S call Friday. The next book, DIVINE INTERVENTION, will touch on some deities crashing into Monty & Simon’s lives. Some we know, others, not so much. All of them will have their own agendas, with some of them wishing harm on the Terrible Trio.

  Simon will get to experience firsthand what it means to be the ‘Marked of Kali’. It promises to be dangerous and fun, well, maybe not so much fun for him. Monty still has to deal with the effects of his schism and increase in power, plus there is the small matter of owing Badb Catha a favor. I think Dex may have a few (loud) words to say about that conversation.

  I didn’t forget SEPIA BLUE. Her last book DEMON will be out sometime this year as well as the next Night Warden story NOCTURNE MELODY, which promises to be a fun, if dark book, which is the usual for Grey & Co. It’s possible Simon makes a cameo in that one. It’s way past time he and Frank had a ‘conversation’ about Frank’s influence on a certain hellhound.

  As I have always said, out of the several series I have the privilege of writing(q
uite a few at this point), this one is by far one of the easiest for me. The stories flow freely and it’s usually a matter of my trying to keep up with the story as it unfolds in my head.

  As I write these author notes, it gets harder and harder to share what’s coming without revealing spoilers. I can only say that the next batch of books in the M&S series will be a blast and I hope that you join me on that adventure. I will also be focusing on closing some of the short story series, most of which are trilogies. This will allow me to focus on the larger books(M&S, Night Warden Sepia Blue, Darkin, Designers, John Kane, to name a few off the top of my head. I’m sure I missed one or two) that are in the schedule.

  As always, this book answered some questions, and in so doing raised a ton more. It can’t be helped. I promise to get to all the questions eventually. It may take 30-40 books, but I’ll get there at some point.

  As long as you keep reading, I’ll keep writing.

  Once again, I wanted to share what an incredible honor and pleasure it is to be able to write these stories for you, my amazing readers. On the days when it’s more work than play (there are a few), knowing that I’m writing this story for you helps me get through the rough patches when I want to just a fling a asteroid at the planet and call it a day.

  Thank you again for taking the time to read this story. I wrote it for you and I hope you enjoyed spending some time with Simon as he confronted the parts of his past he preferred to keep buried. This time, it was Monty who did his best to be a good friend and brother to the reluctant immortal. Simon will continue to grow, maybe even getting a hang of the dawnward. If not, I’m sure there is no shortage of mages willing to give him a few lessons on the painful execution of certain casts.

  Whether or not Simon gets it, will be discovered in future books, What I do know, is that he will always do his best while striving to be a worthy bondmate to his ever-ravenous hellhound, Peaches—who we all love.

  If you enjoyed this story—please leave a review. It’s really important and helps the book (and me).