Day Killer (City of Crows Book 5)

by Coulson, Clara

  Contents

  Books by Clara Coulson

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  DSI Encyclopedia Entry #2104

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  To Be Continued

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  About Clara Coulson

  Day Killer

  A City of Crows Novel

  Clara Coulson

  Day Killer

  Copyright © 2018 by Clara Coulson

  Cover Design by Rebecca Frank at http://bookcovers.rebeccafrank.design/

  All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except where permitted by law.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and events are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locations is entirely coincidental.

  For more information:

  http://www.claracoulson.com/

  To contact the author, email claracoulson.author@gmail.com

  Books by Clara Coulson

  CITY OF CROWS

  Soul Breaker

  Shade Chaser

  Wraith Hunter

  Doom Sayer

  Day Killer

  TALES FROM THE CITY OF CROWS

  Dream Snatcher

  LARK NATION

  Hunter of the Night

  Speaker of the Lost

  Watcher of the Dead (upcoming)

  KING & CROWN

  Lock & Key

  Ask & Answer (upcoming)

  Dystopian and cyberpunk thrillers under the pen name Therin Knite.

  ECHOVERSE

  Echoes

  Epitaphs

  Encodings (upcoming)

  STAND-ALONE NOVELS

  Solace

  SHORT STORIES

  Venus in Red

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  To everybody who thought things changed a lot in the last book. Hah!

  DSI Encyclopedia Entry #2104

  Vampire

  A vampire is a being with human DNA corrupted by the blood of an unknown Eververse creature that walked the Earth many millennia ago. Vampires possess heightened senses, superhuman strength and speed, and a considerable healing factor that makes them extremely difficult to kill. Vampires do not age, nor do they contract human illnesses; they only ever experience death through violent means.

  Humans who ingest vampire blood and then die within forty-eight hours are liable to become vampires themselves, due to a transformational mechanism in vampire blood. This is how the majority of new vampires are created, and such vampires are referred to as “turned vampires.”

  However, there is a another, smaller group of vampires, called “born vampires,” who are vampires from birth. These vampires are direct descendants of the original vampires, and only two born vampires can successfully conceive a child. Turned vampires are sterile and cannot have children.

  In general, born vampires have greater abilities than the turned variety, which is why they have controlled vampire society since its inception. Born vampires are organized into “noble houses,” in the style of the European gentry, and in modern times, these houses put forth representatives who act on behalf of the noble families in the International Vampire Parliament, the ruling body of the Vampire Federation.

  WARNING: A DSI agent should never engage a rogue vampire in combat alone. Only confront a vampire with the support of a full detective team, and preferably more than one team. Fighting a vampire alone yields fatal results in approximately ninety-two percent of cases.

  Chapter One

  The new DSI building looks like a fortress.

  When I sidle my truck up to the sidewalk across the street from the address I was given a few weeks ago, my first thought is that someone’s playing a trick on Cal Kinsey, team baby, punching bag extraordinaire. Because I can’t imagine what a building like this must’ve cost, especially one constructed in so short a timeframe. But the sign on the intimidating fence, complete with razor wire running along the top, does indeed say Department of Supernatural Investigations, and as I focus my eyes on that fence, nudging my magic sense, I discover the faint auras of numerous wards embedded in the thick posts and surrounding chain links. Yup. The new DSI office, all right.

  Mayor Burbank must’ve thrown a literal tantrum in order to get the budget committee to approve this.

  The building is three stories, shorter than the old office, but it encompasses twice the area, with four identifiable wings pointing in each cardinal direction. The windows are considerably smaller than the regular corporate office variety we used to have, and the walls are a stern slate-gray material that appears to be some sort of actual stone, or at least a thick façade over steel bones. The garage is an entirely separate structure, and it’s twice as big as the old one, with an expanded fleet of SUVs and vans to match.

  Even from the street, I can see signs of strengthened security measures around the entrances. Additional wards. High-tech scanners. Multiple guard posts.

  I expected a sturdier building and more attention to office security in the wake of Delos’ assault on the old office that almost brought the roof down over our heads, but I honestly didn’t expect the city government to allow us to take it this far. It looks like somebody dropped a military base smack dab in the middle of downtown Aurora. Literally. In the middle. All four ends of the city are roughly equidistant from this location. Another tactically sound decision.

  I have a funny feeling somebody named Riker might’ve had a big hand in all this.

  Rapping my fingers on the steering wheel, I debate whether or not to drive up to the fence gate and say hello. I haven’t been back in the city since I was discharged from St. Bartholomew’s and shipped off to a physical therapy course at a facility two hours downstate. I lived in a short-term stay apartment there, on DSI’s dime, while some of the best doctors in the country tried vainly to figure out how to get my ruined right hand in working order again.

  With a sigh, I lean back in the seat and tug my glove off. The scar on the back of my hand is about the size of a quarter. The scar on my palm is about eight times bigger, where all the bones and tendons and blood vessels in my hand got blasted into the tile on the fifth floor of the old DSI office when Commissioner Bollinger shot me after revealing his forced treachery. Even now, three months later, I remember the horror like it was yesterday. That awful, hope-leeching horror of betrayal. The horror of watching a man I admired, a man I trusted, wax poetic about how he was going to send me to my death at Delos’ hands.

  I also lost a kidney in that attack, but I can function with one of those. It’s the hand that’s the problem. The doctors were great, they did everything they could, even some experimental, cutting-edge surgeries, but after months of working my hand until it hurt to twitch my fingers, I can still barely hold a gun. I
can’t write worth a damn either. The only thing I can really do without too much effort is grasp a fork or spoon. Which does me a fat lot of good in a battle situation.

  Of course, I knew this would happen when I gave Lucian’s gift of vampire blood to Lassiter, but Lassiter needed it more than I did. The head injury he got while fighting one of the first infected practitioners in Delos’ curse plot would’ve killed him or left him a vegetable until the rest of his body finally broke down. That wasn’t an acceptable outcome to me. So I gave him the blood. And it worked. He’s made close to a full recovery, from what I hear. He’s already back on the job, though he’s stuck on desk work for a few more months. Balance problems or something.

  Even vampire blood isn’t a perfect cure-all. Its effects diminish when you apply it to older injuries. It doesn’t work on scars at all.

  I prod my palm—some places have no feeling, thanks to nerve damage—and then slip my glove back on. Putting the truck back into drive, I pull away from the sidewalk and head past the DSI building. Everyone’s been sending me cards and flowers and free food and all sorts of other crap while I’ve been away, a mountain of apologies for their inability to help me after Delos falsely accused me of being a spy and tried to brainwash me, and I know if I go in that the pity train will keep on chugging. I don’t think I can handle it right now. I’m moping enough on my own.

  It’s not an easy thing to accept I can’t be a detective anymore. That the next time I clock in for a shift, I’ll be escorted to a desk somewhere, dropped off like a package, and left behind to sit at a computer while everyone else runs off to save the day. But I can’t be in the field, fighting bad guys, if I can’t use most of my weapons. One hand’s not going to cut it.

  I suppose my only consolation is that Riker’s stuck at a desk too.

  Hey, maybe I can get a desk outside his big commissioner office, and we can brood together over our lunch breaks.

  God, I can’t imagine what a bad mood Riker’s been in since he got bumped up from elite captain to commissioner…after shooting the last commissioner in the head in order to save my life. According to some of the texts and calls I’ve gotten from various people in the know, he’s been pretty close to unbearable to everyone in his immediate vicinity, including Mayor Burbank, who’s bowed to pretty much every demand Riker has made in the past three months. (See: the new, massive, heavily fortified DSI building that probably cost half the city’s yearly budget.)

  On one hand, his forceful, no-nonsense attitude has pushed DSI into a much better position, giving us the chance to properly combat the rising supernatural threats to the city. On the other hand, Riker’s a scary son of a bitch when he’s mad. He’s made people cry.

  (No, not me. I’ve cried in plenty of other situations though. Probably around a hundred situations since I joined DSI.)

  (Damn, I cry a lot, don’t I? Must be the PTSD.)

  Anyway, DSI has changed a lot while I’ve been away. And I guess I’ve changed too.

  Only time will tell whether any of those changes pan out, or crash and burn.

  I drive on for another ten minutes, vaguely heading in the direction of my apartment. As I do, I survey Aurora at large, looking for signs of recent supernatural conflict. But despite the glaring exception of the construction site where the Wellington Wallace Convention Center used to be, everything in the city looks to be in working order. The Methuselah Group has gone dark in the wake of Delos’ arrest, any and all remaining members moving underground so as to avoid arrest by DSI or the ICM. They’ll be back eventually, of course, once they replenish their numbers and appoint a new local leader keen on terrorizing the city.

  The rest of the city’s supernatural criminals have been subdued as well in recent weeks, according to Ella. Likely the result of Delos’ curse epidemic, where over a hundred innocent people died and hundreds more were sickened. The National Guard quarantined the city. There was rioting. Looting. A curfew. A near total social breakdown. It was a massive shakeup. Threw everyone off. Even the low-brow supernatural criminals had to take a breather. I’m sure they’ll be back to committing “regular” acts of violence and mayhem soon enough, just like Methuselah.

  On a whim, I swing into an Arby’s drive-thru to grab some dinner. Just as I’m rattling off my order, something starts ringing in the passenger seat of the truck. It’s not my phone—that’s in the cup holder—so I lean over, unzip the backpack in the seat, and slip out the iPad I must’ve accidentally left on when I was packing my stuff for move-out earlier. As I suspected, I have an incoming video call from a familiar person.

  I dig a wad of cash out of my pocket and pull up to the window to pay. While the lady is busy counting my change, I hit the answer prompt on the tablet screen, and a pretty blond appears. “Look who’s awake way too early in the morning,” I drawl, “again.”

  Cooper, who’d been eying something off screen, jumps at the sound of my voice. Then he purses his lips. “My sleeping habits are much better than yours. You don’t get to judge. I just work weird hours here.”

  “Here” is a secret facility on the outskirts of Omsk, Russia that Cooper was unceremoniously shipped off to as punishment for helping me escape the DSI office when Delos came to arrest me. At first, I planned to do everything in my power to get Cooper back on American soil, but when it became clear that I’d be out of the field for several months, we decided it might be best for Coop to play out the six-month term as a researcher, like the project leaders wanted. He’s making a crap-ton of money, and the work interests him. And despite being in the literal tundra, he seems to be pretty content where he is.

  I have a feeling he’d have ended up much less happy if he’d been here to witness my shitty behavior in the first few weeks of my rehab course. It was a good call, on Ella’s part, suggesting he stay in Russia. I never did thank her for that. I’ll make sure to do it first thing when I finally drum up the courage to walk into the new DSI building.

  Grabbing my change, I drive up to the second window and wait for my food. “Yeah, yeah, weird hours researching weird stuff,” I say to Cooper. “Any cool tidbits you can tell me about today?”

  He shakes his head. “Sorry, all top-secret stuff today. If I speak a word of it, I’ll probably end up in a shallow grave in the permafrost.” He chuckles, but there’s something about the sound that isn’t quite genuine. I take in his expression. Relieved, like usual, to see me in relative good health. Happy but also mildly irritated, like usual, because we can only talk for a short time each day, due to the great distance between us. Tired, like usual, from an erratic work schedule, the project leaders always redirecting the focus of whatever experiments they’re running based on milestone results.

  At first glance, Cooper seems to be in his normal mood. There’s an edge to it, however, that I can’t identify. It’s not exactly fear or worry. Maybe apprehension.

  “Something happen?” I say, reaching out the window to snatch my food bag. I drop it into my lap, pull away from the restaurant, and seek out a place I can stop to eat so I don’t have to juggle food and a video call while driving. Last thing I need is a reckless driving citation my first day back in town.

  “Can’t slip anything past you, huh?” Cooper nibbles on his lip, eyes downcast.

  “Nope. Not at this point. I’ve gotten really good at reading your face, since that’s pretty much all I ever see.” I say the words in a ribbing tone, rounding back to a joke we’ve been beating to death for months. Because the Omsk project is so secretive, all the employees’ outside communications are heavily monitored. So Cooper and I can’t get away with anything even remotely sexual without creating an amateur porno for some guy at a security desk. As a result, we’ve been stuck in a somewhat…frustrated state, nothing passing between us but cheesy romance lines and wink-wink hints about future sexual encounters. Bah. Long-distance relationships suck.

  Cooper smiles, but again, the expression is weighed down by whatever he’s hesitating to tell me. “Well, I could give you
a nice show, but I’m not fond of peeping toms, so I’m going to have to pass.”

  A nice park two blocks down catches my attention, and I head toward it. “All right, Coop. Stop beating around the bush. What’s bothering you?”

  He scratches the back of his head. “It’s not that anything bad has happened. It’s just that I’m slightly uncomfortable with the direction some of the research topics are taking. Especially as we move further from theoretical stuff and closer to actual applications. I don’t think the project heads are ‘up to anything,’ of course, but I think in some respects, a good portion of the work being done is creeping toward morally dubious.”

  The tension in my back eases as I parallel park next to the sidewalk that borders the park. “Is that all?” I ask, picking up the tablet so he can get a better view of me. “Look, if you feel uncomfortable with the stuff they’ve assigned to you, then lodge a complaint. Maybe they can move you to some other work. I’m sure they won’t force you to keep going a direction you can’t support, if you make your objections known.”

  I dig around in the Arby’s bag and grab my sandwich. “Hell, maybe they don’t even realize that what they’re doing might be construed as reprehensible. Those scientist types can wear blinders sometimes. Tell them what you don’t like, make sure they’re aware of the possible issues, and be firm in your convictions.”