by J. P. Rice
Randall cocked his head to the side. “Come on, June. Is it just a crazy co-winky-dink that you show up right when rumors of Lugh’s Spear are running rampant?”
“Maybe. There have been stranger coincidences,” I mumbled. “I have heard a word or two about the Spear. What do you two know?”
Lauren leaned over her desk and scooped up a pack of Nicorette. Good for her. She was a ‘two packs a day’ gal the last time I’d seen her. She shoved the gum into her mouth, and as she chewed it, she said, “Nothing good. He said this. But she said this. It’s all just hot air now. Bunch of different stories with no similar pattern to follow. No real bites. With that said, there’s a hell of a lot of barking going on around the city.”
Good. I didn’t need to be chasing that cursed object again. “Hasn’t that happened a hundred times before only to end up being blown out of proportion?”
“Not wit’ the amount of chatter we hearin’ right now. I don’t want to say nothin’ that could turn out to be bullshit. Even if it does turn up around here, yinz ain’t got nothin’ to worry about with Mike Merlino around.”
“What the fook is a Mike Merlino?” I asked, confused.
Lauren stuffed her gum in her cheek. She giggled as she said, “No. His name’s Mike Merlino. He seems to have a lot of titles, but he’s been dubbed the magical guardian of Pittsburgh, sent by the Celtic Gods to protect the city.”
The words felt like a dagger being plunged into my chest. Pittsburgh was my city. And the Gods had just twisted the blade. “I’ve heard a few things about this kid.”
Lauren shook her head, eyes wide. “Oh, he’s no kid.” She counted on her fingers as she continued, “He’s already defeated the Jersey Devil, the Sendal Spirits, saved the city from the dragons of Sleepy Willow, liberated Sleepy Willow of the tyrannical King Ballistar and rescued Cyclone Woman so that the tornadoes would stop.”
Hearing it all laid out made for a proper resume. I had to figure out how to use this kid to my advantage. “How long has he been the guardian for? Ten? Fifteen years?”
Randall stated bluntly, “Less than two.” He waved two fingers, unnecessarily reinforcing his words.
Holy shit. That meant he had a great deal of magical power that would only grow with time. Much as I’d like to write him off and go about my business, I couldn’t underestimate this little shit. “Is there anything else going on around here?”
Randall held two long fingers horizontally in front of his chest. “Two of the four horsemen was spotted a few weeks back.” He thought for a moment, tapping his chin with his fingers. “Nah. Spotted is an understatement. Them mufuggers caused a damn ruckus down at the strip club on 31st Street.”
“Which two?” I asked.
“Arn and Ole. They started wrestling each other and the bouncers tried to break it up and it just went haywire from there,” Lauren said and spit her gum into the wastebasket next to her desk.
I couldn’t believe it. Something big was brewing in my city. “War and Famine are in Pittsburgh. What else do you know?”
Randall shrugged his shoulders. “That’s it. None of our sources spoke directly to either of them. So we ain’t sure what their purpose is.”
Their purpose was always clear. Wherever they went, death followed. Was it connected to Lugh’s Spear? The Horsemen were an ominous precursor to say the least.
Lauren handed me a small, rectangular object. I asked, “What’s this?”
She narrowed her eyes and appeared confused. “It’s a cell phone.”
“I see that. I thought it had something crazy worked into it like a James Bond gadget.” Being out of the mythical relic hunting game had provided a lot of time to binge read a lot of books and watch plenty of television shows and movies. I missed having access to the Celtic Library and the Sacred Pages of magic secrets, so I had entertained myself mostly with Netflix and my Kindle.
Lauren pointed at the phone as she spoke, “It makes phone calls and sends texts, nothing crazy. When you called earlier and said you were stopping by, it didn’t give me much time. But I just uploaded the numbers of all your former contacts into this phone. I don’t know if they are current, but these numbers were all I had to go on from your files.”
“I suppose I will need a new phone, no matter how much I hate technology.” I went to stuff it in my pocket.
Lauren’s eyes lit up as if she had just remembered a great secret. “Oh wait, there is one cool feature on this. Let me see it.”
I handed the phone to Lauren. She backed up, pressed a few buttons on it and pointed it at me. A loud camera click sounded, and Lauren walked up to me. She showed me the screen of my headshot. Not to be too narcissistic, but I looked damn good for my age.
“You can take a picture of someone else, even just their head, and then project a full body image of the person. Down to every exact inch.” She pressed a button at the bottom of the picture and a beam of light sprang from the phone.
It projected a life-size image of my head and then it filled in my body, including the clothes I was wearing. It was like looking in a mirror, exact height too. Lauren said, “You can use this if you are trying to shift to look like someone else. You probably don’t need it with your skills, but this will give you a full image of their body so you can replicate it exactly.”
“That might come in handy if I ever remember to use it,” I joked.
Lauren added, “Well, it’s the only special thing this phone does so there won’t be a bunch of apps to confuse you.”
“And there’s one other thing yinz’ll be needing.” Randall jiggled a set of keys in his hand as he approached me. “Your company car awaits in the garage at the end of the block. There’s directions on the passenger seat to your new town house. Give it a few hours so we can stock it with food and supplies. Then, she’s all yours.”
“Thank you. It was so nice to see both of you. I’ll be back soon.” I hugged them again and went on my way.
I picked up my chariot in the form of a modified Jeep Wrangler with a 6-inch suspension lift. The red apple body with chromed step bars and edging made for a bad ass vehicle well suited for off-roading. In this crazy business, having those capabilities could only help. As I drove down the street, I dialed up a six-hundred-year-old vampire whom I needed to visit.
Chapter 5
Lexis, the female vampire concierge, knocked on Jonathan’s office door. A muffled yell sounded from inside. She opened the door and poked her head in the crack. “Jonathan, Gale is here to see you. She doesn’t have an...”
I heard a familiar voice cut her off, “Send her in right away.”
Gale Sutherland was my undercover name. I used it for obvious reasons. Lexis pushed the door open and I strolled into the beautifully decorated office with museum quality paintings hanging on the walls. Picasso. Marc Chagall. It was a regular who’s who of famous artists.
My gaze quickly landed on Guernica and a jolt of pride shot through me. I stared at the Picasso piece that represented the German bombings of the town named Guernica. I shivered thinking about the death and destruction in Guernica.
However, I also realized how much additional mayhem I had stopped by taking the spear away from the Nazis. The pride was laced with a bitter sweetness knowing if the spear ever landed in the wrong hands, it could spell doom.
A dirty-blond man stood near the two chairs facing Jonathan’s desk. “I’m glad we can still work together. Let me know if you hear anything else I might need to know.”
“Absolutely,” Jonathan told him as he walked across the room to meet me.
Jonathan looked tiny standing next to this strapping young man who appeared to be a vampire, but a damn sexy one at that. It was like an old King Arthur next to a young and mighty Lancelot. Jonathan had a round, pumpkin-colored face, gray eyes and long, ebony hair tied in a ponytail. His orange-tinted skin separated him from the other vampires who were ghostly white.
The blond man, although pale and sweaty, had chiseled facial features, a s
trong jawline and a perfect smile. I looked down shyly, caught off guard by the sparkling circular slivers of sapphire irises that were barely visible because of his dime-sized pupils. I wasn’t attracted to him sexually due to my allegiance to my husband, but I could appreciate a handsome man when I saw one.
“Hello,” he said, nodding with a smirk as he walked by.
“Hi,” I responded and stepped to the side.
The young man opened the door and turned around with the knob in his hand. “I’ll talk to you later, Jonathan.”
“All right, Mike,” Jonathan said and waved at him, but he focused his attention squarely on me.
Mike? That wasn’t? Was it? It was. The Golden Boy. The blond hair. On second thought, he wasn’t that good-looking. Average at best, really. Other than my husband, there was only one man who stirred those kinds of feelings inside me. And he wasn’t Mike Mungino or whatever his name was.
I cut right through the pleasantries and said what was on my mind, “So that’s the Golden Boy of Pittsburgh, huh?”
Decked out in a deep purple suit with a dovetail jacket and a black bow tie, Jonathan held his arms out at his sides. Our greeting probably seemed cold, but I didn’t touch vampires in fear that they would try to sap my powers, and Jonathan understood that.
The short vampire said, “Hey, June. How the hell have you been for the past three decades? You act like we saw each other last week. And how the hell do you look younger?”
Jonathan knew me better than most. He could tell when I was getting mad and knew how to change the subject to keep me from blowing up. I went with him for now, but I wanted to know what association he shared with Mike.
“Sorry,” I apologized, and stared at his Guernica painting on the wall again. “I just keep hearing about that kid everywhere I go. By the way, I wanted to thank you for keeping the agency open. I’ll pay you back when I hit up my buried treasures.”
Jonathan waved me off. He probably had more money than he could ever spend. Not only were there priceless paintings hanging on the wall but he had shelves filled with antiques that one would find in a museum. Jonathan picked up a remote control from his desk and pressed a button with his thumb. Heavy metal blasted from speakers hidden in the walls. He pressed the remote again, lowering the volume until it reached a low background level.
I continued in a calmer tone, “As for me, I’d love to say the last thirty years have been great. The first twenty, not so much, but after I escaped the near-death experience at the Red Cavern, I went down south and just lived. For once, I just lived. No worrying about anyone except myself. I didn’t worry about someone sneaking up behind me and sticking an enchanted knife in my back. I just lived.”
“That sounds great. Like a drink?” he offered, raising his eyebrow.
“It was wonderful. And a drink sounds wonderful too. How about a Sazerac? I discovered them down south. Does your crew know how to make one?” I inquired.
Jonathan shrugged his shoulders and took his jacket off, folding it neatly. “We have rye whiskey, bitters, absinthe and simple syrup at our disposal. Unless you substitute bourbon, which we have as well.”
I shook my head. “I prefer the classic.”
“Fair enough. Our bartender is properly trained, so worry not, young lady. He knows to coat the glass with absinthe first. What are you doing back in these parts?” he asked as he laid his jacket over the back of the chair. He sat down at his ornate desk, picked up the corded phone receiver and pressed a few buttons on the base.
I sat down on the chair on my right. “Mainly here to see my father, but I’m too scared to go to his house now that I’m so close.”
Jonathan Rickleshaw told everyone that he was over six hundred years old, but I knew the truth. After some heavy drinking about a hundred years ago, he’d spilled the beans to me and three other people. Even in his inebriated condition, he’d forced us to swear under an oath that we wouldn’t tell anyone his secrets, or we would suffer immediate death.
The vampire had been true to his word. Two of the men died within two months of Jonathan’s revelation, serving as a firm reminder to keep my mouth shut. As far as I knew, only three people who were still alive knew this story. Two were sitting in this room.
Jonathan’s father was none other than Vlad the Impaler. When his father had turned into a vampire and fled Wallachia, Vlad IV Dracul the Monk vowed not to follow in his father’s footsteps. After being exiled to Transylvania for twenty years, he’d ascended to the Wallachian throne.
Due to civil and regional unrest, Vlad IV knew he had no choice but to fake his own death and flee his homeland. He allowed himself to be turned, and once he had vampire blood coursing through him, his closest subjects stuffed him into a coffin.
They sneaked Vlad out of Wallachia and released him from the casket. He traveled west through Europe, eventually finding passage to the United States in the late 1800s. Vlad IV Dracul the Monk became Jonathan Rickleshaw the Vampire. Over the years, he’d developed a stranglehold on the rare antique auction business in Pittsburgh.
Ironically, his father, Vlad Dracul the Impaler now lived in the demon underworld called the Red Cavern.
Jonathan held his finger in the air in the “one second” pose and spoke into the phone receiver. “Yes, Shane. I’m in my office. I need my usual and my friend would like a Sazerac.” He paused for a few moments and glanced at me. “Yeah, better make it a double. Thank you.” He hung up the phone, slid back in his chair and kicked his feet up on the desk. “Does your father’s new family still give you a hard time?”
“Psshh. Hard time. Louis and Mary Antoinette got off light compared to this. Their eyes pierce my soul like a restless dagger in the dead of night. They strike cowardly. In groups. Using their blond pigtails like spiked whips. They gang up on me and all the while I could easily kill all of them on the spot. I don’t know why I put up with it if we are being honest.”
“Ah, being civilized is vastly overrated,” he said, cracking a smile.
I’d come to Pittsburgh over one hundred years ago because of Jonathan. We’d met in Sleepy Willow and he recommended this city because it had a strong, yet secret supernatural element. As to when the vampires had arrived in Pittsburgh, I’d never been able to get a straight answer. The most common answer was 1850.
I had a friendly relationship with a lot of the vampires, but I always remembered they were bloodthirsty animals. And I didn’t intend to demean animals or vampires, just to state that they are both animalistic in nature. Driven by primal needs.
I asked, “So how is everything with you?”
Jonathan’s eyes widened as if he had a lot to say. “Since I last saw you, us vampires finally got our shit together and organized a set of rules to abide by. I’m happy to say it’s been rather effective. We developed the Midnight Council with one representative from each house. Since its inception, all the houses have stopped working against each other. No more infighting amongst ourselves, and no more heat from Johnny Law. The latest development would be that a group of wolves attacked one of my men who simply went to see my lawyer.”
Werewolves and vampires hated each other. They both constantly thought the other was infringing on their turf and well-being. Vampires could kill lycanthropes in unconventional ways and vice versa. With that in mind, it surprised me these spats didn’t occur more frequently. A war between the two factions would be detrimental to Pittsburgh.
“Why would they do that? Was Octavius there?” I asked and unzipped my jacket the rest of the way.
“As for the latter question, no. It was at my lawyer’s house. Roydell went up to deliver a package to my lawyer and they jumped him. He took out a few of them first, but then he succumbed to the assault. Brave warrior. Regarding the former question, who knows why they do that voodoo that they do, so well,” he stated with a clever grin.
I chuckled at his Blazing Saddles reference, but this was a serious situation. The wolves killing a vampire out of the blue made no sense. Even as
natural enemies, neither side was stupid enough to start a war. Were they? “Are they trying to start a war?”
He swung his feet down and leaned over his desk, his normally orange face bordering on burgundy. “That’s what it seems like. If so, they got one. I’ll be more than happy to oblige. More than fucking happy. They are asking for something they can’t handle. I’ll tell you that, June,” he said, eyes wide and filled with blood lust.
My calm, cool and collected friend had transformed into a beast. If there was a huge pile of coke on his desk, this could be a cut scene from the end of Scarface. My man was losing it.
I had to reverse his tactic on him and change the subject before he started foaming at the mouth. “Have you heard anything about Darabond?”
Jonathan pursed his lips, causing his cheeks to wrinkle. He shook his head as if the question disgusted him. “June, I’ll be honest with you. I haven’t been asking around like I used to, but I haven’t heard anything on the matter. Good or bad. I hope I can count on you not to run over to Octavius’ side.”
Jonathan knew better than to force me to choose a side. He differed drastically from the cerebral vampire I remembered. I barely recognized this animated immortal, ready to act on emotional impulse. That meant either Jonathan had changed dramatically, or he had already exhausted his peaceful reasoning and was moving on to the next step. Or had I changed?
I’d destroyed so much in my past. So many beautiful creatures. I could admit that I regretted some of my actions. Now was my chance to be a peacemaker. A new Junipher. A moral Junipher.
I’d known Octavius for over fifty years. Maybe I could work out this wrinkle and heal my tainted soul in the process. It couldn’t hurt the prospect of my induction into the Celtic Pantheon either. In fact, it would bolster it.
I suggested, “Why don’t I sit down with Octavius as your representative and solve this problem? I know I’ve been away for a while, but I know him well and he’ll listen to me.”
Jonathan’s glossy eyes, still filled with rage, stared at me as he rose slowly from his chair. “He owes us big for what he did to Roydell.”