Dave Carver (Book 1): Thicker Than Blood (18 page)

Chapter 24

The little bell tinged as I stepped through the door into the Rabbit’s Hat. More than two dozen faces turned to look at me. Confusion morphed to fear as the baby magicians of New York spotted an unfamiliar face. They were already packed even closer together than necessary in the cramped confines of the store, but they compacted themselves even more, like a herd of prey animals closing around their young.

The largest of them, a six-four, two-twenty-something wearing a leather dog collar stepped in front of a group of college-aged girls and raised his hand. Electric pink sparks danced on his fingernails.

I didn’t want to hurt this kid, but I’d had a bad day. My hand was inside my jacket, wrapped around the hilt of my knife before I thought better of it. A voice called my name from the back of the store.

Dallas stood behind the register, holding a brown-paper package. A sixteen-year-old girl was on the other side, a twenty dollar bill in her hand, her mouth dangling open in fear. The wizard’s voice had none of the mocking sarcasm I’d heard the last time I spoke to him. Now it was heavy with formality. “Is there something I can help the Round Table with?”

Like someone letting out a held breath, the tension in the store evaporated. Something was in the air, I guessed, that was scaring these kids and making them suspicious of anyone they didn’t know. Dog-collar-boy lowered his hands, the sparks disappearing, and nodded respectfully.

I returned his nod and squeezed through the sardine confines of Dallas’s store. The girl who’d been paying for her merchandise scurried over to stand with her friends behind what looked like half a whale skeleton. I leaned against the counter and said to Steve Dallas, “I need to talk to you.”

Dallas clicked his tongue and looked over my shoulder at the crowded shop. “Of course.” We went into the back room and he dropped himself into his chair with a palpable heaviness. “What do you need? As you can see, I have a business to run.” He shook his head and leaned back in his chair. He looked tired. “There’s something in the air. I’ve had every minor talent in town in here. They’re all looking for ingredients for defensive spells. I don’t know what’s going down, but it’s bad.” He played with a pencil. “Most of these kids don’t have the magical juice for anything stronger than a minor ward. If something comes for them, they won’t be able to stop it.” He looked at me suddenly, as if noticing for the first time that I was there. “Anyway, what did you need?”

“A pyramid trap,” I said.

Dallas breathed heavily. He took off his Mets cap and ran his hands through thick, curly, dark hair. “You know, Jack McCreary came here a couple of weeks before he died, and he asked me about that same thing.”

“You don’t say.”

Dallas folded his arms over his chest and scowled. “What the hell is going on here? The whole town’s about ready to go up like a tinderbox and you’re in here asking me about ancient Egyptian warding spells. The same question, I should add, that a dead man asked me.”

“I’m not sure what’s going on,” I said. “But whatever it is, a pyramid trap’s mixed up in it. I just need to know who McCreary would have gone to to set one up.”

“Well…”

“It’s important. Something seriously shady’s going on, and I need to stop it.”

Dallas nodded. “Right, right. Of course. His name’s Abelard Taylor. Real powerful sorcerer. Into all those old-school magics.”

“Where can I find him?”

The wizard hesitated. “It’s just…Taylor’s pretty solitary. Doesn’t take kindly to visitors. I told McCreary about him because I knew him. I trusted him. No offense, Captain, but I don’t want to go around spreading his address all over town.”

I pointed at the closed office door behind me. “You know those kids out there? They’re right to be scared. There are vampires coming to New York. Probably a couple thousand of them. And if I can’t figure out what this pyramid trap was for, I’m not gonna be able to stop them. Those kids are gonna die. So am I. So are you, for that matter, along with most people in this city.”

Dallas sighed heavily, but he pulled a clean sheet of paper from his sketchpad, scribbled something on it with his pencil. He lives a few blocks from here. Tell him you know me and he’ll probably talk to you.”

“Probably?”

A smile. “Either that, or he’ll turn you into a pillar of salt. I told you: He’s really old school.”

I folded the note and put it in my jacket pocket. “Comforting. Thanks, Dallas.”

As I turned to leave, Dallas called to my back. “Hey, Captain.”

“Call me Dave,” I said, turning around. “What?”

“You’re gonna stop this—whatever it is—right?”

“I’m gonna try.”

“Need my help?”

It was interesting offer. A wizard of Dallas’s caliber could be a force to be reckoned with. It might be helpful to have him on my side. But on the other hand…

“No, thanks. Stay here. If I don’t make it, you’re gonna be the city’s last hope—the world’s last hope.”

His face turned slightly green, but he laughed. “So no pressure or anything.”

“None at all, my friend.” I shook his hand. “Take care of these kids out there. And take care of yourself.”

He laughed again. “Brother, that’s what I’m best at.” A somber expression came across his face. “Seriously—good luck, Dave.”

I gave him a crisp nod. “Thanks, Dallas.”

Abelard Taylor lived in the Flatiron District, near Union Square Park. I walked, despite the cold, savoring the icy air in my lungs. My blood was heated with the thrill of a hunt. I was closing in on…something. I didn’t know what it was, yet, but I knew I was only a few blocks away from answers. I had to fight the urge to break into a sprint.

The building was four stories tall. Once upon a time, the old brick building would have been a giant in Manhattan, but time and technology had turned it into a dwarf. Now, its neighbors towered over it like titanic stalks of corn.

I slowed down to a more professional, confident gait as I entered the lobby. There were no tenants or employees that I could see, but just in case I slipped into “act like I belong” mode. That’s always the best way to get into someplace you don’t belong: just pretend like you do. Most of the time, if you look confident enough, no one’s gonna stop you. I took the stairs two at a time to the third floor. I emerged from the surprisingly clean staircase into a long, narrow hall. There was a buzz, kind of like the hum of fluorescent lights hanging around the edges of my consciousness. It wasn’t a physical sensation, but I recognized it from the few times I had visited May’s family’s home.

Magic. Someone had been using magic in this place, a lot, and for a long period of time. The power had settled into the air and become inseparable from the fabric of reality that made up the building. Definitely the right place, then.

I stopped in front of the door marked 312. Like its neighbors the brass numbers were  shined and polished. It was made of the same dark wood, but unlike the other doors in the hall, the the middle was covered with scratches. Deep gouges, like someone had come at the door with a knife, were hacked into the wood. Upon closer inspection it was clear that these markings weren’t haphazard. They were methodical, surgical cuts. Symbols. Nearest the doorknob, one of the markings looked like a children’s game of hangman. I didn’t know what it meant, but I was careful not to touch it when I knocked.

No answer. I waited a heartbeat and tried again. Still nothing. I put an ear close to the door and listened. I didn’t hear any movement. The hairs on the back of my neck straightened up. Something was wrong. I knocked a third time. “Mr. Taylor?” I called. “My name’s Dave Carver. I’m a…friend of Steve Dallas’s. I need to ask you a couple of questions.”

Still no answer. But then, I hadn’t been expecting one.

I drew my knife and put my hand on the doorknob. The door swung inwards.

I swallowed and looked inside—careful to keep my toes on my side of the threshold. Taylor’s home was cluttered. From where I was standing, I could only see the living room. The only furniture was a comfy-looking recliner and a cheap wooden end table. The table, like most of the floor, was covered high with stacks of books. Old volumes, most of them, leather-bound and dusty. The ones with titles on the spines were in foreign languages or strange pictorial symbols. I couldn't decipher any of them.

Beyond the living room, the apartment was dark. I couldn’t see anything.

“Mr. Taylor,” I said again, even louder this time, “Abelard Taylor. I’m going to come in, okay?”

Nothing.

I didn’t want to enter the home of a magician without explicit permission. I knew too many stories about wayward children who were turned into pigs or worse because they ventured into the wrong house. They were faery tales—literally—but that didn’t mean they had no basis in truth.

Well—no balls, no glory. I stuck a toe over the threshold and shut my eyes, waiting for the sky to explode.

Nothing happened. There was no flash of light. I wasn’t incinerated or transformed. It felt like entering any apartment. Any empty apartment. You know that feeling you get when someone’s in the house with you. You may not be able to see or hear them, but you can tell they’re there. Nothing magical about that—it’s just something humans can do. Anyway, there was nothing like that here. This apartment was empty.

A wary creature in my guts growled a warning.

“Anyone home?” I said.

I slipped past the living room and headed for the short hall in the back of the apartment. As I went, I checked every door. Den? Empty. Kitchen? Empty. Bathroom? Could use a cleaning, but empty.

Finally, I reached the last door. It was open a crack. With the hilt of my knife, I pushed it the rest of the way open.

Taylor’s bedroom was barely large enough to contain the king-sized mattress and box-spring in the middle of the room. Its edges pushed up right against the dresser on one side and the half-open closet door on the other. The bed was as cluttered with old books as the rest of the apartment.

So cluttered, in fact, that it took me a moment to notice the body.

The dead man—I assumed he was Abelard Taylor—was old. His short, messy hair and well-trimmed beard were snow white. His face was wrinkled. His eyes, staring sightlessly at the ceiling, were sky blue. His hands were wrapped in the sheets in his death throes.

Blood soaked the front of his nightshirt.

I swore and ran to the side of the bed. He was still warm, so he hadn’t been dead very long. He had a smooth, straight cut across his throat. For a horrible moment, I remembered Kim’s death wound, but this was different. This was deeper. It was long and ruler-straight. The edges were slightly blackened, like the blade had been giving off a lot of heat. There was only one weapon that left a mark like that.

Abelard Taylor had been killed by a sword of the Round Table.

“Odd place to run into you, Mr. Carver,” a familiarly accented voice said from behind me. The closet door was open and Roberto stood in its mouth. He held his hands next to his head. They were covered with blood. There was a wicked smile on his face.

“I know what you’re thinking,” he said, “but I did not kill this man.”

Chapter 25

The vampire was dressed in black: silk shirt, pressed slacks, freshly shined shoes. Except for the black blood at the corners of his mouth and his busted nose, he didn’t look like someone who’d just lost a battle. He smiled, but it seemed strained. He was missing teeth. His eyes were focused on the bed.

I pointed the knife at him. “What are you doing here?”

“Technically, we’re both trespassing. I suppose I could ask you the same question.”

“You’re a vampire and I just found you standing over a dead body,” I said. “You don’t want to be playing games with me.”

“I already told you, I had nothing to do with that.”

“Uh-huh. Next you’ll tell me you don’t drink blood—you’re just a tomato juice fan.”

His eyes narrowed. “Believe what you wish, but I didn’t kill this man.”

Even while he was talking to me, Roberto didn’t look away from Abelard Taylor. I lowered my knife. Just because he hadn’t killed Taylor (and I believed him, despite my arguments—Taylor’s wounds obviously hadn’t come from a vampire’s teeth), didn’t mean Roberto wasn’t dangerous. He nodded conspiratorially and lowered his hands.

“What are you doing here?” I said again.

He hesitated, chuckled, and shook his head. “No, I don’t think I can tell you that.”

“Why not?”

“Because we, as you were so eager to point out the last time we met, are not friends.”

I snorted. “Fair enough. So what happens now?”

“It seems to me we have two options. First, we each go our separate ways and pretend we never saw the other. Or, second…”

He let the thought dangle in the air. It wasn’t hard to see what he was getting at. I rolled my shoulders and tightened my grip on the knife. I didn’t want to fight Roberto, not in the cramped bedroom. He was faster than me, stronger than me, and, unlike a lot of vampires, he knew how to use those advantages in a fight. But I also couldn’t let him walk away, not without answering for what he’d done. He was the reason that Rob and Madison were hurt. He was responsible for the deaths of McCreary and Kim. He was a danger to my friends, my city.

More than that, though, he was the one had overseen my torture.

He had to pay for that.

I lunged at the vampire. There was a blur of motion as Roberto crossed the room, too fast to track. He slammed his open palm against my chest, hard enough to make me gasp, and grabbed my throat. I tumbled backwards over the blood-soaked bedsheets to land in the tiny section of space between the mattress and the apartment’s back wall.

Roberto followed me. He kneeled on my chest, his clawed fingernails digging into the scar tissue around my throat. He leaned in close, his black eyes shining, and whispered, “I was supposed to bring you in alive, but do you know how many of my people have fallen trying to capture you? He’ll have to learn to live without you.”

I had no idea what he was talking about. What I did know was this: Fingers like sharpened steel girders were wrapped around my windpipe. Black spots were forming at the edges of my vision. I didn’t have much time left.

Instinct—pure, desperate, entirely human will to survive—took over, and I kneed Roberto in the midsection. The vampire grunted and loosened his grip. It was just for a moment, but that was long enough for me to roll under the bed. I just missed a slash from Roberto’s claws that would have taken one of my eyeballs. He hit the floor, sending splinters of wood flying in the air. I sent a kick at the side of his head. It rocked with a nauseating crack. I had no doubt that, if he’d been human, I would have broken his neck.

As it was, though, Roberto let out a lupine howl and reached under the bed.

I belly-crawled to the other side, just managing to keep my foot out of his grasp. I had dropped the knife earlier, and I looked around desperately now. Ah-hah—there it was! It had fallen under the bed and was covered by the draping edge of Taylor’s comforter.

I flung myself out from under the bed, grabbing the hilt of the knife as I went. When I came to my feet, I was once more armed.

Roberto vaulted over the bed, eyes black and fangs extended. The tips of his leather shoe caught the bloody sheets, and he went sprawling to the floor in an awkward lump. I dropped a boot down on his wrist. There was a crunching noise like gravel going through a garbage disposal, and Roberto screamed in pain.

He pushed himself to his feet with one good arm. The other hand hung limply. He hissed like a cornered tomcat. Venom dripped from his fangs and fell to the floor.

“I will not explain to the elders that let you escape again,” he said. “You
will
join us. One way or another.”

Vampires only produce that much venom when they’re going to use it. Roberto wasn’t looking to simply kill me—he was going to turn me into a vampire.

I darted to my right, heading for the foot of the bed. Roberto took the bait. I stopped short and reversed direction. Roberto was a good twenty pounds lighter than me, but his momentum weighed him down. I stabbed him in the back of the shoulder.

He howled and spun around. I pulled the knife free.

The blade was pointing out as he tackled me.

I closed my eyes as I hit the floor. The vampire’s full weight was on me, but it was still. I opened my eyes. The knife was buried to the hilt in the vampire’s throat. He smiled. A dagger in the neck isn’t normally enough to kill a vamp. But this, remember, was no ordinary knife. It had been forged with the same magic as the swords of the Round Table. And, like its bigger brothers, the knife could kill things that were otherwise near-invulnerable.

Black blood dripped from his mouth. Roberto coughed and wiped the blood with the back of his hand. “I don’t understand.” The words were accompanied with a bubbling sound.

The knife broke whatever dark power had kept Roberto alive so long past his expiration date. He slumped and rolled off of me. The gray skin withered like paper at the edges of a bonfire, followed by the muscles and the internal organs. All that remained was a beige skeleton with a fanged skull. For a moment Roberto’s bones lay on the wooden floor, and then they, too, dissolved into so much dust.

The whole thing had taken a few seconds. I spat a mouthful of dust out of my mouth and used my T-shirt to wipe blood off my face.

I looked at the pile of dust and felt…nothing. Roberto had been the special vampire in charge of the Guyana facility. He’d directed my torture and now he was dead. I should have been doing backflips. But I had more work to do. Maybe that was the problem.

My fight with Roberto had been short, but also violent and loud. I needed to get out of here before some well-meaning busybody neighbor called the cops. I took one last look around the room. Taylor’s eyes were still open, staring without seeing at the ceiling. I shook my head.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered.

An electronic beeping sounded from the pile of Roberto’s soiled clothing. I poked through the dusty silk and found a cell phone. The screen said the caller was Unknown. I flipped it open and said, “Hello?”

There was someone on the other end of the line. I heard him breathing. For a moment, we stood in silence. Then he hung up.

I frowned and stared at the phone. “That was weird.”

I was out of Taylor’s apartment, about a dozen steps from the stairwell door when it opened. A tall, thin, well-dressed man stood in the shadowy doorway. He looked at me for a long moment until an ironic smile split his face. He stepped onto the carpeted hall and nodded politely. I’d never seen him outside of a dark warehouse in a desolate section of Brooklyn, but I instantly recognized Ambassador Flavian.

Before I made a conscious choice to do it, the knife was in my hand and I was crossing the hall. I grabbed Flavian by the lapel and forced him back into the stairs. I pushed my knife against his throat. He let me manhandle him, which should have surprised me, but I was too keyed up with adrenaline and aggression to notice.

I slammed the door with the heel of a boot and scowled at the vampire. He raised his hands and continued to smile. I was so close I could have counted the pores in his nose.

“I am having a
monumentally
bad day,” I snarled. “And it’s mostly been because of you and your people. So what don’t you give me a good reason not to puncture your Adam’s apple?”

He shrugged as casually as if we were discussing the weather. “Because you don’t want to do that.”

“No? Why’s that?”

“Because I have some information that you might find very interesting.”

“Such as?”

“To begin with, I know a few things about the artifact you’re seeking—the Gauntlet of Greckhite.” He leaned forward like a teen girl passing on a juicy bit of gossip. “And, perhaps more intriguingly, not only can I give you the identity of the traitor in your order, I can assist you in apprehending him.”

I hesitated. If Flavian was telling the truth, I could use his help in taking the guy who was a real threat to the city. Maybe he knew where Loretta was hiding. But…he was a vampire. By default that meant he was a liar.

“Why should I trust you?”

“I would’t, were I in your shoes,” he said. “But what choice do you have?”

I pushed the knife even harder into his throat. It was so sharp, his skin so thin, that it took very little pressure to break the skin. Drops of black blood welled up on the skin. “Do better than that.”

He shook his head. “How about this: Because I need you as much as you need the information in my possession. I know you don’t believe me, but I’m not your enemy. I am not interested in destroying, or subjugating, the human race. It is possible for our two peoples to coexist in an equitable peace. There is a man who is a dreadful threat to that goal. I expect that I can’t stop him. But you can. You, Captain Carver, are in a unique position to remove that threat.”

“Enemy of my enemy, huh?”

He sighed. “If you insist on thinking of it in those terms, then yes. The enemy of your enemy is your friend.”

“Or at least a temporary ally,” I said. “So tell me.”

“First I’d like you to sheathe your blade.”

After a moment’s hesitation, I put the knife away. I half-expected the vampire to go for my throat, but it didn’t happen. Instead, Flavian nodded respectfully and turned around. “Follow me, please.”

“Wait a minute,” I said. “You have some things to tell me.”

“Yes, Captain, and I will. But not here. There are elements to this story that a voice other than mine will tell better.”

He continued down the stairs, seeming in no hurry, but he moved fast. In a few heartbeats, he was out of sight.

This is a trap,
I thought.
Right?
It had to be. Why else would this important vampire want to help me? Especially when you considered that I’d insulted him publicly. He expected me to believe that he was taking a sabbatical from being a monster and was auditioning for the role of wise, old man?

The weird thing was, I believed him. Maybe it was desperation, the pathetic attempts of a man caught in the current of a raging river, but, for the first time, I thought this vampire was telling me the truth. I needed to take the chance. I still had the knife, if nothing else. If Flavian turned out to be a better liar than I expected, I could at least take the son of a bitch with me.

“What the hell?” I said, and I followed Flavian down the stairs.

A man—a human, man—stood on the sidewalk, dressed in a black suit and sunglasses. He held an umbrella over Flavian’s head as he escorted the ambassador through the sunny streets and into the back of a limousine.

The windows of the long black car were tinted so that no sunlight got in. There was a small battery-powered lamp in the center console, which Flavian flicked on. The man in the suit got into the front, which was separated from our cabin by soundproof glass, and started to drive.

This wasn’t the first time that I’d ridden in a car that had been custom-fitted for vampire transport, so I was prepared for the way it felt like riding in a tin can, but it was still unpleasant and claustrophobic. Flavian flicked idly though a magazine, never once raising his eyes to meet mine. I stared at the opaque window and tried to see if I could spontaneously develop X-ray vision.

We were’t driving very long before the limo pulled over to the side of the road. The door opened and the man with umbrella was back, blocking the sun. Flavian climbed out of the car, staying within the safety provided by the umbrella.

We were somewhere in midtown, even if I didn’t recognize the exact street.. I followed the vampire and his human retainer into a high-rise office building. Once we were in the lobby, the man in the suit spun with military precision and stared out at the early afternoon traffic. Flavian and I crossed the polished floor of the lobby, got in the elevator and, rode it in a silence that was rapidly becoming uncomfortable.

When we reached the top floor, Flavian led the way through a small, empty reception area. The ambassador pulled a single key out of the pocket of his jacket and opened the door next to the desk.

Without a word, he entered the room. I followed.

The room looked like the penthouse that it was. Leather couches and chairs were artfully arranged the room with careful attention to
feng shui
. There were huge, black curtains hanging over the windows along the back wall. An orb of blue light hung from the ceiling, in the place which would normally hold a chandelier.