Shrouds of Darkness (17 page)

Even so, I am totally unprepared for what awaits me as I burst into the living room. Cowering in the corner behind a couch is a woman holding two, middle school-aged children. All are crying and in hysterics but that is not what shocks me.

In the center of the living room are three vampires; two white, one Jamaican-looking who’s face is buried in the open throat of a man who I assume was the father. All three look at me and smile as the Jamaican drops the lifeless body to the ground.

“Hey, mon,” the Jamaican says to me. “This house is taken. Best you go find your own, we ain’t for sharin’.”

“Yeah, go find your own,” one of the white guys warn me.

“You stupid sons of bitches. What the hell do you think you are doing?” I growl at them.

“Whatever we damn well please,” the third one arrogantly informs me. “Who’s to stop us?”

All three are new, but unfortunately, for them, they won’t be getting any wiser with age. Maybe they don’t know the rules but I’m in a particularly foul mood thanks to my lack of progress in my case and I don’t feel like taking the time to educate them.

“Me,” I tell them as I reach into my jacket and start to pull my blade.

“Just you? It don’t look like much of a fair fight, mon. There be three of us.”

“Yeah well, that’s how it is sometimes, but unless you have four or five friends in the other room it isn’t going to get any fairer.”

All three charge at me with blinding speed the moment they see my sword slide from of its sheath but they aren’t nearly as fast as I am. I am a trained fighter; these guys are hoodlums and newbie vampires at that.

I bury my sword into the Jamaican’s gut just below the sternum, but a slight dodge at the last second causes me to miss the spine I am aiming for. He flails about wildly and pulls my sword from my grip as he goes screeching and flapping about the room in panic.

The first white guy swings at me with a wild haymaker and I catch his wrist with my left hand in vice-like grip that would have pulverized the bones of a human. I pull him towards me and pivot us both around as if I’m leading him in tango. The third vamp tries to clobber me from behind but I lash out with my right leg and send him flying through the wall, shattering several studs, and laying him out inside one of the bedrooms.

I spin back towards the one caught in my grip before he can take a swing at me with his free hand, grab him by the waist of his jeans with my right hand, and heave him into a roof beam before body slamming him onto the hardwood floor with the force of a pile driver.

The Jamaican calms down enough to pull my blade free from his chest and charges me with it raised over his head, ready to split my skull like a piece of firewood. Shalonda practically leaps into my hand and the look on his face is almost comical as he stares into that gaping black cavern of a barrel. I squeeze the trigger and his head practically vanishes in the flash of the discharge.

I snatch my sword from his limp grasp before his body even hits ground. I don’t even need to look as I pirouette and take off the head of the guy I slammed into the floor just as he is rising back to his feet. This is the part in the movies where the vampire inexplicably spontaneously combusts into a pile of ash easily swept up with a dustbuster. Unfortunately, this is reality and reality is always much more messy.

A sound from the bedroom causes me to turn and I see the last vamp shaking the drywall dust from his face as he ponders his next move. We both come to the same conclusion at the same time.

“Don’t you dare…,” I begin to warn him but I’m too late and he isn’t likely to listen anyway. “…run. Damn it!”

He dives through a window before I can get a clean shot off and I immediately give chase. I pull out my phone and hit the speed dial.

“Cleanup,” I shout as soon as the other end picks up and I quickly rattle out the address. “Two rogue vamps and three human witnesses!”

I don’t wait for a reply before flipping the phone shut and pouring on the speed after the fleeing vampire. He is young but he is fast and I am barely able to keep pace with him.

Buildings fly by in a blur but I am getting no closer to my quarry and I know I need to bring this chase to end quickly as we begin nearing an area with a more active nightlife. It would not do at all to have multiple humans witness two guys tearing down the streets at speeds upwards of forty miles per hour. This is not the way I want to become a YouTube sensation.

As we burst out of an alley, I snatch up a discarded tire rim and hurl it like a discus. Even I’m impressed with myself as the steel projectile catches the runner in the back of his head and sends him tumbling. I don’t even break stride as I tear a parking meter out of the ground and advance with malicious intent.

He is already climbing back to his feet as I reach him, but a swing worthy of the major leagues from my parking meter sends him flying into the unyielding brick wall of a building amidst the chiming of flying nickels, dimes, and quarters.

The young vamp is persistent and tries to get back up but I double him over with a hit to the gut from my makeshift baseball bat then send him back down to the sidewalk with a clout to the back of his head.

I toss aside my parking meter, roll him over, and grab him by his jacket collar. “What the fuck was all that about? Are you all that damn stupid?”

It takes a moment for his eyes to stop rolling around and focus on me and when he does, he laughs in my face.

“We’re vampires, dude. We do what we want!”

I shake him roughly and bounce his head off the concrete a couple times. “Shit like that will bring heat on us, you stupid bastard! That’s why it’s against the law! Didn’t anyone ever tell you that, or are you all just so damn stupid you don’t care?”

He laughs again and his reply sends a chill down my spine. “Not for long, Malone. Things are changing and they’re changing real fast.”

That sounded eerily familiar to me and I wrack my brain trying to place it, but I don’t have time to really process it. I can already hear sirens in the distance. If the woman’s screams didn’t prompt the neighbors to call the cops, the near artillery blast from Shalonda certainly did.

“On your feet, asshole, I’m taking you downtown.”

Again, Mr. Chuckles laughs at me. “I don’t think so, cowboy.”

The kid bites down on something in his mouth and within seconds a bloody froth is running down his face as he convulses. I step away, not wanting to get whatever he took onto me, and cast about looking for something with which to take a sample.

I find a small glass vial that probably belonged to a crackhead and carefully scoop some the bloody drool into it then firmly seat the stopper in place before wiping it clean on the kid’s shirt.

I fish around in his pockets and although he doesn’t have ID, he does have a cell phone. Everyone has a cell phone. I drop the phone in my pocket, drag the body into the alley, toss it into a dumpster, and call in a cleanup with a quick warning of severe biohazard. The guy on duty gives me shit about it but I tell him to quit his bitching and send a team. I have a good idea at what the toxic pill is and I am furious, certain I have been played this entire time.

I know exactly what this poison is and the only place on the planet it is found—Vtech Pharmaceuticals, owned by Vincent Van Graff who just happens to sit in the president’s chair of the enclave and hates my guts.

My friend, Dr. Wallis, the one that tried to find a cure and burned himself to death when he failed, had inadvertently developed the most effective means of killing his own kind ever devised. In the very small circle of people that know of its existence, it is simply known as the Cure.

Immediately upon being informed of Dr. Wallis’s disastrous failure, Vincent had all samples and every piece of data placed under bio safety level four in his top research lab.

Whether this is related to my werewolf hunt or not, I don’t care. All I care about right now is putting a boot up someone’s ass for jerking me around, and I have a good idea whose ass is a prime candidate and where it is currently planted.

I find a payphone and call the security desk. “Mr. Van Graff,” I say as soon as the front desk picks up.

“One moment, I’ll transfer you.”

I hang up immediately. If Vincent hadn’t been there they wouldn’t have bothered transferring me to his office phone. I figured he was in despite the late hour. The man is almost always at the office despite owning a spectacular home upstate.

A short jog gets me to a street where cabs are running and I quickly flag one down. It drives me into Manhattan and drops me off in front of the massive office building. I don’t ask the driver to wait.

Probably the murderous look in my eyes makes the solitary guard stand up and come around the desk to intercept me. He pulls out a taser but is far too slow. I whip Shalonda up and put a round through his kneecap. Had he not been a vampire it likely would have taken the lower limb completely off. As it is, he simply drops and hurls expletives at me while he grabs at his ruined leg.

I roll him onto his stomach, handcuff his hands behind his back, and take his elevator key to the upper floors.  Despite being one of the fastest elevator designs in use, it takes far too long for me to reach the top.

When the doors finally open, I storm down the hall and kick in the decorative yet solid double doors leading into Vincent’s palatial office suite. Although expected, I am still disappointed by his lack of reaction to my violent intrusion.

“Mr. Malone, I see the years have down nothing to improve your subtlety or tact. If you have information about the case you need to share with me that you feel warrants more than a phone call, you can simply schedule an appointment and I will grant you permission for an audience at my convenience. There is no need to shoot the help and ruin my doors.”

I toss the vial of frothy pink poison on his desk. “Like you gave permission to your minion to ingest this?”

“And what might this be?” the senior vampire asks as he reaches towards the vial.

“Just a sample of the Cure I scooped out of a dead vamp’s mouth a few minutes ago.”

Again, I am impressed with the old vamp’s composure as he casually withdraws his reaching hand. Most people would have leapt half way across the room when faced with the most deadly poison to their kind in the world.

“I see.”

“Do you? Because I sure as fuck don’t! I don’t see how some dirt bag vampire so new he still has teeth marks in his neck got a hold of that when you are supposed to be the only person with access to it! Can you explain that to me? Can you explain why you have me chasing after a single werewolf when it seems we have an influx of rogue vampires running around fucking shit up in my neighborhood?”

Vincent casually scoops the vial into his trashcan with a sheet of paper and regards me intently before answering.

“In regards to the poison, I will perform an internal audit of our samples and security. It is not your concern. Any unlawful vampire predation is currently being dealt with by the appropriate authorities, of which you are no longer a part. Continue your search for Mr. Goldstein as I directed you. Neither the Cure nor vampires are your concern.”

“Not my concern!  I have vampires packing poison and murdering people without regard for secrecy right in my ward. How is that not my concern?”