I opened my eyes and saw that the lights were on now. Getting up from the floor with sore testicles, a pounding head, and no hands to help wasn’t the easiest thing I’ve ever done, but I managed. Then I turned to face the lady who had just kicked my ass.
She was above average height, about 5’8”, with broad shoulders under a short-sleeved T-shirt, with a pair of tight jeans below. The biceps revealed by the short sleeves said the lady had some acquaintance with lifting weights. Her brown hair was in tight curls and she wore it in a style that in a black woman I’d have called an afro. Under the hair was a round face about midway between plain and pretty, and its angry expression didn’t exactly make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Neither did the big revolver in her right hand.
I drew breath to speak – I had in mind to say something along the lines of “Who the hell are you?” – but she waved me quiet with a slash of her free hand. “Don’t talk until I tell you,” she said. Seeing that I wasn’t going to disobey, she went on, “I bet your ballsac hurts pretty bad, huh? I want you to think about how much worse it’d hurt if a put a bullet into it – which is just what I’m gonna do if you try to call in your vamp buddy from outside. Understand? Just nod.”
I dipped my head a couple of times, because I had no trouble believing that she meant every word she’d said.
“Good,” she said. “We’re going upstairs now.” She gestured with the gun barrel. “You first.”
She walked me to a staircase that must have been twenty feet wide. It was made of highly polished wood, like everything else in my field of vision.
She stayed several steps behind me as we climbed the stairs – a good, professional distance. I wondered if she’d been a professional bodyguard, either private or government, at some time. I didn’t try any TV hero shit on the steps, mainly because I had no desire to sing soprano for the rest of my life, however long that might be.
I hadn’t been paying attention before, but now I could hear the music coming from someplace upstairs. I recognized Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries,” but only because I’ve seen Zombie Apocalypse Now three times.
We went up two flights of stairs and turned right, then right again. That brought us to a long hall with a door at the end that seemed to be the source of the music, which seemed really loud now. No wonder Wilson, or whoever was up here, hadn’t been tempted by Scar’s Siren song.
When we reached the door, the woman knocked loudly. She had to do it three times, but then the Valkyries’ singing was suddenly cut off mid-note. From inside a male voice called, “What?”
“It’s me, sir,” she called. “We have a guest.”
“Come.”
She opened the door and motioned me inside ahead of her. I stepped into the kind of room you’d expect a rich fuck like Patton Wilson to hang around in – rich carpet, oil paintings, a big, overflowing bookshelf, and more polished wood. In the middle of it all was a desk that was probably some kind of antique, and behind the desk was the man himself.
If Patton Wilson was surprised to see me, he didn’t let it show. “You’re early, Markowski – by about a month. After the election, I was going to have you fired, preferably in disgrace, then kill you – right after you watched me stake that vamp bitch you call your daughter.”
He looked at me as if waiting for a response, but I didn’t want to get shot, especially now. So I turned to the woman, who was standing in the open doorway and raised my eyebrows.
She understood what I meant and said, “Yeah, you can talk now.” She looked at Wilson and said, “I told him downstairs that I’d shoot him in the balls if he opened his mouth without permission.”
He laughed with delight. “Sound idea. And you may get to do it yet.”
He looked at me and said, “What do you think of her, Markowski? Quite formidable, no? Meet Sheila Barnard, formerly of the US Secret Service.”
Turning to her, he said, “Sheila, this is Detective Sergeant Stanley Markowski, of the police department’s Occult Crimes Unit.”
“She beat me up downstairs,” I said. “I figured that was as good as an introduction.”
Karl was outside, somewhere. With his acute vampire senses, he might well hear me if I yelled for him to come in. Problem was, he’d get here just in time to see me dying on the floor with a bullet in my crotch.
“Would you care to tell me what happened to my guards?” Wilson asked me. “Not that it matters much – I’ll be leaving here tomorrow, since the police apparently know about this place. But I am curious how you did it, Markowski – been polishing up your commando skills, have you?”
As long as we were talking, he wouldn’t tell Sheila to kill me, so I’d talk all night and into the morning, given a chance.
“No, I’m not the commando type. I found a Siren.”
He frowned at me. “A police siren? That doesn’t make any sense.”
“No, a real Siren – like in The Odyssey.”
The frown got deeper. “Such creatures really exist?”
“They sure do. I found one singing in a rock band, and put her on the back of a flatbed truck, with the rest of the band and some amplifiers. Your guards were last seen chasing the truck down Scranton Road, and the singing won’t stop until the last one drops from exhaustion.”
“Thus giving me another reason why these so-called supernaturals need to be put down, like the dangerous dogs they are. And they will be, one day. Every last one of them.”
“Helter-skelter,” I said. “The great ‘race war’ between humans and supes.”
“Exactly.”
“You seem awful confident that humans are going to come out on top in that one.”
“Of course we will. It’s all part of God’s plan.”
Psychos. They all claim to know God’s plan. Trouble is, none of them can agree on what it is.
“Uh-huh,” I said. “And God told you to use the Delatassos – the same kind of creatures you say you despise so much?”
“Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord,” Wilson quoted. “But that doesn’t restrict Him as to the tools he might use, does it?”
“And Slattery – he’s one of your tools?” I said. “And that vampire, Dimitri Kaspar?”
“Don’t be tiresome, Markowski. Of course they are. And very useful tools, too – for the time being.”
Wilson pushed his chair back and stood. “Now, then. The last time you were my unwilling guest, I kept you alive because I thought you might be useful to me. I won’t make that mistake again.”
He turned to the woman. “Sheila, take him downstairs, if you would. When you’re done, come back up here – I have another job for you.” He looked at me then, and the hatred in his eyes was like a living force. “It involves Sergeant Markowski’s daughter.”
That was the worst mistake he could have made, because it pushed me into “nothing left to lose” territory. If I was going to die anyway, it might as well be here. Karl could settle up the score for me, and at least Christine would be safe. I quietly drew in a big breath, to be sure that my last words – Come in, Karl! – would be loud enough for my partner to hear through the wall.
“Goodbye, Markowski,” Wilson said. “I wish I could say I’ve enjoyed our little talks, but frankly–”
That was as far as he got before the bam of a gunshot sounded from the hall – a shot that went into the back of Sheila Barnard’s head and exited through the front in a spray of blood and bone.
The former Secret Service agent toppled forward onto her face – what was left of it, that is. A good amount of the tissue was now decorating the wall opposite where she’d been standing. Some of the gore had even splattered Wilson himself, ruining what I’d figured to be a five-thousand-dollar suit.
A blonde guy in his mid-twenties came in then, stepping over Sheila’s corpse like it was an inconvenient mud puddle. He looked familiar, but I couldn’t place him, at first. I was more concerned about the big automatic he was carrying.