We’d synchronised our watches and agreed that at exactly five minutes past midnight, Smitts, having hooked up the device to the city public address system, would broadcast the signal for as long as he reasonably could before making his exit.
Mine and Del-Ray’s part in this carried infinitely more risk. The device we’d given to the vampires was fake, thankfully no-one inspected it that closely, it was nothing more than loose collections of wires, transistors and an old battery, all stuffed in a small, plastic casing. And they bought my story about me apparently murdering Smitts to explain his absence. But by far the biggest risk was that I had to bank on the vampires not slaying us the moment we arrived. Once in the complex I knew that the public address system had speakers dotted almost all over the site, providing Smitts did his part I was confident the plan would work. I guess in fact that I didn’t even have to go in there myself, I could have just broadcast the signal myself and kept out of harm’s way, but I was sure the vampires would have had eyes on us – they’d have either stopped us or tipped off Valance that something was up – I couldn’t take the risk that she wouldn’t just kill Lydia there and then.
It was an educated guess that Valance and Vitalli would confront us out in the open, I figured their egos would dictate that they go for grandeur. It was fairly fortunate that they did, I had been slightly worried that they might have some soundproof bunker or something – where the public address system might not have been audible. If that had been the case we’d have been totally shafted.
We’d agreed to rendezvous with Smitts back at my office, and on the way there we found that the streets were crawling with cops and medics – I flicked on the radio and the local news was alive with multiple, alleged reports coming in from all over the city of people apparently spontaneously combusting at just after midnight. It appeared that we’d not only taken out the vampires at the docks, but quite a few who had been stationed throughout the city.
When we reached my office there were a bunch of uniformed cops keeping a small crowd at bay that had gathered just down the block. A couple of vampires had apparently been keeping tabs on my office, we caught a quick glimpse of some crime scene investigators sweeping up their remains into plastic sacks.
Smitts was already there, he’d taken the liberty of helping himself to a large glass of my bourbon, and I found the cheeky bastard slouching back in my chair with his God damned feet up on my desk. Under normal circumstances I’d have probably shot him for doing that, but I figured the guy had done good and would let him off… But only just this once.
I left an anonymous call with the cops to get their asses down to the docks with as many cops and ambulances as they could muster, then I called Richard Jameson to tell him that while I wasn’t sure if Anton was still alive, I at least knew where he’d been taken and that the cops would be in contact soon.
The news the following morning was full of the discovery at the docklands. Over two hundred people were rescued from the vampire blood farm, but the dead bodies of at least fifty others were also found. Neither the press nor the cops had a clue what the hell had been going on. There were rumours, let’s face it, I’d put the basics together myself and come up with vampires, but until I actually saw them – and they started trying to kill me, I hadn’t the gumption to mention it to anyone else. It sounded way too crazy. And I think that’s what the cops and the press thought too, it was a damn strange set of events, but no-one wanted to be labelled as the crazy one who dared suggest it was anything more than that. Santa Justina made the national news that day, and the incident entered into folklore such was its notoriety, and the city would forever more be a magnet for conspiracy theorists and paranormal enthusiasts. But we all made a pact to keep quiet about what actually happened. Hell, who in the world would have believed us anyway?
As it turned out, Anton was alive, but he’d been incredibly lucky – in a couple more hours in the farm and he’d have ended up down the shute like those other poor bastards we’d seen. Richard Jameson paid up in full, with a bit extra, so it was a double win for me.
Even Lydia forgave me, eventually, for getting her involved with this crazy mess. She had as much trouble truly believing what she had witnessed as I had, and I’m sure she carried some deep emotional scars long after her physical wounds had healed up, but being a real trooper, she put it behind her and moved on with her life.
Reana Del-Ray and I hooked up for a couple drinks and dinner dates afterwards, she really wasn’t anywhere near as much of a tight-ass when she wasn’t working, but alas, we certainly didn’t have much in the way of romantic chemistry. In fairness, that girl was just too damn smart for a humble caveman like me! But we remained good friends. About two months after, she called me to let me know that herself and Smitts were being reassigned. She refused to tell me where, so I suspected that it was either government or military. Our paths would one day cross again and I was to find out that there were a lot of things that she hadn’t been completely honest about, but that would be much later.
So that just left me. I took a couple of weeks leave, Jameson’s fee saw to that, and I rested up and tried to come to terms with the significance of everything I’d experienced. Eventually, I had to get back to work, and so I threw myself into it with the same old vigour, and nobody knew any different.
But I was different, inside. The nightmares persisted too. I found that the only way to avoid them was to drink a lot more in order to deepen my sleep. I didn’t become a fully fledged drunkard, but I’d have to admit that I became functionally alcohol dependent, the dreams would have driven me crazy otherwise.
The dirty city, having toyed with me for a few years, had finally taken its first proper bite out of me – and I was pretty sure it wouldn’t be the last…