The Crowley building was renamed after Aleister Crowley once the big unveiling happened. He had been some mystic type at the last turn of the century… it was supposed to be a cute nod to how long magic had hidden under the norm’s noses. Seeing the building in person didn’t conjure up any sense of mysticism, however. The sixty-story monolith of steel and glass seemed to scream the praises of modern technology for any willing to listen.
The building was dark and silent as the sun’s last rays shone upon it. It wasn’t the silence you would see in any other building downtown after closing. It had a weight to it, a presence. You could almost feel the building humming with life beneath your feet as you crossed the threshold. For the second time in as many days, I found myself walking into an unknown building, to meet an unknown power whose intentions toward me were unknown as well. Maybe my guidance counselor was right and I should have joined the army… at least then I would have more than a passing familiarity with the weaponry trying to kill me.
“Good evening, Mr. Hunter… Ms. Soto.” A shortish man with a fairly unattractive comb over stepped forward to meet us. He was dressed in a suit that you could tell wasn’t made for him and walked with his shoulders slumped as if he were constantly tired. I had to admit it was not what the movies had prepared me to expect from a vampire, but then again they were hardly ever right.
“We were told you would be expecting us?” I slipped my hand under my coat to where one of my pistols rested. I felt its comforting weight against my palm. It likely wouldn’t help me worth anything if the night went badly but I took solace where I could.
“Yes, you may follow me to the dining level. Mr. Toussard is waiting for you there.” We followed the strange little man into the elevators. The panel of buttons for the floors was a simple piece of black glass that he gently touched once as the doors shut. No light lit up to tell what floor we were destined for, there wasn’t even any way to tell where the buttons were. The elevator hummed for a moment giving no sense of movement whatsoever before the doors opened on a different floor. It threw off my balance somewhat to essentially have no indication of where in the building we were being dropped off.
The dining room itself we found ourselves in took up the entire floor. It was probably large enough to host hundreds of people at once with plenty of space for entertaining… The tables were set with exquisite silver and china as far as the eye could see in the huge room. Windows on three of the four walls looked out at the nightline of the city allowing me to guess we must have traveled some forty stories in the few seconds the elevator was closed. In the center of the room sat a lone man at a table waiting for us. He looked us over like a snake watching a mouse trying to gauge our reactions to the strange circumstances. I was getting tired of all these mind games the alters seemed obsessed with playing. It really wasn’t selling me on the whole ‘get to know them better’ thing. You would think that if they truly wanted to fit in and mingle with society more would hold meetings at a diner over burgers and fries.
Mara and I walked over to the table and took the seats the man indicated. He was an older gentleman, probably Greek by the look of him, and impeccably dressed. His suit fit him like a second skin and he had an easy smile that seemed sincere… That is until you met his eyes. There was something dark hiding behind those pale blue orbs just wanting to come out and play for a while.
“I took the liberty of ordering for you both, I hope you don’t mind.” He gestured behind him to where the kitchen must be hiding and three young women dressed in respectable-looking waitress outfits brought our plates. Even though I hadn’t had it in a while the meal placed before me was one of my absolute favorites, rock salt-encrusted prime rib. A glance at Mara’s face and I could tell the braised beef short ribs sitting before her was her favorite as well. Just how long had this guy been watching us? He waved his hand and several men waiting around the dining room left silently. They had been so still that I hadn’t even been aware of their presence.
“No need to keep security around to listen in to things. It’s not like there is anything you two could do to hurt me, after all. You have questions, please feel free to ask me what you will.” He poured a glass from the wine bottle near him and took a sip. It had a full, rich red color as he placed the glass down and offered the bottle to us.
“First off, who are you?” I took the bottle and slammed it back onto the table. I had had more than enough of the show he was putting on. “Why would you be working on a formula to bring more monsters into this world? No offense.” I glanced at Mara quickly, having almost forgotten who she was.
“I am Gieger Toussard, as you might have guessed Claudia Barrow’s financial partner. When she arrived earlier she was rather distressed about the situation at her home. I was helping her at her request… hopefully to garner a little goodwill at the same time. Less deaths during conversion should make both the wolves and the humans happy.” He looked at Mara with a smirk. “I am sure Ms. Soto’s former partner would have appreciated it if such a substance had been made available to him, would he not?”
Mara’s face paled and her hands balled into fists so tightly they began turning white. I could see her shoulders trembling slightly… it would seem this Toussard character had hit a nerve with her.
“I don’t know who you think you are but you have no right to speak about Raph.”
“I run this town, detective… Prince Toussard, ruler of the great state of New York and if I want to speak of one of my subjects, living or dead, then I shall. The two of you certainly only barely qualify as such. My first instinct would be to call you food… pets maybe but I am told we are doing our best to alleviate past prejudices towards other people and as such here we are.”
“So you expect us to believe you are developing this serum for purely humanitarian reasons.” I couldn’t help the drollness in my voice. “It’s amazing, with all the people trying to reform and walk the straight and narrow you would think the city’s problems would be a distant memory.”
“Ah, it’s so refreshing to see someone who kills people for money without ever asking if they deserve it to take the moral high ground.” He poured himself another glass, filling the crystal glass to the rim. “I, for one, do not expect you to believe anything. I am merely presenting you a fact. As for the straight and narrow, we are not the monsters depicted in the cinema. We hoped to walk more openly among you in the future… perhaps without even getting chased by a crowd wielding torches.”
“Yes, I am sure that down deep you are all just misunderstood loners that glow in sunlight and make all the girls swoon. Why bother telling us any of this?”
“He’s telling us for the same reason these blood-suckers do anything. It’s part of a plan.” Mara looked annoyed. “And whatever he is telling us is just a smoke screen to keep us from looking farther and finding out what he’s really up to.”
“You really should learn to keep your dog on a shorter leash, Mr. Hunter. This city has certain laws we all must obey.” Toussard sipped at his drink as I felt, more than saw Mara’s temper finally boil over.
“You bastard spawn of a mosquito!” She leapt across the table, producing a knife from nowhere a plunging it into the vampire’s chest. The only reaction Toussard had was to chuckle under his breath.
“A silver knife. Must hurt like hell for you to even hold it. Too bad this will likely hurt a lot more.” His hand became a blur as he drove his fingertips straight through Mara’s throat. Blood sprayed everywhere over the food, table, and the prince himself. He pushed her twitching body to the ground where she clutched at her neck. “Unfortunate when people believe what film and media tell them without putting in the work and proving it themselves.”
Toussard pulled the knife out and let it clatter to the floor. He then looked down at his shirt and rubbed absently at the blood pooling there. When he looked up again he was staring directly down the barrel of my gun. “Funny definition of hospitality you have there,” I stated evenly as I drew back the hammer on the pistol.
“She’ll be fine. I just couldn’t take any more of her yapping. Now we can talk, just us men.” The soft gurgling sound Mara was making as she tried to continue breathing left me doubting the veracity of his statement but at least for now, he had the advantage. I carefully put the gun down on the table between us.
“Good, now what will it take to convince you to allow us to complete our project in peace before a public unveiling? Too many eyes would delay our progress significantly and likely cost even more lives.”.
“Maybe a delay is just what you need. After all this projects accidents have already cost me my job, not to mention listed me on the most wanted list, killed several cops, and nearly caused an all-out blood war between alters and ords.” Mara had stilled on the floor next to us. I silently prayed it was due to her healing and not worsening. “Besides which, I am sure ARC is looking into things just as seriously.”
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“The situation with ARC will be taken care of soon enough. We need only concern ourselves with making things right with you right now. The whole wanted man thing was a misguided attempt by middle management to solve the problem of your break-in.” He returned to his meal, cutting a piece of meat off covered in Mara’s blood and eating it. “Delicious… this sauce is divine… so what will it take for you to give us the time we need to complete our endeavor?”
“Take all the time you need. Honestly, your little science project has very little interest for me. I’m simply going to find who put your lych-juice ended up inside my friend and kill them. Once that is finished, my interest in this whole situation vanishes like a vamp-, sorry, cockroach when the lights go on.” This guy struck me as the time that would ‘take care’ of ARC permanently. I had little desire to give him the chance to do the same with me. This had become about a lot more to me than just Nate but he didn’t need to know any of that. There would be better places to settle up with him than in the middle of his own complex where he held all the cards.
“I see. Well, we will be making quite ample remuneration towards the families of those officers who lost their lives so tragically. If you find yourself in need of similar compensation… a trip to somewhere warm perhaps till we can clear up this misunderstanding you are having with the authorities, perhaps. Just let me know.” He calmly lifted a napkin from the table and dabbed gently at the corners of his mouth. “Now, do you have any last questions I might address before I return to my duties running the city?”
“No, I think you summed things up quite nicely… oh except the spindelorn.” I watched him carefully for any sort of reaction but I couldn’t spot any. He put his napkin carefully down on the table.
“I can’t imagine where you heard of such pitiful creatures but they have nothing to do with our current situation. The entire enterprise was problematic and we made proper efforts to solve it to everyone’s mutual satisfaction. They hardly require concern today.”
“It does have some relevance being another time you and your friends tried playing god. I suppose we should just sit back and hope that this time turns out better?” That actually caused the prince to pause, only for a second, but a reaction.
“I happened to be around during those dark days, Hunter. What we created was wrong, in many senses of the word. We repaired the situation as best we could, we hunted down and destroyed every last one of those mistakes and have worked hard to move on.”
“And did you give ample remuneration to the families of everyone your creations killed in the meantime?” I thought it best, for now, to keep that they had failed to exterminate their creations to myself for now. “I’m sure a quick confession to the local pastor and it was as if it never happened.”
“I paid for my sins, butcher. Where will you be when you are held accountable for yours?” There was the slightest hint of real anger behind his voice. I was about to push the small advantage I had when I heard a small click from the floor. An instant later the back of Tousard’s chair exploded into splinters as Mara fired off several rounds from where she lay on the floor. The prince, however, was already standing out of harm’s way. “It appears that our time for this evening is up. Please feel free to finish your meal before you go.”
“You sonuva tick, I’ll make you pay for this. One day you’ll look over your shoulder and I’ll be standing there smiling.” Mara got herself to her feet, rubbing her neck where the skin was scarred after closing her wound. Her voice was raspy and strained, I guessed she still had some healing left.
“And won’t that be fun!” The prince clapped his hands together in mocking joy. “Until then, do try to keep out of trouble. I would so hate our next meeting to be through bars.” He turned on his heel and walked away. Mara seethed for a second before carefully aiming her pistol at the back of his head and squeezing the trigger. Again Toussard was faster stepping only an inch out of the way. “Quite an immature gesture, detective. Do see yourselves out”
The elevator doors opened as he approached and closed immediately after he passed through them, leaving Mara and me alone again.
~ * ~
Much later I found out what had happened to Lisa once she had been brought to the hospital. While the two of us were sitting across the table from a legitimate monster she was only just waking up from our earlier encounter.The blood pressure cuff inflated around Lisa’s arm again, as it had every five minutes since she had arrived in the hospital. Her patience had nearly reached its end when the small stone attached to the bite mark on her neck fell off with an audible pop. The doctors had tried to remove it when she had first been admitted but it wouldn’t leave her until its job had been completed. If it had taken much longer the doctors would be prepping to cut the stone out surgically, but once it had drained out the poison in her system it simply became a useless hunk of stone. The machines monitoring her vitals slowly started returning to normal which drew the attention of the nurses on-call.
Lisa tried to sit up, realizing too late that she was handcuffed to the gurney. One of the nurses walked in wheeling a small machine to check her vitals. Lisa tried asking what was going on around the thermometer in her mouth but the nurse kept quiet as she did her measurements. When finished, she calmly walked back out of the room, pausing at the door to say a few words to someone she couldn’t see from her position.
Two police officers entered just a moment later.
“We have a few questions we would like answered if you don’t mind, miss.”
Lisa took the two men in at a glance. They had a tired look to them like they had been on shift way past when they thought they would have been home. One tall and the other broad they had the appearance of two extras from a screwball comedy. Their stances were relaxed, this was a formality for them, they had already dismissed anything she was likely to say as unimportant. Their minds were somewhere else on something else while they were talking to her.
“Sure thing, gents. How can I help you two fine examples of the NYPD?” She shifted rattling the cuffs loudly drawing their eyes to them pointedly. “Sure hope I’m not in any sort of trouble?”
“No trouble, yet. Just need to get a little clarification on some of the events tonight at the office building we found you at.” They relaxed a certain amount as they came closer, one of them eyed a chair in the corner of the room but they didn’t take a seat. “According to witnesses you appeared, out of nowhere, beaten and bloody in the presence of one of the most wanted men in the state. Maybe you could clear things up as to how that came about?”
“Can’t say I remember overly much. I was just looking to use the bathroom when everything went all crazy.” There weren’t a lot of answers that would make the night make much sense to the two officers so she would have to plead ignorance.
The cops looked unconvinced by her excuse, maybe they were better at their job than she had hoped. A commotion drew their attention away. Nurses and doctors rushed towards the emergency entrance.
“We have multiple customers coming in fast, lacerations and bites consistent with an animal attack. Paramedics think it was revenge for the werewolf video… many of the same faces involved in that stunt.
The officers looked between Lisa and the disappearing crowd a few times, caught in a moment of indecisiveness. They obviously found more interest in a story that was featured on the news than one seemingly harmless girl immobile in a bed. The closer of the two officers walked over and gave a tug on the set of cuffs to make sure they were secure.
“She’s not going anywhere. We can finish up here later.” His partner nodded from the door, agreeing to chase the case they thought might get them more exposure.
“Oh! Before you go!” Lisa exclaimed, helplessly trying to move her hand to her face. “My nose is itching something awful, would you mind?” She gave the cops her most harmless puppy-dog eyes.
“Humph…. Sure.” The officer leaned over the bed and gave the bridge of her nose a few gentle scratches. Lisa’s hand busied itself snatching his set of keys right off his belt.
“Thankies!!” She beamed at the two men as they left her room. Not ten seconds later she was free of her cuffs and heading down the hall where she had seen the police go. She had seen the same torture video posted earlier that night and the people involved ending up in the hospital got her curious, had the weres taken revenge so quickly? She had seen herself the security around their compound and doubted any of them would have been able to slip out quietly enough after them, she had to find out what happened. If not for her own peace of mind, then for her new friends out there investigating.
The ER holding area was a near madhouse. At least a dozen people of varying ages were scattered around on gurneys as doctors frantically tried to triage them, separating the immediate wounds from those that could wait. Occasionally a doctor would check on one of the people and just shake his head before moving on. When you have to so carefully choose where you could spend the limited resources of a hospital, sometimes a person is just too far gone to save. Lisa slipped into a nearby closet and wrapped a lab coat around her shoulders, hoping no one would look too closely at her for the next few moments.
She stepped up to a gurney where an older man lay writhing, bleeding from several lacerations all over his body. The hospital staff had hastily patched the worst of them but Lisa could still see he would need more help. She grabbed some bandages and tape from a nearby table and began dressing some of the overlooked wounds. At her touch the man began twisting violently, calling out in a low, horse whisper something that was lost in the bustle of the room. Lisa leaned closer to hear.
“Eyes…. Green in the dark… no… don’t want to… teeth flashing… what did I do… no!… get away!” Lisa tried to soothe the man as best she could, he was obviously lost in the pain of what happened. She got a closer look at some of the wounds she was taping up, they weren’t made by canine claws or teeth… the pattern was too regular for the chaos of a frenzied were. They were made to look random but each mark was made with careful precision to tell exactly the right story. The wolves were being set up, the ferals running through downtown, the attack by humans, and the wolves’ revenge. It was an escalating series of events… but to what end?
She slipped away from the carnage and headed outside into the night air. She would need to let Hunter and Mara know what she had learned but she had no idea where they might be by now. She found a phone and called her uncle, maybe he would know where they had gotten to since they had separated. Tony answered on the first ring.
“Heya Unc, I’m out of the hospital again but lost track of your friend. Know where he’s at?”
“Hunter let you get hurt? And he didn’t even stick around to the hospital? He’s a dead man, he just doesn’t know the pain that is coming….” A loud noise came over the line. “What the?”
“Unc? What’s going on? Unca Tony?” Lisa screamed into the phone before the line went completely dead. Whatever was going on would have to wait. She scanned the parking lot for any vehicle she could steal and get to ARC headquarters, Tony had saved her years ago in London, it was high time she returned the favor.