Accession of the Stone Born: The Vigiles Urbani Chronicles (12 page)

Isidore’s eyes lingered on my hand, shaking his head in disbelief. “That looks like more than a hard night, but I really do need to get home. I’ll be by in the morning to make sure you two are okay.”

Andrew and I followed Isidore downstairs to meet Captain Hotard, who was, much to my chagrin, accompanied by Officer Sonia Trahan. I’d seen but not met Captain Hotard at the funeral. He was a chubby man, nearly a foot shorter than myself, placing him on the short end of normal height. From this angle I got a good look at the terrible comb over of his obviously dyed deep brown hair. His round face lacked a chin, and his forest green eyes darted all around the room as if something were about to jump out of the shadows. Sweat beaded on his forehead and he continuously blotted it with a heavily stained yellowing handkerchief.

Sonia looked much the same as she had at the funeral, only now she wore a defiant smugness on her fat face. By the way she stared at me it was clear she hated my guts, for what reason other than breathing I couldn’t possibly tell. Her expression wavered when she looked at Andrew. Something about him scared her, even though I had a good eighty pounds of muscle on the old man.

Andrew glared at the dozen boxes littering the floor all around the captain and his henchman. “Bryan, you couldn’t wait until I could send someone to collect her things?”

Captain Bryan Hotard turned crimson as anger crept into his voice. “Mr. Randall, I’d appreciate it if you’d address me by my proper rank!”

Andrew took a step closer and both of the officers shrank back. “Do you really want to get into a dick measuring contest with me, ‘Bryan’?” Andrew held their gaze for a moment longer. “We both know who’d win.”

Bryan huffed as he flattened his uniform shirt against his massive belly. “That may be, but as I told your boy—”

Andrew cut in. “His name is Isidore. Don’t disrespect him again.” He let the threat hang.

Bryan blanched, and his hands shook either from nerves or anger, or perhaps both. “Fine! As I informed Isidore, we need the space for actual police business!”

Andrew stared holes through the little man. “You realize that it’s only a matter of time before a new
vigiles
is appointed.”

Bryan puffed out his chest and his jowls shook with every word. “I... we at the NOPD don’t believe we will be needing the assistance of a
vigiles
in the future.”

The dark look that crossed Andrew’s face should’ve terrified the little man. His voice could’ve cut diamonds when he spoke. “Oh, really?”

Bryan apparently hadn’t notice the change in my uncle and continued on with his rehearsed speech. “I think we can get by very well on our own. We thank you for your assistance, but it’s no longer required.”

Andrew stepped forward, slamming a finger into the man’s pudgy chest, causing his man boobs to jiggle and Bryan to cough as the air was forced out of his lungs. “You forget your place.”

Sonia stepped back so quickly she tripped over one of the boxes, falling over with a thud against the hardwood floor.

Andrew’s voice was quiet, hard, and easily heard throughout the room. “I’ve put up with your arrogance and ineptitude out of respect for your grandfather.” Andrew loomed over the much smaller man, forcing Bryan to strain his neck to look up at my uncle. “He’s long since passed, and you’d do well to remember that my authority far exceeds yours.”

Bryan stepped back and his form shook, causing his big belly to bounce. His face was a putrid purplish red. “If you’re going to insist on a new
vigiles
, then I demand we have a hand in choosing them!”

Andrew’s ability to humor the little fat man was fading quickly. “Have you lost your mind?” Andrew looked into the man’s eyes and shook his head. “Someone’s been filling your head with ideas, Bryan. Who?”

Bryan glared at the floor as he back peddled to the door, with Sonia right behind him. “That’s not important! Stay out of my head, Andrew! I’m warning you.”

And that was it. Andrew had finally had enough. “Bryan, you should leave now. You should forget about whatever line of shit someone is feeding you, and realize that being the captain of the UCD, in your case, is purely ceremonial. If you challenge me on this, I swear I’ll destroy you and everything you hold dear. Am I clear?”

Bryan reached behind him with a pudgy hand, gripping the doorknob as he sneered at Andrew. “You can only do that if you’re still in charge of things.” Sonia was out the door when he turned halfway around and looked back at my uncle. “That may change soon, now that Martha’s no longer here to protect you.”

Bryan was out the door and gone before Andrew was able to make a reasonable reply. It was clear that the captain thought he knew something that we didn’t.

We followed them out a few minutes later to lock the gates. Returning, we lugged up the dozen plus boxes to the apartment. The living room was crowded with boxes filled with what appeared to be random files. When they were in file cabinets I was sure they’d been well organized. Opening one of the files, I saw that they were highly detailed, precisely marked, and easy to follow. Whoever had emptied her office didn’t care that they’d probably destroyed years of painstaking care and organization.

Andrew quickly grew frustrated and waved a hand at the sapphire on his desk. The thin blue mist version of Martha appeared a few feet in front of the desk. She looked only slightly better than the first time I’d seen her.

Andrew spoke softly, and his face fell as he watched her standing there. “Evening, Martha.”

Martha gave Andrew a kind look, and then her face dropped when she saw the boxes on the floor. “I see Bryan didn’t waste any time ransacking my office.”

Andrew’s face darkened. “Clearly.”

Martha’s form pulsed and glitched in place. “I’m sorry I can’t stay longer, but you need to go through the files. I’ve been working on a series of murders all across the country....” Her voice broke and reverberated for a moment. “I can’t stay, but they are somehow related to you.” She looked at Andrew with fear in her eyes. “Someone’s coming for you!”

Her form shimmered and vanished from sight. Terrific; someone had to go and piss in the Cheerios right after we threw the police out on their ass. 

Chapter 7

Sunday May 31st

Waking up, I felt like staying in bed for several more hours, but the aches and pains of sleeping on such a soft mattress told me it was well past time to get up. Rolling over, I saw it was five minutes to five. Three hours’ sleep would have to do. I’d left Andrew in the living room after I helped him pull two rolling blackboards out of a storage closet in the back.

He’d promised to get some sleep, but even as he said it I doubted that he meant it. My stomach growled and groaned, telling me I needed food. Stopping in the kitchen, I found a plate of lukewarm eggs and dry toast waiting on me. Making short work of breakfast, I headed for the living room in search of Andrew, and as I turned the corner I froze, awestruck.

While I’d slept Andrew had lined up the blackboards next to one another. He’d affixed newspaper clippings, notes, and other articles to the boards with tape. On top of the articles he’d attached his own notes via bright yellow Post-it notes. Long white lines connected different articles, while blue scribbled text explained how they were connected. I found the boards both fascinating and more than a little disturbing. I could already see the connection between more than a dozen “deaths,” and if Martha’s doppelganger was correct they were somehow connected to my uncle.

Taking my eyes off the boards I found Andrew typing away at the Surface Pro on the table. He was viewing an article now, studying it, and pushed one paper after another to the side, glancing down to read text. He was calm, methodical, and precise. The way he moved spoke volumes about his character. There was no fear to be found, only a man driven to find the people behind the conspiracy. After that it was only the simple matter of ending the threat permanently. This was a man who would have none of it, and was ready to defend himself against any challenger.

I’d made it halfway to the table when I announced myself. “I’m guessing you didn’t go to bed.”

Andrew barely acknowledged my presence as he waved me over. “Not yet.” He pulled a sheet of paper off the table and read it carefully as he glanced back at the screen to confirm the words. “I’m trying to fit all this together.”

The room was covered in papers and open boxes. I was thoroughly impressed with how he’d been able to make sense of it all. “You really need to get some rest.”

Ignoring my comment, he stood, walked over to the farthest chalkboard, and taped the paper he was holding to the black surface, then drew a white line between the nearest file and the paper before scribbling in blue chalk an explanation of how they fit together.

Andrew reluctantly tore his attention away from the boards to look at me. It was easy to see the exhaustion in his eyes, yet he willed himself to go on.

“I’ll get some rest shortly. I’m close to something. I can feel it,” he said.

Putting a hand on the old man’s shoulder, I shook my head. “You said that at one-thirty this morning.” Pulling him away from the blackboard, I forced Andrew to keep his attention on me as I tried to make myself clear when I spoke. “Thank you for breakfast. Now go crawl in bed and get a few hours sack time before you lose your mind!” Taking in the enormity of the task at hand, I was forced to stifle a shiver. “I’ll carry on in your absence.” Looking at the heaps of papers, I sighed. “Care to tell me how you have it arranged before you crash out?”

Andrew stared at the chalkboards in frustration. “Someone out there is apparently pretty serious about wanting me dead, and now you just want me to go get some sleep.” He gave me a withering glance before turning back to the blackboards. “You might see how I find that counterproductive.”

The man did have a valid point and the scene was more than a little overwhelming. During most of my career I’d skipped the investigative part of the job and mostly did the hands on work. Even so I’d like to think I could figure this out and piece the puzzle together in his absence for a few hours.

I fixed a hard look on Andrew and pleaded my case in a slightly different manner. “Give me a chance to run through a few of the leads without you. I might see something you didn’t. Get some sleep, come back with a fresh set of eyes, and we’ll see where things go from there.”

Andrew hung his head, realizing I wouldn’t be swayed. Grumbling, he desperately looked around the room for a suitable defense but found none, and he reluctantly caved to my request. “I suppose a few hours wouldn’t do any harm.” He looked around the room almost longingly before heading for his room. “Don’t let me sleep too long. I need to be here.”

“I won’t; now get some sleep,” I said, pointing to his room.

Andrew forced himself to put one foot in front of the other as he padded off to his bedroom and closed the door. It was only then that I realized he hadn’t given me a clue as to how he’d sorted all this shit. Oh well, time to figure it out on my own and hope for the best.

Grabbing an empty notebook off the table, I walked around the room and scribbled down notes about each of the piles, then headed back to the computer.

Martha was very organized. Most of the articles were listed in chronological order, but the confusing part were the leaps she’d made to connect different events over the last fifty years. I spent the next two hours compiling information and sorting through the chalkboards before adding more clippings to the opposite sides. Three hours later I was beginning to see the pattern Martha found. I still wasn’t sure I understood, but there was a bit of good news for Andrew…his death was only a means to a goal. There was a significant wrinkle to their plan, and that was me. I would have to wait for Andrew to wake up to confirm the theory.

I was in the kitchen making lunch when Andrew drug himself through the door and collapsed in the nearest chair. “What are you making?”

“Leftover pizza, want some?” I said.

Andrew glanced back towards the living room before turning his attention to me. “Sure.” He swallowed hard and looked back at the door again. “I saw some progress when I came through. Anything of interest?”

Putting a plate in front of my uncle, I took in a nervous breath. “I think so, but I need more information before I can be sure.”

“I’m sure we’ll find it in the papers given enough time.”

I furrowed my forehead. He’d misunderstood, so I pointed my finger at him and said, “I need information from you.”

Andrew looked at me, perplexed, and swallowed a bite of pizza. “What do you think I know that isn’t in the papers out there?”

Out of simplicity or stupidity, I pointed towards his room and the back of the house before taking a bite of my slice. I got the words out between bites. “The stones down the hall.”

“What about them?” he asked.

I tossed a crust onto my plate and Andrew leaned over and swiped it. Taking a drink of tea, I swallowed and looked at him. “Can you please explain, for lack of a better term, the rules surrounding them? For instance, you said no one can touch either of ours while we are still alive, but what about the rest of them?”

Andrew finished his first slice of pizza, looking more than a little lost by the question. “I don’t understand what this has to do with anything.” He looked irritated by such a childish question. “Once a stone born dies, one of their living relatives picks it up and stores it for future use.”

Now I felt frustrated. Not by the answer but by the lack of further information. “But what if there wasn’t a living relative, like Martha?”

Andrew looked highly annoyed. “She could give it to someone, like me, for instance. I don’t understand how this is important to solving our current problem. I told you before we have next to forever to figure all this out. That is unless someone kills me in the meantime.”

Closing my eyes, I pushed my irritation down, trying to keep it out of my voice, and continued. “I’m getting to the important part if you’ll just bear with me a bit longer.” Yep, I still sounded like an asshole. “For instance, if you died, could someone walk in and take possession of the stones?”

From the absurd look on Andrew’s face the answer was a clear no. “Not while you’re alive....” Realization etched itself across his features. “You think they are after the stones?”

I sat down and looked at my uncle, who was fully awake now. “What would happen to someone touching a gemstone while I still drew breath?”

Horror etched itself across his features at the thought. “If someone were to touch any of the stones back there they’d suffer greatly before having their body torn apart at a cellular level and sprayed across the room.”

Well, wasn’t that a pleasant thought. “I’m guessing not a lot of people know about me?” I asked. “Heather seemed surprised to find out we were related.”

Andrew gave me one of those you-can’t-be-serious looks. “Not really. You were always either at school or simply gone.”

That made sense, even if it was depressing. “And who knows about that room?”

Andrew scoffed at me and his face turned serious. “Besides you?”

I gave him a duh look and nodded. “Yeah, besides me.”

“There was Martha of course...it wasn’t as if I showed the place off to people.”

“What about Isidore or Heather?” I asked.

Andrew jerked back like he took offense to the question. “No, neither of them could enter the hallway without my permission. I’ve had it heavily enchanted since before you were born. No, the only person who ever saw it other than you was Martha.”

In a desperate attempt to pin this on a known enemy and to thwart my mounting disappointment, I asked, “Walter?”

Now he was offended. Andrew slapped an open hand against the tabletop in frustration. “Not sure how many different ways I can tell you that I’ve only shown the room to you and Martha. Besides, he and I stopped being friends years before I built the room. There’s no way he could know about it.”

Pulling a small notebook out of my back pocket, I tossed it to him. “I don’t think he saw it here. Whoever this is, Martha seems to think that they saw it back in St. Mary, Montana when my father was still alive.”

Andrew’s confusion was apparent. “I can’t speak to who your father would’ve allowed to see the stones, but I’d wager it wasn’t many. I can assure you that he wouldn’t have shown it to Walter, considering how much he didn’t like the man.”

I really wanted a concrete link to Walter because he was a known entity, someone that could be dealt with. Unknown enemies were hard to combat since they were, by the very definition, unknown. The way Captain Hotard had acted indicated an outside influence, but by the same token it had been the NOPD that escorted Walter out of the funeral. On the other hand, it had been the NOPD that had let him into the funeral in the first place. This was feeling more like a group effort than a single individual.

Looking back at Andrew, I thought back to prior nights’ events. “When Sonia and Captain Hotard were here, were you able to get a reading on who was feeding him information?”

Andrew’s face fell. “He doesn’t know. I heard raspy voices over telephones. Saw photos and documents that meant nothing to me but were important to him.” He pushed his chair back as he stood. “What’s on your mind?”

Picking up Andrew’s plate, I put it in the sink and headed for the living room, waving for Andrew to follow me. I spoke as we walked. “I’m thinking that there are a lot of moving parts.” Gesturing to the nearest chalkboard, I shook my head. “There may be a mastermind behind it all, but there are too many things happening at once to be only one man.”

I pointed at two of the articles dated the same but in separate parts of the country. “These are two enchanters that went missing two years ago. They were abducted on the same day a thousand miles apart.” Pulling both files off the board, I laid them on the table. “They were both missing for forty-two days before being found dead in their homes of ‘natural causes.’”

The fact of the matter was some of these cases stretched back fifty years. Someone, or perhaps several people, had been working in concert for at least that long in an effort to acquire the stones just down the hall. The first few decades the cases were filled with outright murders. Later, as they got cleverer, the victims started dying of “natural causes,” mostly heart failure.

Martha had tracked several of the murders back to stone born across the country; people who had no living relatives, and whose stones were always missing. Which lent credit to the theory that someone wanted the treasure trove being held by Andrew.

Andrew listened to my theory as he read the reports, scanned the computer, and finally, with much reluctance, arrived at the same conclusion I had. “They really want me dead.”

I wagged my finger and snorted. “Correction…they want US dead, but why. What would they gain?”

The look Andrew shot me said he found my humor distasteful. “Not like many people know you exist, but yeah, they want us dead. As for what they’d gain? Knowledge and each stone under their control would bolster their power.” He walked over to the board, pulled down the notes about a couple of enchanters killed over the years, and mused, “Why kill these people? They aren’t stone born.”

That had been the first thing I’d worked out after I discovered their goal. “For the same reason George only uses your services…for the enchantments.”

Andrew looked at me as if I were the dumbest human being on the planet. “What?”