Authors: Ken White
“Strike teams Charlie and Delta report that they’ve reached the second floor and are
holding their position,” she said, relaying the local channel to the rest of her forces. “No
hostile action encountered at this time.”
She started up the stairs, and I fell in behind her.
The two strike teams were in a tight arc at the top of the stairs. Takeda and I stepped into
the middle of the arc. To the right was a short, empty hall. No doors. To the left, the hall
went 10 feet or so and stopped at a second staircase.
Takeda studied the hall in both directions, then motioned with her sword to the left. The
troopers began to move in two lines, hugging opposite walls.
I don’t know if anybody yelled, but I saw the two grenades bounce down to land at the
foot of the stairs in front of us. The troopers broke from the wall and started back in our
direction, away from the grenades.
The twin explosions happened almost simultaneously.
The blast might have lifted me off my feet. I’m not sure. I remember the flash and a
sound like a giant hammer striking a huge wooden block. Then I was on the stairway,
tumbling down.
I don’t think I lost consciousness. If I did, it was brief, no more than a few seconds. I
was on my back at the foot of the stairs, looking up at the smoke that churned at the top of the
staircase. I could dimly hear the sounds of battle coming from up there.
A man stepped out of the smoke from the right hallway and started down the stairs,
moving quickly, but without panic. I blinked a couple of times. As he reached the bottom of
the stairs, I could see the scars that crisscrossed his face as if somebody had decided to play
tic-tac-toe and had lost track of how many lines they were supposed to carve.
Arnie Kaiser paused and stared down at me, his scarred face breaking into a wide, toothy
grin. His right hand went into the pocket of the ankle-length black trenchcoat that he wore. It came out holding a straight razor.
My body was still numb, but I tried to kick myself away. My legs refused to cooperate. I
fumbled around with my hand, hoping my pistol was close. No such luck.
Kaiser stepped over me, straddling my body, still grinning. He lifted the straight razor
and started to lean in toward my head. Then he stopped.
I stared up into eyes that had suddenly gone wide. He began to turn his head as
something came through the front of his trenchcoat. The tip of a sword.
Kaiser fell forward, his legs coming to rest on either side of my head. Takeda stood
there, bloody sword in hand. Her pants were shredded, as was one of her sleeves, and her helmet was missing. There was
an open gash on her forehead, not bleeding but not yet healed. Her lips were moving.
“What?” I yelled. “Can’t hear.”
“Are you injured!” she shouted, loud enough to cut through the ringing in my ears.
I shook my head. “I don’t think so,” I said. “Help me up.”
She reached down and pulled me to my feet. I was dizzy for a moment, but my legs
didn’t buckle.
“I think I’m okay,” I said. I tapped my ears. “Starting to hear again too.”
She nodded. “Strike teams Echo and Foxtrot move into the building and take up
supporting positions on the second floor. Strike teams Golf and Hotel move into the building
to the ground floor and take up covering positions. All other units hold your position.”
She looked at me. “Do you require medical attention?”
“No, just a little shook up,” I said.
Takeda nodded once, turned and hurried back up the stairs. I could hear the steady
chatter of automatic rifles coming from beyond the staircase.
I looked around on the floor, but didn’t see my pistol anywhere, so I went behind the bar
and grabbed one of the shotguns lying next to a body. There were four rounds left. That
would have to do.
The fight on the second floor had moved to the base of the stairs that went up to the third
floor. Troopers were shooting up the stairs, then ducking behind the wall for cover. The air
was filled with thick smoke, and it was dark. Most of the lights in the hall had been blown out
by the explosions.
A grenade bounced down the stairs. One of the troopers grabbed it and heaved it back in
the direction it had come from. I heard it explode, and somebody screamed.
I turned to the empty hall on the right. At least it looked empty. I wasn’t so sure. That
was the direction Kaiser had come from.
I started down the hall, shotgun ready, scanning the walls for signs of a hidden door.
Nothing.
I reached the end, then turned, planning to check the walls again. I didn’t see anything,
but Kaiser hadn’t appeared out of thin air.
As I turned, I caught a glint of light out of the corner of my eye. I turned back to the wall
at the end of the hall and examined it closely. The workmanship was so good that I couldn’t
make out the outline of the door until I put my face right up to the wall. The only flaw was at
the bottom, on the baseboard. A tiny crack, with a hint of light coming from within. I nudged
it with my foot, and the door opened inward.
I raised the shotgun. A dozen pairs of frightened eyes stared at me.
The barrel of the shotgun went down. “It’s all right,” I said, stepping into the room and
closing the door behind me. “Nobody’s going to hurt you now.”
Carpenter’s refreshments stared at me, their eyes wide. The room wasn’t large, just space
enough for a couple of couches and a few chairs on the wall. There were two vending
machines on the wall between the couches, one with sodas, the other with snacks. A break
room for the refreshments.
“You were here the other night,” one of the girls said. “With that other man.”
I nodded, recognizing her as one of the two women who’d approached me and
Nedelmann in the club Friday night. “That’s right,” I said. “Where’s Carpenter?”
She hesitated.
“It’s okay,” I said. “He can’t hurt you now.”
The girl was motionless for a second, then pointed to the door in the back of the room.
“Thank you,” I said. “Now listen. Stay in this room. Do not go out into the hall. There
are soldiers there, and they might shoot you by accident. Understand?”
All twelve of them nodded as one.
“Good,” I said. I brushed past them and went to the door in the back.
I’ll admit, it wasn’t the smartest thing to do. Smart would have been calling Takeda,
getting a squad in there. But I was way past smart by then. Takeda had already taken out
Kaiser. I wanted Carpenter myself.
I paused in front of the door, then raised my foot and kicked, hard. The door flew open
and I stepped inside.
Lou Carpenter was behind a big desk, a young girl on his lap, his face buried against her
neck. He looked up, his mouth smeared with blood.
I stopped and raised the shotgun.
Carpenter pushed the girl to the floor and stood, grabbing a pistol from the desk. He
raised it, his hand shaking, and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. He bellowed angrily
and threw it on the floor.
“Safety,” I said calmly. “You forgot to disengage the safety.”
“I’m a businessman,” he said, throwing his shoulders back. “Guns aren’t part of my
world.”
I stared at him silently down the barrel of the shotgun.
“It wasn’t my fault, none of this was my fault,” he said. “My bloodfather ordered me to
work with that bastard Kaiser. I didn’t want to, but I had no choice.”
“What about Joshua?” I asked. “Your bloodfather order you to kill him too?”
“That wasn’t me,” he said quickly. “That was Kaiser. Joshua was my friend, Mr. Welles,
you know that.”
I probably could have stood there bantering with him till sunrise. In the end,
he would be pure and innocent as a baby lamb, and Kaiser would be the cause of everything bad
that had happened.
But my body was beginning to ache, and I was feeling a little wobbly.
The nice thing about a shotgun is that you don’t have to be real steady. All you have to
do is point in the right direction and pull the trigger.
I fired, hitting him in the chest. He fell back in the chair.
I lowered the shotgun, stepped forward, to the edge of the desk, and stared at him. Then I
raised the shotgun and fired three more times.
Epilogue
“A week ago, on a Monday night a lot like this one, seven people were alive, with no idea
of what was to come,” I said. “Sam and MaryAnn Klinger. Jedron Marsch. Mike Ponittzo.
Jeremy Cross. Dick Nedelmann. Joshua Thomas.”
I shrugged. “Now it’s seven days later, they’re all dead, the people who killed them are
all dead, and what’s changed? Not a goddamn thing. The world just keeps on spinning
around, right? Somebody will take over Kaiser’s territory, somebody else will take over
Carpenter’s club, Cross’s clubs.” I paused. “Another cop will be walking a beat with Shelly
Hodge. Runaways will end up drained in dumpsters.” I paused again. “Kind of makes the
whole fucking thing seem pointless, doesn’t it.”
“That depends on how you look at it, Mr. Welles,” Takeda said from beside me in the
Jeep. “It’s equally valid to say that if you fight against evil and win, you will eventually bring
an end to evil.”
We were on our way to Bain’s house. I’d spent the night at Sisters of Mercy Hospital, at
Takeda’s insistence. They’d stitched up some cuts, diagnosed a minor concussion, and kept
me overnight for observation. I’d checked myself out at noon and gone to the office.
Cynthia told me that Mrs. Hagger, the interior decorator, had been in earlier, picked up
the key, and checked out my apartment. She said she’d have it finished by the end of the
week. I was glad to hear that. The couch in the office was comfortable if you were just going
to sit there, not so comfortable if you wanted to sleep on it.
But sleep on it I did, for the rest of the afternoon. Takeda had arrived just after sundown.
I left Sara to make the calls that would let people know that Night and Day Investigations was
accepting clients again, and left with Takeda.
“What about you?” I asked her. “What’s next?”
“My first duty is to arrange replacements for the Security Force, fill the slots left by
the dead and those no longer fit for duty. After that...” She smiled. “I’ll be doing whatever
the general tells me to do.”
Bain was behind his desk, cigar in his mouth, his head wreathed in smoke, holding a file
folder in his hands. He looked up when we came into the room and watched silently as
Takeda and I approached.
“Cell phone,” he said.
I pulled it from my pocket and put it on his desk, placing the charger beside it.
“I’d let you keep it, but I can’t justify that,” Bain said.
“I understand.”
“Per our contract, I’ll be assigning an investigator to your office,” he said. “You can
expect him or her by the end of the week.”
I nodded.
He studied me for a moment, then said, “You did an excellent job, Mr. Welles. I
expected no less, based on what Joshua told me. I’m pleased that he was correct about you.”
“Thank you, General,” I said. “Joshua was a smart man.”
Bain nodded. “Yes, he was. If I need your personal services again, I’ll be in touch.”
Audience over. He looked back at the folder in his hands.
I turned and walked out of the room, Takeda beside me. As we neared the front door, she
said, “I’d like to express my thanks as well, Mr. Welles. It was an interesting experience
working with you.”
“You’re pretty interesting yourself, Miss Takeda,” I said. “Who knows, maybe we’ll
work together again some time.”
“All things are possible,” she said, stopping at the door. “Goodbye, Mr. Welles.” She
held out her hand.
“Miss Takeda,” I said, shaking her cool, dry hand.
I went through the door into the night and climbed in the Jeep. She stood, silhouetted
in the light, then closed the door.
I started the engine and headed back to the city.
Coming to Amazon
for Kindle and in paperback
December 6, 2013
Bleeding Sky
(
Night and Day, Book 2
)
Eight months after solving Joshua Thomas’s murder, life has mostly returned to normal for
private investigator Charlie Welles. He’s working cases by day, training the new vampire
investigators sent by Deputy Area Governor Phillip Bain by night, and hoping that Bain will leave
one in place long enough to provide a break from the nightly training.
When the former German ambassador to the United States visits the city as part of
nationwide trip to explore the possibility of reopening diplomatic relations, Welles is hired to
oversee the ambassador’s safety during daylight hours. Under the overall command of Tiffany
Takeda, Welles works with a company of Area Government Security Force troopers to protect Dr.
Konrad Heymann and his staff, including a young European vampire and a rogue U.S. Army
captain.