Wolf in Shadow-eARC (33 page)

“Thanks, I forgot I’d given that to you.”

Bingo, the room was some sort of office, with filing cabinets and a computer on a desk in the corner. He turned the computer on, looking through the filing cabinets while he waited for it to boot. The cabinets contained cardboard folders full of receipts and spreadsheet printouts. Jameson had the impression that he was looking at the household accounts. Nevertheless, he plied his phone into a USB socket on the front of the computer and initiated a data dump. He looked around the room while the hard drive disgorged its secrets, but found nothing further of interest.

The final room on the rear of the ground floor was a sitting room. Although comfortably furnished, it was not luxurious, so he concluded that it was for the servants’ use. A door separated the functional areas of the ground floor from the main entrance. Jameson checked with his phone but could find no sign of electrical or magical alarms, so he pushed open the door and shone his torch into the hallway.

Light reflected off the back of a man wearing silver clothes like a spacesuit. Jameson took two or three steps forward and raised his hand to chop at the back of the neck. Karla laughed softly and he realized that it was a suit of armor. The hallway was lined with them.

“Bloody Shternberg, typical of a nouveau riche asset-stripper to have suits of armor lying around like some poxy lord of the manor,” said Jameson, feeling foolish.

He heard something behind him and swung round, shining the torch. Karla leaned against the doorway with her arms crossed. She would never mistake an inanimate object for a person no matter how dark it was. She could sense her prey’s feelings, smell his sweat, hear his heartbeat.

A grand staircase gave access to the first floor. If the mansion had a typical layout, the master’s study and living rooms would be on this floor. Jameson slowly and carefully climbed the stairs. He placed his feet on the side of each step so it would not creak. Nevertheless, the fifth depressed silently under his weight. Jameson cursed under his breath and activated the security search on his phone, something he should have done before using the stairway. It was a natural place for an alarm. He was getting past this sort of thing, getting too old and too careless.

A red icon flashed on the phone’s display.

“Oh, bugger, silent alarm,” Jameson said to Karla, as there was no further point in being quiet.

“I can hear people moving about,” Karla said.

“Okay, out, mission accomplished,” Jameson said.

He quite deliberately pulled open the front door, setting off an audible alarm. Exiting, he and Karla circled around the house to the back. Somebody threw back a window on the first floor and leaned out. Jameson had a quick impression of a long stick. He knocked Karla over and dived the other way, a split second before the double blast of a shogun. Pellets chopped through the bushes behind them.

Jameson landed on his hands and rolled over onto his back, pulling a pistol from the holster under his left arm. He was armed with a Glock 26 subcompact pistol for this particular operation, not his usual railgun with its distinctive bolts. He had not expected to encounter paranormal entities.

He snapped off two shots at the shadowy figure in the window. The gunman returned fire, shooting each barrel separately into the garden. The pellets went wide of Jameson and Karla, confirming that the gunman was not sure where they were. Light snapped on in the rooms at the rear of the house, illuminating the man. He was loading new shells into the breaches of his weapon. The man half turned to yell at someone behind him. “For Christ’s sake, turn that bloody light off.”

Jameson grinned, “Tough luck, sunshine.”

He had all the time in the world, like he was on a firing range. Sighting carefully down the barrel, he put a double tap into the lit window. The gunman dropped without a sound. The shotgun fell out of the window, clattering down the wall. Jameson regained his feet and ran into the bushes, pounding along the decorative paths.

The dogs made no sound. Guard dogs barked, but hunting dogs, killers, were silent. They ran in so fast that Jameson had no chance even to count them. He had an impression of teeth, and then the crack of his Glock. He pulled the double-weight trigger as fast as he could without aiming. He fired from the hip, getting off three, maybe four shots before the first dog hit him and knocked him into the bushes. He smashed his elbow on a root, badly jarring the ulnar nerve. The ulnar is the largest nerve in the human body protected neither by muscle nor bone. Presumably evolution will one day fix the problem. In the meantime, like the appendix, the design fault continues to plague the human body. The pistol dropped from suddenly nerveless fingers and he cursed.

He pushed at the dog, trying to keep its teeth from his throat. The animal made a strange noise, halfway between a gargle and cough. It spewed blood all over his chest and died. At least one of his hastily fired rounds had smashed through the dog’s lungs. He searched frantically for the pistol, but it was lost somewhere in the undergrowth.

Snarls, growls, and smashing sounds of splintering wood indicated that Karla was fighting for her life. Cursing, he staggered to his feet to offer what help he could. A dog writhed on the path. It whimpered in pain, back bent at an impossible angle. Karla rolled on the ground, a dog clamped to each arm by its teeth. Jameson ran in and kicked one in the ribs. It yelped and attacked him. He backed off raising his arms like a boxer to cover his chest and face. It bit into his arm, the heavy body pulling him round.

He struggled to keep his feet. He had to prevent the animal pulling him to the ground. Then it would have a significant advantage. He smashed his free fist into its head, but it was like striking a wooden block. Changing tactics, he jabbed it in the eye with his thumb, gouging deep until it released him.

Berserk with rage, foaming at the mouth, the dog sprang again. Jameson desperately raised his arms, but the attack never came. A clawed hand sank into the back of its neck, halting it in mid-air. It crashed onto its back. Karla was lightning quick, stamping on the animal’s throat before it could roll back onto its legs. It choked to death from a crushed windpipe. Jameson looked round for the third dog and found it on its side, throat ripped out. Blood soaked the gravel path.

“You’re hurt,” Karla said, in concern.

She gently lifted his arm and licked at his blood. Jameson wondered where the hell the dogs had come from and who had released them. That was the wrong question. That the bloody things were dead was what mattered. That and the fact that his arm hurt.

“We have to go,” Jameson said. “The idea was to put the wind up Shternberg, not get found in
flagrante delicto
.”

Karla had to haul him over the wall.

“You drive,” Jameson said.

“Really, I can drive?” Karla asked.

“I’m afraid so,” Jameson replied. “I don’t think I’m up to it.”

Karla was as pleased as a kid on Christmas morning eyeing up a newly delivered sack from Santa. She got Jameson into the passenger seat and slid over the bonnet to take the wheel. She put her hand on the electronic control unit on the dashboard and the engine started. The Jaguar shot off, tail wagging and back wheels spinning.

“Will you turn the thrice-cursed traction control back on, please?” Jameson asked.

“It’s more fun with it off,” Karla replied.

“Fun for whom?” Jameson asked. “It’s no bloody fun for me.”

Karla pouted and glanced at the control panel. The drive configurations system flashed icons in colored succession and the wheels stopped spinning. The rear of the car stopped wagging like a Labrador’s tail and dropped in line with the front.

“Better,” Jameson said. “While we’re on the subject, how do you do that? The car just seems to know what you want.”

Karla didn’t reply, but she did smile at him. Her teeth were extended at the excitement of driving.

“And put your teeth away,” Jameson said, his arm hurting. “You’ll scare someone to death, probably me.”

He searched the side compartment by his seat until he found an analgesic and antiseptic spray. He took off his jacket, not without some difficulty. He rolled up his sleeve and sprayed his arm. The chilling liquid almost immediately took away the pain. A doctor had once told Jameson that the effect of painkillers was nine-tenths placebo. Not that Jameson gave a damn, as long as they worked.

Karla pulled onto the main road behind an articulated lorry. Without hesitation, she pulled out and rocketed down the side of the long vehicle. They slipped around the front just before an oncoming car shot past in a blaze of flashing headlights.

“And you,” Karla said, making a rude gesture in a direction of the car.

Jameson lowered the seat back and closed his eyes, thinking he might try to get some sleep. His mind drifted over the events of the evening.

“Oh shit!” Jameson sat bolt upright, ignoring the throbbing arm.

“What?” Karla asked.

“I’ve left the bloody gun behind.”

CHAPTER 17
PRESSURE

“So let me get this straight, just so there is no misunderstanding,” Randolph said. “You decided to carry out a little amateur burglary on Shternberg’s country house to ‘speed things up.’”

“We weren’t getting anywhere following him around,” Jameson said defensively. “So I thought we should ratchet up the pressure a little. You know, prod him a little and see what reaction we got.”

“
You thought
, you thought?” Randolph said. “If you’d thought, you wouldn’t have left evidence behind?”

“Ah, yes, the Glock,” Jameson said.

“The Glock,” Randolph mimicked. “The Glock with the serial number issued to Her Majesty’s Metropolitan police force and hence traceable to us.”

“I was a little preoccupied at the time,” Jameson said. “What with fighting off a pack of killer dogs intent on ripping out my throat.”

“Daemon killer dogs?” Randolph asked hopefully.

“Just the normal kind,” Jameson replied.

“Did you find any sign of unsanctioned paranormal activity?”

“No.”

“Or bring back any useful intelligence?”

“We did clone a hard drive. The Library are going through the data, but it looks like household accounts.”

“Household accounts,” Randolph repeated, his voice leaking sarcasm like sump oil from an old motor. Do you have any idea how many strings I had to pull, how many favors I had to call in, how much political capital I had to expend with Special Branch to get that serial number expunged from the record?”

“Sorry about that,” Jameson apologized. It had been unprofessional.

“And all for nothing.”

“It’s early days yet,” Jameson said. “Let’s see what reaction we provoke.”

“No more burglaries,” Randolph said.

“Right,” Jameson replied.

“We can but hope that Shternberg uses magic rather than a Russian Mafia hit squad to eliminate you,” Randolph said brightly. “Then at least I’d know that we are on the right lines.”

When Rhian came off evening shift, Frankie was sitting at the kitchen table gazing gloomily at various stacks of official-looking papers. She held a glass of wine in both hands, elbows resting on the table. The bottle was open beside her. From the level, Frankie had been hitting the giggle water hard.

Rhian took a glass from the kitchen cabinet and emptied what was left of the wine into it. She didn’t particularly want a drink but thought that Frankie had already had enough. It did not seem to have improved the woman’s mood.

“Everything okay?” Rhian said.

Frankie put the glass down carefully, the way drunks do when they want to appear sober.

“That pile there,” Frankie said, pointing, “are the outstanding utility bills.”

Rhian noticed quite a lot of red ink, but Frankie had already picked up a document from a second pile.

“This is a letter rejecting my application for a credit card, which is unfortunate as I was hoping to use it to make minimum payments on the three cards I already have, seeing as how they are maxed out.”

Frankie rummaged a bit until she produced a letter, which she waved vaguely in Rhian’s direction. “This is a letter from my bank manager inviting me in for a little chat.”

Frankie picked up a glass and stared at it intently. Finally registering that it was empty, she attempted to pour more wine from the bottle.

“I doubt if it is a social invite, so I expect the matter of my overdraft to come up in conversation. But this is the one that really worries me.” Frankie pushed her glasses back up her nose and focused unsteadily on yet another document. “I’m three months behind with the mortgage, and I don’t know how I’m going to pay it off. The bastard bankers are threatening to foreclose on my flat.”

Rhian got up and found another bottle of wine. She unscrewed the cap and refilled the glasses. Frankie was right; this wasn’t a problem to be faced sober.

“There must be a solution,” Rhian said.

“Oh, there is,” Frankie said. She picked up the check that Rhian had obtained from Max and waved it vaguely in the girl’s direction. “All I have to do is pay this in to get the bank off my neck. Of course, there is a dunside.”

She concentrated carefully. “Downside—the dunside being that we’ll be working for a bloody vampire.”

“But vampires don’t exist, you said so,” Rhian said.

“Shouldn’t believe all you’re told,” Frankie said, waving a finger drunkenly at Rhian.

“You said
we
?” Rhian asked.

“What?”

“We will be working for a vampire?”

“Damn right,” Frankie said. “Don’t see why you shouldn’t be a full partner in the business, seeing as how you got the contract. I’d have gone bankrup’ without you. But bankrup’s not so bad. Might be better’n working for a sicker.”

Frankie concentrated hard again and raised one finger in the air. “A sucker,” she said, triumphantly.

“Come on, I’ll help you to bed,” Rhian said, taking Frankie’s arm.

She helped Frankie to her feet, checking her tendency to sway.

“Full dammed partnership,” Frankie said, voice slurring. “The vampire, the witch, the werewolf, a partnership made in hell. All we need is the bloody wardrobe.”