Barking Up The Wrong Tree, Pt 3, Conclusion

They were uncharacteristically silent as Josh drove them back to the storm drain that Amber had found.  Each was dealing with their own thoughts, getting ready for a terrifying experience.  Drew alone didn’t sit still, instead taking the time to stretch and limber up his muscles.  Stripped down to just his shorts, crisscrossing lines of scars could be seen across his torso, arms, and back.  It took Josh a moment to find a spot to park the Bus at, but finally they were ready.  The group piled out, walking carefully and quietly over to the drain cover.

Tabitha looked around at everyone one last time.  “The second you’re in the dark, I want you shifted. You’ll need your extra senses.  Got it?”

Everyone nodded.

“Good.  I’m going down first.  Drew, pop it for me.  You take rear guard.”

Drew nodded. He reached down with his right hand and grabbed the cover of the drain.  His  muscles seemed to ripple, his arm elongating and getting thicker as he flexed it, then the storm drain cover popped off and he was fully human again.

Amber gasped.  “How the hell did you do that?”

Drew grinned wolfishly.  “Later, little girl.  Now’s not the time.” He grunted a little and got his shoulder under the drain cover, holding it up with his entire body.

Tabitha grinned, then got serious.   “All right.”  She took a deep breath.  “Lets do this.”   With a light splash her backpack landed in the sewer below.  She tucked her knees up, and hopped in, spinning around and kicking down onto the ladder rungs, catching herself right at the lip of the entrance.  “Discipline and calm kids.  Keep your heads, and stay focused, okay?”

Everyone was nodding yes as something flashed in the darkness below her and she just… vanished.  No scream, no noise.  One second she was there, the next she wasn’t.

“Shit!”  Drew threw back the cover with so much force that it dented the dumpster it crashed into. “Follow me in.”  He hopped forward and was in wolf form before he landed in the sewers. The pack could hear him growling as they followed him down.  As each of them reached the bottom of the ladder they shifted obediently to wolf form, except Eliot.  He dropped down, slung off his backpack, and started rifling through gear.

Jenna put her nose down to try to catch Tabitha’s scent, and almost fell over whimpering when she inhaled.  No scent. she growled.  Can’t smell anything down here.  Use your ears and eyes.  Nose is a bad idea.

Drew spun around snarling as blood splattered across the rest of the pack.  His left flank was torn open, but he had a vampire’s wrist in his jaws, and was jerking his head back and forth.  A wolf has a jaw capable of tearing out a man’s throat in a single bite, and werewolves are even stronger than normal wolves.  But Drew was fighting against supernatural strength and losing.

As the rest of the pack leapt forward to join the fight, they saw Drew’s hind leg buckle under him.  The Vampire started to lunge forward, but he reversed his momentum and pulled back instead as he saw Amber’s black form come sailing over Drew.  She snarled and snapped at his neck, forcing him to bring his arm up to try to deflect her, but she had purposefully overshot her jump and sailed past him.

Seizing the distraction, Jenna and Josh darted in low on his flanks, ripping gouges of muscles out of his calves.  Jenna spun and darted back to protect Drew, who was pulling himself back, still snarling.   Josh kept his momentum, ripping at the Vampires leg, and spinning the creature around like a top as he loped up to Amber.

The Vampire hissed, exposing its fangs, and in a barely human voice spoke.  “Dogs.  Eat your blood dogs.  Come play dogs.”  Tradition should have made the Vampire’s voice sound like the opening of an ancient crypt, or possibly cobwebs should be heard in his voice while it made spiders creep down the listener’s spine.   In truth though, he sounded like a junkie in detox who got clubbed in the head; kind of a jittery loud whisper, slurred, without a lot of capability to think behind it.

His eyes kept darting back and forth as he twisted his torso to keep all four wolves in his line of sight.  Looking into his eyes, the pack saw nothing but a rabid animal inside.  And there was only one thing to do to a rabid animal.

Put it Down. Drew growled. Carefully though.  Harry it, and don’t give it a chance to close with any of you.

Aye, aye, captain obvious. Wuffed Amber.  It sounded like a sneeze, with her trying not to laugh, and was so out of place that the Vampire spun around to her, suspect an attack at his back.  Josh lunged forward, ready to strike and fade.  And that’s where it all went wrong.

Tactics like that only work when a creature is trying to preserve itself, but the Vampire was insane; its soul was stripped away and ripped to shreds when it had been turned and lost its mind.  All that was left was a beast that was driven by hate.  When Amber didn’t attack him, he charged her and Jenna instead.

Josh’s jaws closed over empty air as the Vampire took Jenna and Amber by surprise.   There was a sickening crunch as his claws sunk into Jenna’s chest, ripping through her fur and muscles.  He sunk his hands into her ribs and swung her around, smashing her into Josh and sending them both crashing into the sewer wall.  They landed in a heap and neither moved.

While his back was exposed Amber leapt forward with a snarl and landed heavily on his back, latching her jaws around the back of his neck.  He started whipping around, howling in pain, trying to dislodge her.

Drew hunkered down, getting ready to spring into the fight despite his bad leg, when a hand lightly touched his shoulder and a barely visible shadow moved forward.  He paused, and the shadow moved in front of him.

“Hey, asshole.”  Eliot’s voice floated calmly through the darkness. “Don’t ever touch my friends again.”  There were two clicks as the triple cell black-lights he was holding in each hand sprang to life.  The Vampire screamed and fell to its knees sobbing, his skin starting to smolder and the torn up clothes he was wearing bursting into flame, finally lighting the underground battlefield.  Amber sprang back off of him.  The Vampire slumped forward and fell face first into the water, his life-force drained, burnt out of him.

The wolves didn’t have time to relax though, before Tabitha’s limp form came hurling out of the darkness behind Amber and smashed into Eliot, shattering the black-lights.

A woman’s voice, rich and deep, obviously used to laughter, came rolling out of the darkness.  “Oh well done, my pretties.  I didn’t expect you to be able to take my pet so easily.  Yet you managed.  I must applaud the elder.”  The voice sighed.  “How she has aged.  Those delicate young features lining with age.  If only she had my secret.”  Laughter drifted down the dark sewer.

Amber backed up, hackles raised, till she was poised between Drew and Eliot.  Eliot wasn’t paying attention to the voice, focused instead on getting Tabitha settled and checking her vitals.  He found a heartbeat, which seemed to be enough for him, then he stood up, pulling a gun out of his pocket.  Dull oranges and reds highlighted the passageway, a flickering dance of macabre light from the smoking remains of the feral Vampire.  Without a word he pulled the massive chrome monstrosity to shoulder height and started squeezing the trigger.

Burps of flame flashed in the tunnel as he shot bullets at the source of the voice, slowly walking forward.  The gun clicked empty and he dropped the clip, slapping another into its place in under a second and continuing to fire.

Amber sprang forward to his side, man and wolf calmly walking forward, towards the voice.  Tabitha’s voice sounded weak, but she struggled up and said “Stop.  She’ll kill you.”

The Vampire woman’s voice cut through the darkness like a katana through silk. “Oh, pet, you are ruining my fun.”  There was a blur in the edge of the ember glow, and two wet thuds.  Eliot and Amber went flying backwards, bouncing off the tunnel walls and landing in broken heaps behind Tabitha.  Drew growled and limped forward.

The elder vampire woman was finally standing in the light, languidly relaxing in by the crisped remains of her feral companion.  She was about five foot five, but carried such a presence that she seemed to fill the murky corridor from floor to ceiling.  Dark hair cascaded in lavish curls down her pale, heart shaped face, and the rich velvet red an black gown Victorian gown she wore seemed to glow with the power that surrounded her.

With an elegant gesture of her hand, the corpse at her feet simply slid to the side, clearing a path between her and the two elder werewolves.  She crooked a finger and beckoned to Drew.  “Come child, lets dance, shall we?”

Drew was only too happy to oblige her, spring from his crouch with a snarl.  She reached out, lightning fast, to catch him by the throat, but his form rippled in midair.  He snaked his head out of the way, reached forward with an arm and landed a vicious slice with half formed claws across her chest.  But then her hand was clamped around his wrist, pushing him to the ground until he was kneeling before her.

Glancing down at her shredded gown, fangs poked her bottom lip as she frowned.  Twenty feet away Tabitha was struggling to get to her feet.  The vampire’s elegant gown was ruined, hanging in strips from her waist.  She sighed.  “And this was a brand new gown too.  Do you know how expensive it is to get my wardrobe crafted these days?  Insolent pup?  Still…”

Drew looked up through the pain and noticed her nipples were erect.  This was obviously exciting her.  “Who the hell are you?” he gasped.

“I, sir,”  She smiled languidly. “am her Excellency, niece to the King of Poland, Countess Elizabeth Bathory.  And you… well, as I like to say, Vini, Vidi, Vita Vaci.”  The countess swept her left hand up across Drew’s torso and chest.  Blood sprayed against the walls on either side of them.  A gurgle escaped Drew’s throat as he slumped to the ground.

Tabitha had managed to pull herself up.  “Do you really see yourself as Caesar?  I came, I saw, I took life?”

“Oh dear no.  Caesar was a small minded, cruel little man who tried to make up for great insecurity with great feats of conquering.  I am a force of nature.   An immortal.  Its just a little affectation of mine.  But you.  You get to live again.”

Holding on to pipe bolted high on the wall, Tabitha narrowed her eyes.  “Why me, bitch?”

“Oh, you are just so cute I could eat you up.  Of course, that wouldn’t help in keeping you alive to feel your pain, now would it?”

Tabitha was thankful that Bathory was evil.  A good hearted person wouldn’t have talked, wouldn’t have gloated, and wouldn’t have given her a chance to gather her willpower together.

“Tabitha, your blood is the answer.  Your line.  If you go back in the family tree, you will discover that you are of the same blood as Istvan Magyari.”  She practically spat the name.  “That fool minister was the sole reason I lost my estate and was imprisoned in that damned tower.  If it hadn’t been for my dear friend Vladimyr, I most likely would have died in there.”

She delicately wiped Drew’s blood off her face.  “It is for his sins that you pay.  As will your descendants.  You will die alone, as I extinguish any life that comes too close to your own.”

Bathory stopped walking forward and the two women were face to face, with maybe five feet separating them.  Tabitha focused as she saw the Countess’s eyes start to swirl, red and lavender.  Tension ripped at her shoulders forcing her hands apart.  She recognized the feeling, and knew that they were sharing mindspace, battling with will alone.

But old dogs can learn new tricks…  This time, as Tabitha felt the wood of the crucifix scrape roughly against her back, she fed the fire.  All of her hate, all of her sorrow, everything that had built a lifetime of pain she fed to the fire.  And it burned.  It burned like nothing in the real world could, consuming the pain, consuming the hatred, consuming the weariness… until all that was left was steel, forged in a mind of power, by an opposing will.

Tabitha snapped open her eyes and smiled.  Bathory reeled back, shocked by having her will resisted.  Human arms, augmented by lycanthrope strength, snapped forward, and claw tipped finger closed like a vice around Countess Bathory’s throat.

The Countess, in turn, realized that she wouldn’t get back into Tabitha’s mind, so returned the favor and started choking her.  The two were locked in a struggle to see who would go unconscious first.  Both were doing their best to crush the other’s throat.

“I’m impressed, child.” Gasped the Countess.  “But you can’t win this.  Vampires can retain consciousness in much more dire circumstances.”

Not..  Fucking… Fair… Thought Tabitha, as her vision started to swim and go black around the edges.  Can’t end… like…  this…

A boy’s voice, dripping with a heavy British accent, one she didn’t recognize, came from behind Countess Bathory.  “And so it shan’t, noble werewolf.”  Three feet of steel ripped through her chest and burst into flame.  The Vampire shrieked, blood flying from her mouth.  She leapt forward, bowling over Tabitha and away from the threat behind her.

Tabitha looked up.  Surrounded by the faintest golden nimbus was… a boy.  He was dressed street punk, had a shaved head, and couldn’t have been more than sixteen years old.

The Countess hissed at him. “You!”  She spat.  “How dare you interrupt?  I will seek you, ambusher, and I will kill you!”  As suddenly as he had appeared, she was gone, without a trace.

The boy sniffed the air.  “The stench is gone.  She has departed. Your pack will need medical attention.  Lucky for you, she wanted to save their killings until you were enthralled, to leave the mark of their deaths on you, eh?”  He reached down and offered a hand to help her up.

She blinked.  “Who..  what..  wha..   the…”

He smiled impishly and sheathed his sword in a dusty looking old scabbard hanging under his London Fog trench coat.  “I’m Skid.  Shall we skip the formalities until we have your friends under the lord’s sky?”

Around them, groaning, the pack started to get to their collective feet, nursing injuries as they pulled themselves up.  She took his hand.  “Yes.  And… Thank you, Skid.”

Barking Up The Wrong Tree, pt 2

Eliot walked over to the fridge, grabbing a beer, while everyone settled in to listen.  Drew stalked over to the closet, pulling it open, and angrily started packing survival kits while Eliot lounged against the kitchen’s separator ledge.

“It was back in nineteen seventy three.  I was nineteen years old.  My pack… they were fierce warriors.  Fiercer than you can imagine.  We numbered eleven strong, all trained warriors, when we came across the Vampire.  It was… a continuation of an older fight.  In retrospect, I suppose I should start with that first fight; at the beginning of the story as I know it.

You see, three of my elders had spent time over in Germany during World War Two, and that was when the feud began.  Seven of my elders were in the war, all in the same regiment, and near the end of the war; when allied troops were pushing hard into Germany; they came across this little town up in the mountains.  Can you imagine an entire town that looks like the leftover sets from a B slasher flick?  It was a bloodbath.

This vampire, supposedly turned by Vlad Tepes himself, was openly feeding on the citizens, and those all left alive were… broken, inside the head.  They were people, but they acted like Renfield from the novel Dracula.  Eating bugs, laughing at petty cruelties, and being driven by their basest instincts; what was left was the shell of humanity.  Frothing at the brain – that’s how they talked about them.  So they challenged the vampire, tried to save what they could from that evil influence.”

Tabitha frowned. “Of seven packmates, only three walked out alive and came back from that town.”

She shook her head.  “When I was a pup that story always frightened me.  When I got a bit older…  it motivated me to train harder, though it was hard to believe.  And it’s lucky for me that it did, even though it didn’t really matter.  She caught back up with us.”

Drew motioned towards the kitchen and caught Eliot’s eye.  The younger man nodded, then tossed the lanky older fighter a can of Fosters.

Tabitha wiped a tear from her eye and continued.  “Fighting a Vampire like that is… well, its nothing you guys are ready for.  When you battle a non Feral you have to fight their willpower.  They push into you head, they rape your thoughts, and they try to turn your own minds against you.  The longer they’ve been around, the better they are at it, and the stronger their willpower is.  Ferals are weak in comparison.  You just have to fight the beast.  Well, when she caught up to us, we had no idea she was coming, and before I had even shifted, both of my brothers were dead.  We had been sitting around a beach fire, enjoying the Ocean.  There was a light mist, and then she was just there and blood was flying everywhere.”

Jenna, always empathic, was openly crying.  Josh was pale and just said.  “Jesus.”

Amber chewed her lip and raised her eyebrows questioningly towards Tabitha.

Tabitha smiled sadly.  “No Amber, I’ll finish the story.   I don’t want to relive these memories just to tell you all the story another time so you can hear the ending.  We fought her.   We fought with everything we had, every trick we knew.  And one by one we all died.  I think she left me alive because I was the youngest.  Here are the final moments I remember.  My Father, Raymond, was in front of me, attacking her.  She caught him by the muzzle, then sank her fangs into his neck while staring me in he eye.    Her eyes went this weird swirly red and violet color, and I couldn’t move a muscle while I watched her drain my dad.  Then… The world just melted away, like a Salvador Dali painting.  I felt something rip through my hands and feet, pulling me apart.  Like I was being crucified.  And then I was burning, on fire, stretched out on a cross in my mind.  I woke up from that nightmare almost a month later, in a state hospital.”

Tabitha’s voice, dripping sorrow, suddenly drew back, and like he tide revealing the beach, all at once there was steel there.  “You will DIE if you seek vengeance against the Vampires.  We are half the strength and nowhere near the skill of my elders.  What we do is clean up their messes, and keep the average people of our land safe.  This is the Lore, and the Law can be damned.  Do you understand?”

Shocked by the sudden swing in words, the pack all just nodded.  Drew grinned to himself as he polished off his beer.  Jenna twined her fingers through Josh’s and whispered to him “She’s scary.  Just when you think you’ve found the softest part of her, she turns into a rock.”

Josh rubbed her back, but watched Tabitha.   “You never even said her name, Tabs.”

“That is because you don’t need to know it.  Even if you did, it would only give you false ideas that you could research her and find a way to beat her.  Which you cannot.”

Eliot chuckled, and everyone turned to look at him.  “Don’t worry.   We’re not stupid.  Just protective of you.”

Tabitha nodded.  As usual, on the rare occasion you caught him talking, Eliot had something useful to say.  “The duty of protection is mine not yours young ones.  I am the elder, and the reader of the Lore.”  She glanced at Amber. “For now anyway.  And i will protect you.  I love you all the more, my pups, for being the way you are though.  If that suffices for everyone, I suggest we stop burning daylight and get ready to kill an undead.”

A chorus of ‘yes, mam’ reverberated around the room, and the wolf pack finished getting ready.  Each member ended up with a loose backpack on. The backpacks themselves had an odd design to accommodate for emergencies that only a werewolf would have to deal with.  The shoulder straps were segmented with several strips of elastic on each side, making them immediately flexible.  Once they were done, the whole crew piled out of the condo and headed back to the VW Bus.

Barking Up The Wrong Tree; GTT Character Sketch Pt. 1

Barking up the wrong tree

The storm drain overflow valve was well hidden by cattails, long summer grass, and the shadow of the overpass.  Despite being a six foot wide pipe, few people realized it was there, concealed as it was.  A glint of movement, the barest whisper of a shadow in the darkness stirred, watching the pedestrian area in the reservoir.  Six figures were gathered there.  Four were in a circle, playing hackey sack; two younger men, a middle aged man, and a young woman.  Sitting in the grass by them were two women, one young and the other looked young, but had hair starting to go silver.

The watcher in the drain smile, and barely visible in the black was the glint of fangs.  Half a block away a group of policemen were investigating a murder.  The watcher knew that the six people were there for the same reason.  It had taken them too long to catch up, but their time was finally at hand.  A teenaged boy, rocking out to his iPod, strolled by the drain cover.  He paused, watching the hackey circle, smiled, and kept walking down the reservoir.  Once he had passed by, the shadow in the drain had vanished.

Pop.   Pop.  Pop. Josh flicked the hackey sack easily from foot to foot, not really paying attention to it. Between hundreds of hours spent playing hackey sack, and the far superior reflexes a werewolf had, keeping the little bead filled sack in the air was a thoughtless activity.  With a deft flick of his ankle he sent it sailing over to Jenna, who was munching on a bagel while playing.

None of the Pack, as they thought of themselves, were here for the hackey sack.  It was just a convenient cover for them.  Something to do while they all listened to what was happening almost half a block away.  Werewolves tend to have very good hearing; and that was the real reason they were down here playing.  It was a hot and muggy summer day, especially down here by the Cherry Creek reservoir, and not a one of them wouldn’t have rather been in air conditioning or swimming in a lake somewhere… which is where most people with an iota of common sense were.  No one likes being a human dartboard for badly aimed mosquitoes.

But duty had called, and there isn’t an answering machine to catch the call when a bloodsucking fiend is randomly ripping out throats of innocent bystanders in , and there isn’t an answering machine to catch the call when a bloodsucking fiend is randomly ripping out throats of innocent bystanders in your city.  Josh slapped down, squishing a mosquito, then idly scratched at his knee, hiking up his long hemp shorts to expose it.  The little buggers got everywhere.

“It’s the third one this month.”  Came a man’s voice as the conversation down the road started back up again.

Another, slightly deeper, voice replied. “So, Haskins, it looks like we have a serial killer on our hands.  I was hoping to avoid this.”  The speaker sighed so audibly that the Pack could almost hear his shoulders slumping and his head shaking.  “I hate cases dealing with twisted pieces of work like this.  What you thinking, Rick?”

“I’m thinking we better catch this guy fast.  How long you think before the media catches wind of this Jack?”

Josh watched the Hack get passed from Jenna to Drew.  The leaner, slightly older werewolf was grimacing, with his head tilted to one side.  He had been in enough scraps and taken enough damage to his body that he had to focus a little harder to catch what was happening up the street.  The scar that ran down his right ear and halfway across his cheek had guaranteed that he would always have to focus a bit to hear as well as the others.

The deeper voiced detective up by the police cars sighed again.  “I hope they don’t.  Of course, that would be too good to be true.  They always find out too fast, and I’m sure someone somewhere is already getting a few bucks for tipping off someone else.  Way of the world.   They’re vultures.  I’ve been keeping the channels clear on this but haven’t actually red filed it yet.  Hopefully it’ll slip through the cracks between all the other high profile cases”

Haskins chuckled grimly.  “Smart move.  Lets see if it works, lemme know on that.  Here comes Angela.”

A third voice, female, contributed to the conversation.  “Sergeant, Detective.  Enjoying the sun, boys?  I have some of the preliminary results back.  Cause of death is suffocation, I think.  Ribcage was partially crushed and both lungs collapsed.  Victim was dead of asphyxiation before blood loss; pretty sure on that one.  Corpse was definitely moved; that one is based on the low volume of blood here at the scene.  Whatever took her throat out did it post flat-line, splatter patterns under the jaw indicate that it was a close second though…

“Lesse here… Its an odd one, for sure.  Looks like an animal wound, but no dentition marks to speak of found in the wound… Definitely the same weapon as the other two.  I’ll have to get her in the lab and on the slab though, if you want anything more than that.”

“All right, thanks Jones.  Haskins, I’ll call you when I hear something.  Thanks for coming out.  Jones, bag the DOA.  Coroner is on the way already.   And let me know the second you come up with anything.”

Drew scooped the hackey sack out of the air and tossed it Josh.  Everyone in the circle looked over to the two women sitting about five feet away.  One was older, with reddish hair going silver.  But her hair was the only indication that she was in her fifties.  Her muscles were strong and sleek, and her skin smooth.  She had a large book in her lap and was just looking up from it.  The woman, only in her early twenties, was sitting cross legged across from her, with the folds of her black skirt folded carefully into her lap.   Her hands, showcased by a pair of leather bracers that sat oddly on her forearms, were primly placed on top of the dress.   Long, naturally black hair, cascaded down her back, and her lips were parted in a slight grin.  She was the older woman’s disciple in a way, and had the greatest control of her lycanthropy of the Pack.

Josh softly cleared his throat as he looked to the older woman.  “Tabitha?   Are we done here?”

She stood up, closing the book.  “Yes.   Its definitely one of them.   It will have gone to ground during the daylight hours.  We need the cops out of here before we can pick up the trail.  Unless…”  Tabitha chewed her bottom lip.

Drew popped his knuckles.  “Tabs, these guys don’t know how to deal with this.   You sure you want a feral to be their first real hunt?”

“Drew, I don’t see that we have much choice.  There is a feral in town, its just going to keep killing till someone takes it down.   And you know as well as I do that if its the cops that catch up to it, a lot of people will die and it might still get away.”

Drew grunted.   “Goddamned Vampires, leaving messes like this for us to clean up.”

“You are both such…  well, I don’t know.  But grow some balls.”  Amber, who had been sitting with Tabitha, dropped her shirt to the ground and stood stark naked in front of everyone, with that same impish grin on her lips.  She quickly darted up the hill, black hair streaming out behind her, and by the time she was up at street level, she looked like a black furred wolf.

Tabitha growled under her breath, then spun back to the pack.  “Dammit, we DON’T take risks like that. Eliot, lost dog it.  GO!”

One of the other players from the hackey sack circle, a tall and darkly handsome man, nodded once.  Reaching over to the group’s ice chest he pulled out a collar and leash, then jogged up from the reservoir.

Josh pushed his sandy blond hair out of his eyes and started to pack up the water bottles and other ‘out hanging’ paraphernalia the group had distributed. “Jenna, could you grab Amber’s clothes?”

Jenna snapped back out of whatever she had been thinking, pulled her sarong up a bit, and knelt down to collect Amber’s hastily discarded outfit.  Tabitha and Drew were off to the side quietly arguing.   “Yeah, sorry Josh.  I was just thinking..  you know…  Its really messed up that vamps leave their cubs like that.”

Josh nodded as he picked up the ice chest.  “Yeah, it is.  But i was reading some of the stuff Tabitha left at our place, and its not all of them.  Its like, one can’t cope, you know, and goes crazy. So the older ones let it go get itself killed. But, like, the ones that don’t go schizoid get nurtured and stuff.”

“Its just so…  heartless.  So cruel.”

“Jenna. They’re vampires.  They suck blood and kill to stay alive.”

“But Josh, that doesn’t mean they don’t have hearts, it just means they have a harder life. There’s good in everything if you dig deep enough.”

“Yeah, but for vampires, they get the goodness sucked out of them at Birth, you know?”

Tabitha clapped, once.  “Alright kids.  Go time.  We can debate nature versus nurture some other time.  Right now, one of our own has done something stupid, so we have to seize the opportunity while trying to protect her.”

Josh was trying not to grin.  He was pretty sure no one else was stilll focused on listening to what was happening up the street… But what he heard was Eliot saying “No Amber! Bad Dog! Get off the officer’s leg.  I’m so sorry sir. She gets like this during the summers. DOWN AMBER!”

He snorted once, and choked down the laugh. “Alright.  I’m like, ready and stuff.”

The remaining four hiked up the small hill to the other side of the reservoir, where Josh’s VW Bus was parked and piled into it.

The blue van, along with its dozens of Grateful Dead, Phish, and Pot Leaf stickers pulled out into the street and headed around the reservoir.  Drifting on tones of liquid bliss from inside the van you could just hear ‘and I’ll see you on the dark side of..” cut off by Tabitha’s voice.  “Focus children.  You need your ears.”

A few blocks and about fifteen minutes later Eliot walked up to the van, leading Amber by collar and leash.  The two hoped into the side door, and Drew poked his head out for a second.  “All clear.” he said as he pulled his head back in and slid the door shut.  “Any luck?”  The Van pulled away from the curb, headed back to Josh’s apartment which was only about five minutes away.

Eliot just grunted and nodded towards Amber as she shifted back to her human form.  “Ask her.”

Amber grinned as she struggled back into her clothes, and paused for a second to tweak Drew’s cheek.  “Jinkies Fred!  I followed the scent all the way a storm drain cover, and then it vanished underground.  I think its a clue!”

Drew just frowned and Amber.  “Crap.  That’s not good.”

Jenna looked back from the passenger seat.  “Why?  Is it using the sewers to get around town?  Are we going to have to try to track it through..  oh, ewwwww….” The light dawned on her as she realized what they might have to track it through.

Tabitha grimaced also.  “No.   Its living down there, not traveling through it.  It’ll probably be within three hundred feet of the entrance.”

“What’s the problem then?” Josh glanced at the review mirror to see everyone else.  “We just, like, pop down now.  Nail it while its asleep. Easy fight.”

“Eager to die today Josh?”

“What do you mean, Drew?”

Tabitha mumped and spoke up.   “Hush boys.   What Drew is trying to say is that going in there right now is a very dangerous idea.  It probably wont be asleep.”

Eliot’s brows wrinkled in confusion, but it was Josh that spoke up.  “Wait.  I thought all vamps, you know, like, passed out during the day.”

Tabitha shook her head.  “No more than werewolves have to wait till a full moon to change.   I know most of you guys can’t control the change that well yet, but Amber is learning fast, as you all know.   Why should Vampires be stuck to folklore rules when we aren’t?”

Jenna shook her head.  “But wait.  We have to study and practice to get that type of control.  You mean Vampires don’t?”

Amber grinned “You mean you guys have to study, slowpokes.”  She stuck out her tongue and waggled her fingers in her ears, but no one seemed to notice.  They were all used to getting sassed by her.

This time it was Drew that answered.  “Not for a feral.   A normal Vamp, yeah.  But ferals are different.  The beast controls them, and there is barely anything left there that could be called human.  Ferals can do things that most vamps can’t do for the first couple years or decades of their lives.” he paused for a moment, thinking the situation through.  “We have to hit during the day though.  If we wait till tonight, it might move to a different hidey hole, then we have to wait for another killing or a lot of good luck.”

Tabitha nodded.  “Unfortunately, I agree.  At least its in the dark and the kids will be able to change.”

The pack was silent for the next couple moments, as they finished the drive to Josh’s apartment, where the fighting gear had been left.  Even Amber was quiet and introspective.  As they swung off of Hampden avenue and into Josh’s condo complex, the pack seemed to come to an unspoken agreement.   This needed to be done, and there was no one else to do it.

As they piled into Josh’s condo, Amber brushed her hair back out of her eyes, and chewed her lip, debating something internally.  Finally she opened her mouth and just spat it out.  “Tabitha.  I have to ask.”  She flopped down onto a bean bag and looked up at her mentor.  “We all know that your pack was killed by vampires…  but you’ve never told us the story.  And since we’re about to fight one of these things… I kind of want to know if this is a vengeance kick for you or what?”

“It doesn’t matter.” Broke in Drew.

Tabitha frowned slightly to herself.  “No, its a valid question.”  She sighed and motioned to the various bean bags and ergonomic chairs around the room.  “Go ahead and pull up seats.  Amber is right, my motivation is important.  Its part of what I’m trying to teach you guys.  At your center, you have to be calm.  Be the eye of the storm.   It’s like being at the center of a seesaw.  on either side things moving, while you sit at that pivot point.  If I am going into this bent on vengeance, it will endanger all of you.  So, I’m going to tell you a story, and let you decide.”

****Tune In Tomorrow for pt 2 of the werewolves Introduction; ‘Barking up the worng tree.’****

Rick Haskins, Pt 2 of 2, GTT character sketch

And now the thrilling conclusion!!

Haskins grinned impishly.  “Yeah..  well..  I heard.  I had to swap a shift and break a few traffic laws to get to be the on call for this.   You know how much I love reading mystery books.”

Hayes chuckled.  Yeah, I do.  I’m not surprised you pulled favors for this.  So, you’re the lead.  Sorry, D.A. asked for me on it, I’ll try not to step on your toes.”

The grizzled Sergeant nodded.  “Don’t worry about it.  Lets just start with you bringing me up to speed on this mess.  The labtechs get anything off the DOA yet?”

Hayes glanced back.   “Nope.  It’s a forensic nightmare.  Carpets are waterlogged, but no foot prints.  No prints.  Nothing under the fingernails.  No hair…  just…  a blank scene.”

Haskins tugged at his moustache and thought for a second.  “But the room was so tightly sealed that you had to blow one of the doors off.  Hrmph.”  He looked Jack in the eye.  “Alright.  I’m ready.  Start at the beginning.”

Hayes reached up and rubbed his neck as he thought about where to start.  It had obviously been a long day for him.  “Alright.  First off, security company called in the DOA.  Mountains had his company set to call a friend in the DA’s office if his house triggered the ‘dead man’ code.  Which is why you got called last.’

“Dead Man’s code?”

Hayes nodded.  “Yeah.  You know those microchips in pets that have all their information on the?  Well, the DOA has one of those microchips too.   This entire house, all of his cars, and his offices are wired as receivers.  They detect motion, they start scanning.  They pick up on his microchip and they start biometrics scans, monitoring heartbeat, stuff like that.  So if he has an accident, or is under stress, or one of a thousand other little things, and the building he is in sends a specialized code to his security company.  They reported two heartbeats coming into this room, with the DOAs stopping at seven twenty two p.m., and the second one vanishing from this room about six minutes later.”

“Did the house track where the second one went?”

“No.  Rick, you don’t get it.  It vanished.  It didn’t leave.  Let me explain the security protocols, and Mountains’ particular brand of psychosis.  Maybe he watched his own movies too much, but he was paranoid as all hell.  Every room in everything he owns is set up with ‘dead man’s’ booby traps.  He was convinced that a demon from one of his early movies was hunting him.  I found out from the company that he paid them a lot of money make sure that only they, his butler, and he knew that juicy little tidbit.  Anyway, the fear of the demon made him design a very special setup.  Each room goes into instant lockdown if his heart stops.  Hydraulic driven bars through doors, etcetera, etcetera.”

Hayes briefly motioned to the door that had been removed with explosives.  “But the intention was to keep people out as well as in.  Can’t unseal it from either side.  He had a reason for this.  Sixty seconds after his heart stopped, if the biometrics didn’t come back on line, the room’s hermetically sealed air supply starts to pump vaporized Holy Water into the room until there is enough volume that every surface is covered and there’s a decent amount free floating.”

Haskins had to fight to choke down the laughter.  A picture was starting to form in his mind and he didn’t want to break it before it had time to finish coming together.  “So you mean to say that he wasn’t trying to trap a killer… he was trying to keep authorities out long enough for the house to kill a Demon?”

“Nailed it in one,” Jack sighed. “And you can forget the ‘throw the dagger from the door and run’ scenario because the room’s biometrics recorded the second heartbeat’s vanishing almost five minutes after the lockdown.  So, Rick… as you can see there’s no one here.  No dead Demon.  And a Dead man found in a perfectly locked room.”

Haskins nodded.  “This is gorgeous.  No footprints.  No fingerprints.  No hair.  Ha.  You’ll need a miracle to solve this.  Did you check the suits of armor?”

Hayes jerked a thumb at the closest suit of armor.  “Yeah.  No dice there for two reasons.  One, they’re all glued together and you can’t pull them apart.  Two, the security company says you’d need a heavy duty gel to make a heartbeat vanish.  And since none of the suits are dripping, it’s a safe bet they’re empty.  We did check for joint squeeze on them all also.”

Haskins leaned back against the wall and lost himself in thought.  Another Idea sparked.  “What about the secret passages in the house?”

Jack blinked.  “How the hell did you…  No, never mind.  Security and blueprints show five secret passages.  But none of them hook up to this room.”

“Didn’t think so, but I had to check.”

While Haskins kept reassembling the puzzle in his head, the rookie from downstairs walked into the room, brandishing a twenty dollar bill like it was a shield.  He held it out to Haskins.  “Sarge, you were right about the food in the kitchen.  At least its normalish down there though.  Up here its like walking through an x rated episode of Scooby Doo.”

Hayes raised a questioning eyebrow at Haskins as he snagged the twenty.  “Thanks, rooksticks.  It is, isn’t it.  Oh…”  Haskins realized his intuition had been right and started laughing.  The laugh picked up momentum until he was clutching at his sides and gasping for air.  He looked up through an ear to ear grin, while the other two men just stared at him, confused.

Sucking in his breath, he finally managed to clamp down on the laughter.  “Oh god, that’s rich.  Its right in front of you Jack, and you all missed it.  Let me make a guess at something here.  You’ve already checked in with his legal staff, and since he doesn’t have family, all his money is willed to various staff that work for him right?”

Hayes nodded.  “Yeah Rick…  But that doesn’t solve the murder; it just gives us a suspect list.”

“Actually, it does.  God, he got you guys good.  I may have to go back and watch his movies now, because this is just far too clever.”

Jack blinked in annoyance.  “Excuse me?”

“Think, Jack!  He was a master of suspense!  Stop look at the forensics.  Stop looking for the who done it.  Stop being a cop for a minute and think like a horror movie director.  You have to find the surprise twist if you want to figure this one out.  Get it yet?”

Hayes chewed his lip for a moment then shrugged.  “Sorry, no.  Explain please?”

“Ha.  Alright, here’s your first clue, Jack.  He concocted the whole demon story.  It was a trap – for you.  He wanted to box the police and the security company into a specific way of thinking just to get revenge on whoever killed him.  He knew this was coming, bet you anything you find death threats in a safe, or a desk, or something.  I think he even figured out who was coming for him.  So he made up this whole thing, and the killer is sitting in the room with us right now.  Don’t you get it?

“He set this up so that if the killer DID get to him, they’d have to go through their own personal hell, a horror movie of his devising, listening to us and praying to god that we wouldn’t figure it out.  And he set up the whole thing by making you think that he was having paranoid delusions; just to throw you off the scent of what’s really happening here.”

Again all Jack could do was blink and say “Excuse me?”

Haskins reached up and clamped a hand on Jack’s shoulder.  “Think it through.  Locked room.  No windows.  Sixty seconds till water is introduced to the room’s closed system.  Yet there are no footprints… which means that by the time the water settled onto the fabric – the killer was immobile.”

Hayes looked around.  “So someone is in this room with us, but dead?  How do you explain the heartbeat vanishing otherwise?”

Haskins glanced around.  “Easy.  The killer knew the security setup, otherwise he’d already be nabbed and in cuffs.  And the killer’s motive was money.  Otherwise why use the dagger off the plinth to kill him?  He made it look like a botched robbery.  You said a motive, but you missed one thing.  Only one person could have known about the will and the security setup.  There was one important fact missing from the killer’s knowledge.  Suits of armor are usually held together by a wireframe..  and all Mountains had to do to build the perfect prison was grind powdered glue onto the edges and joints of the suits of armor.”

Hayes’ eye lit up and he slowly nodded. “Oh lord that is devious.”

Sergeant Haskins nodded.  “It sure is.  The killer locked himself into his own prison.  As soon as the holy water was pumped into the room, all the suits of armor got glued together – and the glue doubled as the gel to hide the heartbeat!  The killer’s clever hiding spot becomes a prison, and he’s listening to us right now.  And since only one person could have known both those details about the will and security..  wha-la!  The damned Butler did it!  And you’ll find him as soon as you grab a blowtorch and start cutting up the suits of armor.”

Jack’s eyes went wide and the entire forensics team hurried over as the suit of armor next them coughed and said in an affected British accent.  “Um, burning me up won’t be necessary.  I give myself up.  But..  please..  hurry up?   He lined the inside of the suits of armor with the glue too and I’m having trouble breathing…

Rick Haskins, Pt 1, GTT Character Sketch

The Scooby Doo Who Done It

Featuring:  Sergeant Rick Haskins

Haskins carefully angled the cruiser between the other emergency and rescue vehicles.  He felt and heard, rather than saw, the shrubbery; just a moment too late to avoid flattening it.  With a grimace, he said “Screw it” and finished parking.

Carefully, so as not to scratch the ambulance parked next to him, he opened the door of the squad car and squeezed himself out.

Haskins had been a fairly heavily muscled youth, and age was beginning to make those muscles go just a little bit soft.  Combine that with a P.D. standard issue vest and he wasn’t left with much room to get out of the car, or through anywhere else that might be considered a narrow exit.

He paused for a moment and took stock of his surroundings.  The sun was setting low over the Rocky Mountains, with its lights bouncing off the cloud cover, creating wide, rich bands of yellows, oranges, and reds across the sky.  The mansion’s entry drive was crammed to the point of being overflowing with emergency vehicles.  Squad cars, SUVs, ambulances, and somehow even a fire truck were all packed like sardines in a tin into an area meant to hold two Rolls Royces and a butler.

He shook his head.  The whole scene reminded him of nothing so much as a big top circus.  Running his fingers through his closes cropped salt and pepper hair, he clutched his clipboard and strode forward into the mansion.  Inside the house the décor was trying so hard to be cultured and sophisticated that that it seemed more packed than the zoo of a parking lot outside.  Expensive paintings, tapestries, vases, ancient pottery pieces, and clashing modern art sculptures covered every wall and available surface in the entry room.

Haskins ignored the rookie cop standing by the door for a moment just to try to fully take in the room’s aggressively forced culture shock.

This just screams white trash with way too much money he mused while critically scanning the room good grief… I wonder how much he paid to have someone figure out how to make people this uncomfortable as they walked in.

Nodding to himself, he decided that the ambiance felt just right for a b rated horror movie director who’s movies had all become cult legend.  Just right.  Finally he glanced at the uniform by the door.  “So, anyone look in the kitchen yet by chance?”

The kid couldn’t have been more than twenty-one.  They seemed to be getting so much younger these days. “No, sergeant, sorry.”

Haskins grinned.  This was way too easy, but the kid would learn with age.  “Twenty bucks says that you find… lets see… three foods in abundance.  Doritos, frozen dinners, and Hamburger helper.  But before you go check, could you point towards the scene?”

“Sure Sarge.  You’re on for the twenty; no way a posh guy like this liked that crap.  Corpse is upstairs in a gallery room.   Up those stairs, down the spooky hallway, take a left where it does a T.  You can’t miss it, they had to take the door of the room off with explosives.”  The kid grinned weakly and pointed to an ornately banister stairwell that curved up to the next floor.

Stroking his mustache, a lifetime ‘I’m thinking’ habit, he glanced once more around the room, looking at all the little details and things that we’re wrong with it, then he walked over to the stairwell and headed up.

If anything, the second floor was even more aggressive in its theme than downstairs had been.  The theme here was ‘creepy and cobwebby’.  All of the paintings up here were portraits, and they seemed to be of unknown and unremarkable people, all of whom seemed to have large thick foreheads and ugly features.  It reminded him of…  Oh, good grief.  So perfect! He shook his head and strode through the ghostly gallery, took a left, and walked up to the scene of the crime.

The entryway before Haskins was a wreck.  Twin steel doors had once filled it, but now one of them was propped open and the second was blackened around the hinges and handle, and was leaning against the wall next to the doorway.  Striding through to the room on the other side, his initial impression was of vastness.

The room was gigantic.  At least fifty feet long, and almost as wide.  Haskins’ faded blue eyes glittered as he took it all in… and a grin slowly started to spread across his face.  Suits of medieval armor stood to attention around the walls of the room, each sporting a different livery.  Numerous glass cases were placed between the armors, showcasing beautiful pieces of ancient weaponry, all apparently authentic with papers displayed under them.  Scottish claymores, folded katanas,  African tribal spears…  this whole room was a shrine to the ancient art of warfare.

And the cherry on top was a series of tapestries, hung off of support frames in a grid pattern around the room.  And finally, in the very center… a bloody corpse at the foot of an empty plinth trimmed with glowing fiber optic cables.

The cause of death was readily apparent, since most people couldn’t survive having a main gauche shoved through their heart.  Jonathan Mountains, horror icon, had been dressed in a red velvet smoking jacket, khaki pants, and blue fuzzy bunny slippers when he met his violent end.

Several figures, hard at work documenting every detail of the scene, surround the body in a halo of black-lights, finger-printing dust, cameras, and lab coats.  Two of them wore suits with I.D. badges flipped open and hanging from the breast pockets of their blazers.  Beethoven’s Ode to Joy was softly playing in the background on the house’s speaker system, and could almost see the crimelab team moving to the music as then hunted for clues.

One of the two detectives stood up and carefully took a couple of steps away from the corpse before straightening his jacket and sighing.  He walked up to Haskins.  “Hey Rick.  Sorry that you got the call so late.  You Glendale’s on call tonight?”

The detective was mid thirties or so, maybe ten years younger than Haskins.  He was tall, thin, and so clean cut that he looked more like a banker than like a cop.  Haskins shook his hand.  Jack Hayes might look out of place, but he was a damn good cop, and often got bounced around jurisdictions because he had a reputation for delivering air tight cases to the D.A.’s office on unsolvable crimes.

“You lucked out.  This is an honest to god Locked Room Mystery.  First real one I’ve ever heard of.”

Tune in tomorrow for the next installment of “The Scooby Doo Who Done It!”

Spyke! – GTT Character Sketch

This is the puppy of the main character (Winnie’s) best friend- Jenny.   He is a black Chihuahua named Spyke – who wears a spiked leather collar.   In the scene that Winnie is dying in, Spyke is whimpering and licking Winnie’s face…  and ingests vamp blood.  Below is the scene which introduces the dog as a vampire Chihuahua instead of as a normal dog.

I do plan to get a black Chihuahua to attend signings with me and leave ink-paw prints as a sig in books.  He will wear a spiked collar and be named Spyke, of course.  I’m also going to try to franchise out stuffed animals based on the character, and possibly T-Shirts with a pic of him and the quote ‘Sometime the bite is worse than the bark.’

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Chrprrrdrk watched the apple core intently.  Moonlight glinted tantalizingly off of the juicy remains, promising a full belly and making his taste buds sweat in anticipation.  An average squirrel might see a feast this delicious six times in the course of their lives.  Chrprrrdrk waited patiently though; oh yes, he had learned that virtue well.  An encounter with Razorclaw, a leanly muscled, evil- as-Mussolini neighborhood tabby cat had left him his veteran’s stripe – a scar that ran diagonally across his face from the left ear to the right side of his nose.

So he hung onto the trunk of the old birch tree, tucked upside down in the shadow of a branch – well off the white bark that was so readily reflecting the moon’s calm glow.  Carefully, he watched…  waited…  Minutes crawled by like hours, and still he was patient.  Finally he was sure that Razorclaw was nowhere to be seen and with a quick scrabbling of claws he darted down to the apple core, ready to claim his prize.

‘PREDATOR!!!’  screamed his instincts as a flash of silver glinted off of something shiny to his right.   A muffled ‘Yip” was the last thing Chrprrrdrk heard as Spyke’s fangs sank into his neck and shuffled him off this mortal coil.  Spyke drained his victim dry, licked his chops, and contentedly
padded back to the doggie door to find Jenny and cuddle.

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North by South, a GTT character intro

North by South

From The Ian Stone Cases

The thug’s fist slammed into my jaw.  Even rolling with the punch, I felt one of my molars shatter and cut the inside of my left cheek.  The thug grinned and spit his toothpick into my face.

I looked up to him and smiled.  ‘So, why the hell are you here?’

‘Shaddup!’ he snarled and fed me another knuckle sandwich.  This time my shattered tooth cut me badly enough that I had to spit out the blood or choke on it.  I looked back up at him, working my jaw trying to stretch some of the soreness out of it.  The guy was wiry as hell, maybe six feet tall or so, and wearing a blue silk shirt with the top half of the buttons undone; the guy looked like he was right out of a 1980’s cop show.  Yeah, he thought he was a real Guido.

He was rubbing his knuckles, trying to massage some of the pain out of them.  It doesn’t matter how strong or experienced you are, shatter a guys tooth with a hit and you’re taking some damage to your fist.  His lips pulled up into a sneer. ‘Not so tough now, huh mr. private dick?’

Tilting my head up till I could look him in the eyes, I grinned and let the blood spill out of my mouth.  I love a good straight line.  ‘Thanks pal.  You just saved me the seven hundred bucks that getting a root canal was gonna cost me.  I’ve got a bad one on the other side too, think you could get that one next?’

With a snarl he smashed his heel down onto the arch of my left foot.  I felt something break, but didn’t let it show.  Time to pause for a second while I explain why a broken foot was worth it; just to get to deliver one tough guy line.  The thing about being a private eye is that you have to know how to take advantage of your timing.  No matter how much you work on cultivating that no nonsense, tougher than nails, dumb looking but smart on the inside, hard boiled gumshoe lifestyle, the simple truth is that ninety-nine percent of the work you land is boring as hell.

Skip traces, reading court records, checking websites, occasionally finding lost pets, and sneaking through bushes with a camera is most of what a P.I. does.  The majority of the work comes from one of three places – Lawyers, Courtrooms, and suburban wives with too much money and too little to do who fill their hours with unfounded suspicions.  A good P.I is fast with a computer, since their usual day is just sitting at a desk scanning files.

Which is why when you wake up to find yourself handcuffed to a chair in your own office, with a thug putting more shots into you than a sadistic E.R. doctor gives out during flu season, you have to thank your lucky stars and make the most of it.  Which I did.

So now we’re gonna play out the next few seconds nice and slowly, just so you can appreciate the finer details.  As mr. oh so clever repartee’s fist came rocketing towards my face, aimed at that same tooth, I braced both of my ankles against the chair legs and twisted my left wrist just right; which made my thumb collapse against my palm.  My first case ever was to find a lost pit-bull.  When I did find the dog, he satacked me and all but ripped my left thumb off.  It never healed quit right, and I’ve been able to do interesting and occasionally useful party tricks with it since then.  And for some reason I can’t fathom, the left side of my body tends to get a lot more torn up than the right side.

My hand slid out of the cuffs, only taking a little skin with it, right as my own personal thug straight from the set of Miami Vice dropped an a-bomb on my face – finally ripping my left cheek open.  I let the force of the blow carry me, pulling up with my ankles and whipping around, letting the inertia help me pivot the chair on one leg.  I grabbed the back of the chair with my right hand, releasing the pressure with my ankles and just slumping forward.  Ever seen a tetherball?  It goes low on one side, then rockets high on the other side.  That’s what me and the chair did.   I went low, the chair went high, with all that spinning force behind it.

I’m not even sure if I have the stomach to describe what it did to his face.  A lot of blood went flying over me.  Lets just say this – ever tried to break a piece of oak?  His face shattered the chair, and the chair took the lesser of the two beatings.  K.O.  Goons, zero, private detectives one.

I slowly pushed myself up, using the corner of my desk to help me, and carefully testing my weight on my broken foot.  Not comfy, but it’d get me around for the time being.  I’ll admit I wobbled a bit until the world stopped spinning, and then limped over to the downed thug.  I reached down, grabbed him by the shirt and hauled the dead weight over to the radiator.  I grabbed my cuffs and secured both of his wrists behind his head.

Slapping him a couple times I grinned and said ‘Hey, jerk off.  Miami Vice stopped casting twenty years ago.’  Nada.   Yeah, he was out cold.

So instead of pushing his primitive ape brain and trying to get info out of him, I limped back to the desk, picked up the phone, and dialed the local police station.

A tinny sounding female voice answered after just a couple rings. ‘District six dispatch.’

I sighed and did my best to enunciate around all the damage to my mouth.  ‘Hi.  Can you patch me through to Sergeant Haskins, please?  Tell him it’s Ian Stone with a pretty big emergency.’

There were a couple of clicks from the phone and the operator’s voice came back.  ‘He’s at his desk right now. I’ll put you right through Mr. Stone.’

‘Thanks.’ I replied.  Hey, hard boiled gumshoe or no it always pays to be polite to your local law enforcement.  You never know when you might want them to return the favor and be polite to you, after all.

‘You’re welcome, Mr. Stone.’ The line got quiet and I started hearing those background clicks again.

I only had to wait about twenty seconds or so before a gruff voice came across the line. ‘Haskins here.  What’s the matter, Stone?’

I smiled.  Haskins had spent so much time behind that desk since his promotion that even on his home line he had started answer the same way.  “Hey, Sarge.  Got a little problem here at my office.  I just had a goon who’s dressed straight from the 80’s bust into my office, taser me, cuff me to a chair, and then vent a lifetime of frustration at being born in the wrong decade all over my face.  And Haskins, the hell of it is, I’ve never met the guy before and he wouldn’t tell me why he was here.’

There was a sharp intake of breath over the line. ‘Jesus, Ian.  You okay?  Uniforms or paramedics there yet?’

Blood dripped onto the mouthpiece of the phone and sighing, I wiped it off on my shirt as I peeked out the window from behind my blinds and looked down at the street below my office.  ‘Yeah, I’m fine.  Look, I can’t waste time.  I have to figure out why this guy was on me.  So, I called you first.  I want to dodge the ambulances and the reports till I get a good grip on this.’

Haskins chuckled and I carefully watched the street.  ‘Alrighty.  I’ll grab a black and white and be there in five to ten, tops.  Can you wait that long?’

‘Not Sure.’ I replied. ‘I think I have his partner sitting in the street down here.  Looks like a two thousand and two silver Lincoln towncar.  You better come unmarked so we don’t spook him.’

‘Already on the way.  Hold tight, Ian.’  The line went dead.

Down to business.  Limping over to my medical kit, I cleaned up a bit, trying to go as quickly as possible without further injuring myself.  I glanced at the clock.  Two minutes down.

Again I pushed my broken foot.  I knew I had to move fast, no way Haskins would let me out of his sight when he saw the condition I was in.  I got down on my knees in front of the K.O.’d goon and emptied his pockets.  While there I looked a little more carefully at his hands and the way he was dressed.  On a hunch, I cleaned the blood off his hands and studied them more carefully.

Dumping the payload from his pockets onto my desk, I gratefully collapsed into my leather chair.   Here is another tip about being a private eye.  Invest in a damned good chair.  Besides the fact that you are gonna spend a lot of time in it doing the mundane jobs, you gotta be sure to have a god chair for just such situations as this.  I mean, beat to bloody hell with broken bones…  Would you want a chair that didn’t have all the goodies and about six inches of expensive padding?

Four minutes down.  I spread out the contents of his pockets and took stock.  One set of brass knuckles.  Which was odd, because this guy had calluses all over his knuckles, and brassies leaves the marks on your fingers instead.  So, fact one.  He enjoys his work.  Wallet.  Almost five hundred cash, one driver’s license, season pass to the football field, and an injury report on the local teams.

I glanced at the license and groaned.  I hate it when stereotypes are right.  His name was Antonio Guido Pazzuchi.  Well crap.

I grabbed the cash and looked at the last pieces of pocket junk.  Hey, don’t look at me like that.  I might have been cuffed to a chair, but he had engaged my services by my reckoning, and five hundred is one day plus expenses.  So, a paperclip, a pack of gum, three cents, and a folded piece of paper.  I unfolded the piece of paper and found a smudged name and address, barely readable.  It smelled like beer.  Hmm…  My name, and my address..  but not quite right.

I heard a commotion downstairs and outside.  That’d be Haskins, grabbing scumbag number two. Almost out of time.  C’mon stone, you have the edges of the puzzle, now put ‘em together.  On intuition I grabbed the phonebook out of the bottom drawer.

I swear to god, it clicked right as Haskins walked into my office, roughly pushing the other guy in front of him.  The guy couldn’t keep his balance with his hands cuffed behind his back, and fell forward onto his knees.  He looked pissed but was keeping his lips firmly sealed.  Same slicked back hair and mid eighties bad guy look as the guy I had laid out too.

Haskins took in the scene, ran a hand through his graying hair, and started to speak.  ‘Ian, holy…’

‘Wait.’ I interrupted and held up a finger.

I sighed and looked at the kneeling goon.  ‘How much does Stone owe?’

The guy looked from me to Haskins then at his partner, out cold and cuffed to a radiator; and decided communication was probably his best route.  I’m sure it didn’t hurt that as bloody and torn up as I was I must have looked like an axe murderer at that moment.  ‘Uh… You owe ten large, with fifteen points on your late fee…’

I threw the phone book at him and grabbed the piece of paper, holding in front of his face.  ‘No, I don’t, you asshole.  This is SOUTH Colorado boulevard.  Your stone is north.  NORTH.  Learn to read, moron!’

I saw Haskins get it, and he threw back his head laughing.

As it turns out, the two guys had warrants out.  I claimed a thousand dollar reward on each, walking away from the whole thing with twenty five hundred – and just over three grand in medical bills, as well as a cast for a month.  Sometimes being a P.I. is a dog’s life.