I shrugged into the Civilian Labs chest pack, which was packed with my badge, wallet, cash, cell phone and issue Glock 9mm and one spare magazine of ammo. Helbourne are tough, but a hollowpoint bullet in the brain will ruin their day. Tying up my Asics, I headed out at a jog.
My plan was to patrol the area around Plasma for the day, evening and night if necessary. The Hellbourne would be back, all I could hope was that it happened within the next twenty-four hours. I was a little concerned about my ability to fight. By best estimation, based on the dizziness, cold shakes and lack of mental focus last night, Tatiana had drained me of something like fifteen percent of my blood supply. Oddly, I wasn’t appalled by that. She had needed it to survive. I should have been terrified by it. Despite her sudden anger at me the previous night I hoped she was all right. Her beautiful face hung in my mind’s eye, her expression vulnerable and innocent. Idiot! I shook my head to clear and focus. My arm was completely healed and I felt good, really good in fact. My vision, hearing and sense of smell all seemed extra crisp. And as I started to jog, my legs felt great and my breathing was steady and even. It made me wonder about the small amount of blood she had made me ingest.
Plasma was on Third Ave., about ten blocks north of my apartment. The smells from all the restaurants immediately drove me crazy. It was like I could almost pick out the individual spices and foodstuffs. The single best part of living in the City has to be the incredible array of food. Turkish, Thai, Japanese, Chinese, Scandianvian, Hungarian, Russian, Italian, German, French, Jewish, Middle Eastern, you name it and I’ll lead you to the restaurants that serve it. If gambling was Gramps’s vice, food was mine. Gotta have something to fill in for all the sex I wasn’t ever going to have. And with my workout schedule, I burned it off as fast as I ate it. Although, it did strike me as odd that I was already hungry forty minutes after that huge breakfast I had scarfed down.
Finally, I stopped and grabbed a shawarma sandwich from a Middle Eastern place. Hot spicy beef and lamb strips in pita with tahini. Yum. I ate it in five bites while running, the spices bursting on my tongue.
Plasma occupied an unassuming two- story brick building, with almost no exterior features of interest. Before I got near it, I swung down a side street and ran a circuit behind it on Fourth Avenue. I couldn’t see the back of the building, so I stopped running and walked down an alley between a news store and kosher deli. As I walked, the thought struck me that the vampires probably didn’t live in the club. The Demidovas were sure to have a big expensive residence someplace, but I didn’t have a clue where. Suddenly panicky, I visualized the Hellbourne breaking into some huge brownstone and slaughtering Tatiana as she slept.
Idiot, I hadn’t even thought it through. Now what the hell was I gonna do. Oddly, I flashed to a memory of Gramps teaching me about survival. We were with the Search and Rescue group that he helped regularly and he was instructing me in how not to panic. “What do you do if you’re lost, Chris?” He had asked. One of the other guys, a local sheriff’s deputy, had chimed in, “Drop your pants and start to jerk off! Someone’s bound to see you!” When the laughter had died down, Gramps had pushed me for an answer.
“Stop and take stock? Then prioritize?” I said.
“Very good, Chris. Always prioritize. Think your way out. Use your big brain. Not your little brain, like Steve over there.” He said, pointing to the deputy.
So I thought about the Demidovas and who might know where their house was. Michel St. James was a freelance society reporter, whose articles appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, and half a dozen other publications. He sometimes hosted a cable station show of similar ilk and that was how he knew Paige. I met him one night when Kathy and Paige threw a party. A couple of acquaintances had crashed the party and were giving Michel a hard time. Abrasive and condescending, he had an irritating effect on people. Coming back from a house “cleansing” I interrupted the unpleasant scene and threw them out. It would be worth a phone call. 411 had his number and he picked up on the third ring. “Hallo, theeeese is Michel.” His accent was very affected. “Michel, this is Chris Gordon, Paige and Kathy’s neighbor.”
“Yes, I remember,” he drawled nonchalantly, but I could hear curiosity in his voice.
“I’m trying to get to Galina Demidova’s place and I wondered if you knew the address.”
“Why would you be going to Galina’s place?” His voice was a subtle mix of condescension, disbelief and wariness.
“Look, I am supposed to do some security work there and none of the other guys that are working are picking up their phones,” I lied. Michele knew I was a cop, and it would make perfect sense for me to be acting as security. Certainly there could not possibly be any other reason. It was also a not too subtle reminder of my help with his own security.
“Weell, of course I’ve been to her place. Brooklyn Heights, Willow Street if I recall. Let me look it up.”
I hailed a cab while he rustled up the street number. No way was I gonna run all the way there. Not enough time. I told the driver Willow Street in the Heights and then Michele’s fake French accent came back on the cell.
“Ett is 119 Willow, Christian.” I thanked him roughly and hung up, repeating the number to the driver, whose name was Ismahel, according to his cabby card.
The Demidova residence was a five story brownstone in the glitzy, nose in the air neighborhood of Brooklyn Heights. There was also a basement below street level. It probably went for four to six million and must have had over seven thousand square feet of space. I had the taxi drive past it and then got out on the opposite side of the street, eyeballing the place for detail. The front would be well guarded, as would the back.
A vision hit just then. A deck, a French door and a bland reflection in the glass of the door. I broke into a jog and ran around the block. Of course, the house was located right in the middle of the block, giving me the longest possible run to get behind it. Immediately, I spotted the deck, on top of a bump-out from the first and second floors. The deck was likely accessed from the third floor, but I could see how easy it would be for a demon-ridden meat shell to climb the exterior, after first getting into the first level’s walled garden space. Discreet security cameras were visible to my trained eye, but the human security guards would not likely notice the Hellbourne. Not wanting to get shot, I pulled my badge from my chest pack and dangled it around my neck. Then I studied the garden wall.
About eight feet high and clear of any climbable objects. Piece of cake for the eerily-quick demonkind, but a pretty good obstacle for me. Backing up, I visualized a big Rottweiler chasing me (for inspiration), then ran hard at the wall, bounding off my right foot. The fingers of both hands caught the top, fingers scrabbling on the crumbly brick of the old wall. Just like that I was up, feeling pretty pleased with myself.
Then two things happened simultaneously.
The whirring of a security camera spinning caught my ears and the oily dark presence of Hellbourne pressed on my aura like a bowling ball on a trampoline. It was here, close and moving. I jumped to the stained concrete surface of the garden, knocking over a potted cedar tree as I landed. The outer walls were lined with fruit trees and bushy conifers. An ornate yellow metal trellis was centered over a pair of sitting benches, the top curved like the golden arches of McDonalds. Ahead of me I could see the brick wall of the bump out that held the deck as its roof. The back door opened and two burly men in dark suits came out, their steady stares glued to me like frat boys watching a beer truck. “Sir, stop right there, this is private property,” said the first, a wall of crew cut beef with pale blue eyes rolling toward me in a great impersonation of an Abrams main battle tank. The second, even bigger, black with black eyes, hove into sight behind him like a naval vessel. Where did they grow these guys? I ignored his comments, as a rustle – smack sound announced the bland man-thing landing ten feet from me and moving toward the bump out wall. I raced to intercept it, the security guys completely ignoring it. The Abrams tank guy held up a salad plate sized hand , but I swerved around him like he was in slow motion and grabbed the ankle of the Hellbourne as it climbed the wall. It climbed with my full weight hanging from it for a moment, then fell back to the garden, its grip slipping. The two security hulks had stopped to process the unexpected sight of the demon. Once my hand touched it, its cloak was shot and it had become visible to them. I couldn’t be bothered. I was busy getting a modified arm bar on it to hold it just long enough to rip it loose. Jujitsu and wrestling are heavy components of my own style of unarmed combat, as much of my time is spent getting my prey into position to rip them from their shells. Its left hand was under my right armpit, my right hand pressing the center of its back, my left on its chest. Time is short in these encounters as Hellbourne are not put off by things like broken elbow joints or choke holds. A lifetime of practice made it easy to force my will and aura through the demon’s body from my right hand and pulling the foul thing free of the meat shell with my left. Noxious sulfer stink burned my eyes, nose and mouth like a hunting camp full of overweight beer drinkers after a night of cheap beer and pickled eggs. The demon made an audible wet ripping sound as it pulled free from the body, and I was left holding a roiling blob of greasy blackness in my left hand. Quick as thought, I flung the noisome thing straight up while calling >Kirby< in my mind. The dark shadow-hawk form of the Collector popped into being above us, gripping the black form of the Hellbourne in both smoky talons. Two flaps of car hood sized wings and it popped back out of our plane of existence, hauling the demon to who knew where. I lay there panting like I had run a marathon, tangled in the limbs of the suddenly dead body.