Sucker (Para-noir-mal Detectives Book 1) Read online

  "What kind?"

  "A big one."

  "Why you?"

  She hesitated, standing there with her top hanging open and her breasts visible. "I ..." She drew the sides of the shirt around her front. "I met the right criteria."

  "Is that all?"

  She nodded but I knew she was hiding something.

  "Why are they appearing?"

  "I don't know," she said. "They've been around forever, but only rarely are they spotted. Maybe something important is coming."

  "Something like the change?"

  She hesitated. "What do you know about that?"

  "You tell me."

  A moment bounced around the room as she stared at me quietly. "What do you know about people?"

  I gave her a quizzical.

  She cocked her head to the side. "Do you know where we come from?"

  "Storks?"

  A manic energy entered her voice and she started waving her hands around frantically. Her eyes grew wide. "What if what they've told us has all been a lie? What if there'd been no evolution, only mutation? Those creatures consider themselves the next step. We're like monkeys to them. They're going to wipe us out." She stopped. "That's the change."

  "You're crazy." I shook my head and turned to leave.

  "I've seen things. When they were sucking the life out of me, I had visions. I know what they're doing." Her eyes were wide with desperation. She lunged at me, grabbing my jacket lapels and dragging me closer. "They're vermin, draining the life from people, spreading disease. They're vicious and relentless. Nothing stops them once they've targeted you. Nothing. Until you're dead."

  "What's your name?"

  She hesitated, her eyes half full of tears and doubt. She drifted off into a recollection that gave her a small smile. "Angelina," she replied.

  "Angelina, am I a target?"

  "They don't target men." She looked at me uncertainly. "Do those little skinny blond things come to you offering dreams and promises?"

  "Not really."

  "Once they've targeted you, they won't stop until one of you is dead. And they don't die. You have to wrap yourself up in all this"--she indicated the superstitious artifacts around her dark, pokey room--"and take it one day at a time."

  "Why only women?"

  "To stop us breeding. They want to replace us. Wipe us out."

  I reflected on the information. It was utterly fantastical and completely unbelievable. This woman seemed to be as whacky as the other fraudulent shysters. I nodded to her and moved toward the door.

  "You can't leave me like this. They'll come for me. Every day for the last year has been torture. I've seen the pain, the madness that sits inside the head, like a brain half rotted away. They're animals. I need to be ... reclassified. I need my flowers potted," she said, struggling for a metaphor.

  All she had to do was shut her mouth for five minutes and any eligible partner would be throwing himself at her. That had also worked for Jorgen.

  "It's not me you want," I said, as I turned to leave.

  There was the sound of a hammer being pulled back and a bullet dropping into a chamber. I raised my hands and sighed.

  "Guess again."

  14

  Angelina was all right. A little weird, I'll grant you. And she sure gave herself permission to release. I thought about her desire to forget her past, which included me.

  When I left her little shop of horrors, at gunpoint, she had let her dark hair down and she looked relaxed, as though a great weight or curse had been lifted. She had collapsed back into her great gothic throne, her top still hanging open and her skirt up around her waist like some delinquent schoolgirl. I hoped she would find happiness. Preferably not at gunpoint.

  I was getting a little annoyed at being considered a machine. Although it had its upside, I was beginning to chafe, and I needed to do some serious walking.

  Eden Lane was a mystery. How does a guy the size of cow disappear into thin air? I considered the options and figured there was something I'd missed. I jumped off a thirty-five when it shunted into Gayme, and I trailed down the drag until I found the insidious street. It took several attempts, the lane being deceptively dull.

  I crawled over every inch of that lane, taking a good couple of hours to do it. It was nothing but a cleanly swept alley with nothing but bricks and mortar. As the sun started to diminish into late afternoon, I gave up. I was sitting at the stop, waiting for a thirty-five, staring at the vacant little lane, when Levi stroke out.

  I blinked in disbelief. What was going on? There was no way he could have come out of the lane unless he'd descended from the sky, probably on wings of fire. He hitched his size tens down the street and I took off after him. He cut through the city park out toward the Hill. He strode with purpose, never looking back, hair flowing and shirt flapping.

  Behind the Hill was the old chameleon church, the Grand Hilltop, sitting behind an old city graveyard, having been desacralized decades ago but left quiet since. Dark windows punctuated the worn stonework that towered into the sky in true gothic-style architecture. I caught a glimpse of him disappearing in through the front doors after throwing a casual glance over his shoulder. I waited, hidden behind a stone angel, to see if he'd stay or not.

  Ten minutes came and went. I heard the scuffing of feet and dived for cover. Someone else was coming up the ancient path. He looked a lot like Levi, but younger and not as big. Mini-Levi approached the door, also looking back over his shoulder, and rapped a quick tattoo on the old oak. A few moments later the doors opened and Levi stuck his head out before motioning for the guy to enter. The doors closed. I could hear voices.

  The door opened again. Levi walked up the path, with various items of clothing flapping glamorously in the breeze, and disappeared into the city park.

  The sun started to descend behind the church, casting its shadow over the graveyard. I extracted myself from behind the angel and approached the great doors. Everything seemed quiet. I placed my hands against the old wood. It felt slightly warm. I pushed and the door creaked open. I stepped inside. It was difficult to see in the dim light, but the interior had clearly been trashed.

  The pews had been destroyed and lay smashed and toppled. A couple of side windows, formerly stained glass, were smashed out, with the shards lying around on the floor. They crunched underfoot. The place was class-A creepy. Musky smells, dusty eddies, desolation, hardly enough light to see by.

  Wings erupted from beneath me. They swirled and flapped around, battering me, then were gone. There was an aggressive squawk. Just a bunch of pigeons. I sighed with relief. Then there was a gentle sob. Distant and muffled. I moved toward the rear of the church. The old masonry crunched under my feet.

  As my eyes accustomed to the low light, I could make out the details of the place. The floor was covered with thick dust, marking the footsteps of previous visitations. My eyes followed what looked like the most recent, and drifted up onto the walls. The place hadn't been desacralized; it had been polarized.

  Effigies and symbols of adulation had been erected to the darkness. Disturbing pictures of people in unnatural situations adorned the walls in a macabre slideshow of disfigured anguish, with one constant theme: blood. People bleeding it, drinking it, bathing in it. The images added more and more deviations, with a variety of instruments and animals, culminating in a horrific spectacle placed above the altar. Square in the center of the image were two winged people, beautiful beyond compare, surrounded by winged animals, just like the ones I had seen in the tank.

  Behind the picture was a small staircase, which disappeared into the rear tower of the church. The sound of gentle crying was drifting down from the spire at the top of the tower. Mini-Levi had disappeared, leaving the church in silence except for my footfalls and the weeping. There was only one set of prints leading to the steps.

  The steps, bearing worn hollows from a million footsteps over thousands of years, wound tightly around a center stone column, which was also worn smooth
by time and a multitude of hands. There were no windows in the walls, making the walk darker and more dangerous the higher I got. A breeze gusted down, blowing a cloud of dust into my eyes. I wiped them, momentarily losing my balance as a wave of melancholia swept over me. The tunnel effect of the tower seemed to amplify my senses. My hearing picked up every little groan and cry coming from above. My eyes craved light and sought the faintest of rays illuminating the edge of the stairs. I made it to the top of the tower, and was now in total darkness.

  There was a solid door barring the way. I ran my hand over it. It felt like metal. I pushed it. It was locked tight. I felt around the edges. There was nothing. The metal door sat solidly in a metal frame that felt like it was cut sharply into the stone. I placed my ear to the door. I could hear the weeping on the other side. I ran my hands over the cold metal again, slower. I could feel a slight, raised circle on the right side of the door. As my left hand swept over the metal, my fingertips made out a second circle.

  I stepped back. I placed the fingertips of both hands in the centers of the circles. There was the faintest of clicks, more a detection of the low frequency of something moving rather than the actual sound of it. The door swung inward silently. Light exploded from the room beyond. The sun shone directly into my eyes, forcing me to shield them with my hand. I felt like it was burning my skin away.

  I stepped into the small round room.

  Her hands were tied in front of her around a post. She was gagged and on her knees. Behind her was a large stone altar, just like the one in the Vinyl, with its stone demon and four stone heads at each corner. This altar had a twelve-inch spike sticking up from the center.

  Her head was lowered, but she sensed someone was there and looked up. She tried to rise and fell back, sobbing, her hair falling forward to cover her face. I didn't need to see any more to know who it was.

  Mina.

  15

  I ran over and shook her. She cowered, turning in on herself, afraid of facing her assumed assailant. I knelt down and gently held her face. She looked up slowly. Her eyes were full of fear. Tears streaked her face, which was smeared with dirt. Her arms were bruised. Her dress was torn, showing glimpses of her divine body.

  Her eyes brightened, then went wide. In their reflection I caught Mini-Levi looming behind me like a cheap wrestler, all show no curtains. I spun around. The stone statue of a demon wasn't a stone statue. Or a demon.

  I dodged to the side, catching his arm and twisting him onto the floor. He landed with a heavy thump, but rolled easily onto his side and back onto his feet. He let out a strange hissing sound and leaped back up onto the altar. I was impressed. It was a four-foot vertical jump, and he did it without effort.

  He pulled an eighteen-inch-long red dagger from within the altar. We all looked at it, with various levels of emotion. Mina looked terrified. Mini-Levi looked confident. I looked fed up. I was tired of being the only one without one.

  He leapt onto the floor, tucked into a roll, and jumped up, ready for combat. It was a bit showy for my liking. He swung it at me, clumsily. I ducked out of the way. A couple of poorly aimed stabs later and I grabbed him by the hand. He seemed taller now than when he'd walked in. But he wasn't tall enough. I wrenched his arm around behind him, running him forward toward the spike in the center of the altar. He dropped the dagger and it bounced away. I kicked his legs aside and he collapsed, banging his head on the stone.

  I picked up the dazed fool and gave him a couple of sharp slaps across the face. His eyes rolled as he fought for consciousness. I held him up by the collar. He sagged to his knees, blood trickling from his nose. I raised my fist to give him the countdown. There was a soft cry from Mina. I looked over. There was a twist within my grip. I looked back to Mini-Levi.

  He leaped up, but I used the momentum to lift him high over my shoulders and slam him down onto the altar spike. It drove up through his body, leaving him dead. Limbs hung over the stone edges, and blank eyes stared at me. I felt momentarily sorry for the young guy. But then I remembered that he'd been trying to kill me.

  I picked up the dagger and sliced through Mina's bonds. The dagger felt hot under my touch and it grew hotter. I threw it aside; it just added to the overall weirdness of the place.

  She was lighter than a delicate soufflé. I lifted her easily and cradled her in my arms.

  "Who is that?" I indicated the fallen man. Blood had pooled underneath him, spreading out from his shoulders toward the demented stone heads. They looked like wings of blood.

  "It was Phoenix. We need to go before he ..."

  I looked back at Phoenix as we left the room. It didn't look to me like he'd be doing any "before he" ever again.

  The metal door slammed shut, leaving us in near perfect darkness. I waited for a moment for my eyes to adjust to the blackness.

  "Take me to your place," she whispered.

  "It ain't safe."

  "He can't find us there."

  "You did."

  I descended slowly, feeling for each step as I went. She lifted her hand and gently stroked it down my face. I sensed rather than saw her eyes glowing in the dark.

  "You don't know how long it took me to find you," she said.

  The sun had set when we left the church and early night crept in like vengeful molasses. I kept to the backstreets until I could grab a dimbox. The discreet ones ran off the main drag. It was going to cost, but privacy did these days. I bundled Mina in and gave the cab driver, in his crisp, charcoal uniform with yellow banding, a sorry excuse about her drinking too much and a husband on the warpath. He gave me an understanding nod and hightailed it to my office. I asked him to stop around the corner and tipped him on the courageous side.

  I carried her up to my office and laid her down on the stretcher. Thankfully there was no sign of the rent monster.

  Mina was a complete mess. I unzipped her dress, peeled her out of it and threw it in the machine. I tried to not look at her secrets, but damn she was seductive. And she had taste so expensive and classy her secrets were nearly art. I placed a blanket over her and she stirred briefly, wrapping herself into it.

  Time ticked by, and she drifted in and out of some haunting dream. In the deepest sleep she started to perspire heavily. I rinsed an old cloth under the kitchenette tap and wiped the grime off her face, and then folded it across her forehead until the disturbance had passed. She opened her eyes when I removed the cloth.

  I offered her a glass of water and she drank from it greedily. She was living without an ocean, running hot and cold, currents going nowhere. Then her eyes focused and she made all the sense in the world. I swept her hair back from her face and looked into deep blue eyes as wide as the Pacific.

  "Are you all right?" I said.

  "You're a man, and I'm a woman. Honey, you're never supposed to understand." She looked down. "You seem to have relieved me of my clothing. Well, some of it."

  "It's in the machine." I hiked my thumb over my shoulder. The sound of the ancient Bendix echoed through the paper-thin wall.

  "At least you left me something," she said, glancing down at her underwear. "There's nothing like the lure of anticipation to get people hot and bothered."

  "Start talking."

  "Are you sure there isn't some other use I could put my mouth to?" She raised her hand and stroked my knee.

  Some things never changed. Her desperation for attention was so deeply ingrained it was never far from accentuation.

  "Start with Levi."

  She sat back and sighed. "He's a mob boss. Second from the top."

  "Who's the top?"

  "I don't know. They're all hidden. You don't know they exist until they decide to let you meet them. You know what these underworld figures are like."

  "No, I don't. Maybe you can fill in the details."

  "They've got something going down where there's going to be a challenge between some of the lower heads. Whoever's left can challenge for the top job. Then they get to run the city."

&nbs
p; "Why are we safe here?"

  "In your office? Well, honey, as delectable as you are, you have no idea about this new-fangled thing called advertising. And in a big city, if you don't want to be found you got a million places to hide, above or below ground."

  "We should lie low."

  "I thought you'd never ask, but taking off my clothes was a pretty good hint. How low do you want to go?"

  I closed my eyes and fortified myself. "Do we need protection?" It was too late; I'd spoken without fully analyzing the consequence and potential of the sentence.

  "Get your gun out, big boy. I'd like to see you pump out a few rounds."

  "Stop it."

  She let out a sigh and for the first time--while fully awake--looked vulnerable. She clasped her hands on top of the sheet. "I'm sorry. I thought you liked that kind of thing. I thought you were a tough guy."

  It was almost a question. But I knew that if she was asking it, there was something she was missing, longing for. Maybe she was looking for a tough guy for protection so she could stop pretending.

  "Maybe once, but not anymore."

  "No one ever takes notice unless you chase them down. Especially the good ones."

  She sighed again and gave me a half-smile while reaching out for my hand. I took it in mine, my two hands wrapping around her delicate hand completely.

  "How did you get involved?" I asked her.

  "You'd be amazed how easy it was. They offered so much, and it was all very exciting. In the beginning there was so much fun in being bad. Then it was a slippery slope straight down. I soon got tired of it and wanted to turn it around. But you can only go one way, unless you deal or betray your way out."

  "Who are you going out with?"

  She let out an incredulous laugh, covering her mouth with her hand. "No one. I wouldn't have shaken the tree with you if there'd been someone else. Who said I was going out with anyone?"