"Barely," Damon said.
"First no, now barely," the older officer said, shaking his head. "Are you a friend, a brother, a husband? How much has she had to drink tonight?"
"I don't know," Damon said. "I saw her fall back there and helped her up."
"Her eyes are dilated," the older officer said. "What drugs has she taken this evening?"
"Again, I don't know," Damon said. "I just saw her fall."
A loud squawk came over the older officer's radio. "Car seven, report."
The younger officer nodded to his elder and reached for the radio clipped on his uniform. "We've got an 11-41 on the corner of First and Hudson."
"What's that mean?" Damon asked.
"She needs to go to the ER," the older officer said. "Would you happen to know anything about her head wound?"
"No."
The man looked from his younger partner to Damon and said, "What about all of that blood on your sleeve?"
"I didn't notice it," Damon said, still looking forward. He felt their net of questions draw tighter around him.
"It's dry blood, too," the younger officer said. "How long ago did she hit her head?"
"I don't know that either."
"You're a wealth of information, Damon," the older officer said. "May we see your driver's license?"
"I don't carry ID," Damon said. "Am I under arrest or am I free to leave?"
The younger one chuckled, then said, "Well, you lied to us and you're wrist-deep in blood. What do you think?"
It was in that moment when Damon first considered killing both police officers. He looked around at the twenty bystanders and knew that if he did that he'd have to kill all of them, too.
"Again, officers," Damon asked. "Am I under arrest?"
"We're going to need to ask you a few more questions, Damon," the younger officer said. "Fortunately the station is right over there, so it's no inconvenience."
"If you're detaining me further, I want my lawyer present."
"Call whoever you want," the older officer said. "We've got all night."
Chapter Four
Some jobs are callings. That is the way Alvaro Ahmad felt every night he woke up. He'd rise from a motel bed or the backseat of his car, stop off at a diner for black coffee, toast, and a poached egg, and read through the posts for just the right assignment.
Demon worshipers, were-creatures, tomb excavations, a good Mithughee did them all. No job was too small because, as he learned early in his career, any small thing can lead to mass extinctions if left unchecked. Just ask your neighborhood vampire, if you could find one.
A young waitress with a butterfly tattoo under her ear refilled his coffee. "You done with your eggs?"
He passed the plate to her with his left hand. She took it from him and he winced a little from the movement, though not enough for her to seem like she noticed.
Alvaro slid his right hand underneath his coat and patted the bruises on his ribs. Whatever he had killed last night hadn't matured enough to grow claws yet. That was the difference a proactive approach made in this kind of work--bruised ribs were a hell of a lot better than a torn ribcage. Not even close.
It took time to learn which assignments could be handled with an hour's knife work and which required a team of hunters. He was alone today. Injured and alone. So he sipped his coffee and scrolled through the list for something light.
That was when he read the post from his assigner.
STEPHANIE POWELL: Case 856: Hudson County, NJ. Code 8 - Track and Follow. Possible Artifact Recovery of Item #54326. 2MC.
Alvaro knew those numbers. Item #54326 was The Tome of Testaments, a book he had lost track of thirteen years ago. The goddamn thing was dangerous, more than the Central Humanist Collective gave it credit for being. The CHC was good at organizing the mortal power players, the Mithughee included. Without a united front, mankind would have died a horrid death a hundred times over in as many years. But with that organization came caution and hesitation.
He lifted his left arm and the tight soreness crept around his side. Track and Follow, the post read. He decided that he could stake it out for the night, especially if it was a 2MC. At least a Mithughee presence would give the job an appropriate sense of seriousness.
He thumbed his response to the post.
ALVARO AHMAD: Interested in 856. It's 2MC so who's the second Mithughee?
STEPHANIE POWELL: Randall Sefack.
Something close to a smile crept across Alvaro's face. He hadn't seen Randall since the kid took his rites three years ago. New Jersey wasn't that far away, three hours maybe. It'd be great to catch up with his old protégé and maybe bring in The Tome of Testaments while they were at it.
Many Mithughee stuck to rural mountains or dense forests. That was the old mentality.
Long ago, man ran naked through the trees and felt a connection to nature. Yes, nature existed in the woods, but gods and men buried their secrets and built over them. Villages grew into forts. Forts gave way to tombs. Castles became government buildings or libraries or hospitals. Multi-million dollar vaults and comparably costly government bribes were so commonplace in our large cities that their absence would be noticed far more quickly than their presence.
Randall knew all of this and Alvaro had made sure he learned it well. The cities were where all hell could break loose at any moment. A good hunter belonged there.
ALVARO AHMAD: I'm in. Send me his pendant's tracking key.
STEPHANIE POWELL: Key #986. Post 856 Now Filled.
Alvaro dropped a twenty on the table and headed to his car.
Chapter Five
Damon sat in a cold room for three hours before Chris leaned in and waved him out. "Come on. Let's go."
"That's it?" Damon asked.
Chris shrugged. "The magic of a law degree."
"What were they holding me for?"
"Possible assault and obstructing an investigation," Chris said. "Don't lie to cops."
Damon grunted. He pushed past Chris into the hallway and made for the front door. The two officers who brought him in stopped talking and watched him as he left. Damon didn't turn back until he reached the sidewalk outside of the station. "Am I being charged?"
"They tried to make it sound like that," Chris said, limping after him. "We need to get you an ID. The cops may need to get a hold of you if her injuries turn out to be suspect."
"Which they're going to be."
"They'll no doubt raise an eyebrow," Chris said. He took a step and winced.
"How're you doing?"
"Been better. Gracie had already patched me up, but it still took a while to hobble over here and get you straight. We lost valuable time."
Chris handed Damon a cellphone. "They sent her to Hoboken University Medical Center. She should still be there."
"Got it," Damon said. "Go home, Chris."
Chris nodded and lurched up Hudson Street toward the house.
The hospital was only a few blocks north and west.
Damon made it to Washington Avenue and had only just worked out his approach when a voice came from behind him.
"Hey, wait up."
Damon looked back at a wiry man with a badge on his belt. The beat of his surface thoughts were measured and deliberate. "My lawyer just left, officer," Damon said. "If you want to talk, it'll be through him."
The man smiled and breathed a quiet laugh. "I'd heard you had some training in dealing with police."
"Then I'm free to go?"
"Not yet." The cop held out his phone and nodded his head towards it. "You're going to want to see this."
Damon leaned in and watched the screen go black. Little dots circled as the video loaded. It was a high angle of a man and a woman in an alley. The man had a grip on the woman and spun her around. She fought back, but he hit her in the stomach. The woman fell and hit her head on the as
phalt.
"That's your Rebecca," the cop said. "And that's how she got her head wound." Damon's heart raced as he noticed that there was another thirty seconds left in the video. The cop grinned. "Wait for it."
Damon looked back at the screen as a second man ran into view, grabbed the first one, and slammed him into the dumpster.
Then the second man changed. He grew larger and became something different, something greater.
There was a blur of movement. The first man fell and the video ended.
"How did you get this?" Damon asked.
The cop thumbed the touch screen and deleted the video. "Get what?"
"Am I supposed to think that's the only copy?" Damon asked.
"I have as much to lose here as you do."
"How did you know where to look?"
"Spirits are excellent informants," the cop smiled.
"The couple," Damon said with an exhale. He hardened himself. "What do you want?"
"This isn't about blackmail."
"You're not disturbed by what you saw?"
"Not at all," the cop said. "Quite the opposite, actually. We're excited. Whatever it is that you are, you're exactly what we've been looking for."
"We?" Damon asked.
"That's right," the cop said. "I haven't introduced myself." He rolled up his sleeve to the elbow and pointed to an intricate scar-too on his forearm. "I'm Lieutenant Kevin Holmes of the Hoboken Police Department and Chief Field Officer of the Rholyites."
Damon laughed out loud. "Yeh-Rholyu is an old and tired thing, clinging to life on what little scraps the other Near Gods give him."
The lieutenant recoiled. The tempo of his measure quickened and his beat became a stiff percussion. "Far God myths have warped your view of reality. They're all gone now. They've returned to the source millennia ago. Trithuko. Mulsfenu. Dloigotha. Dæmñrœ."
"You're not pronouncing that right," Damon seethed.
"Does it matter?" Kevin asked, waving at the swarms of people. "You're not doing anything out in the open. The time of the Near Gods is at hand."
With those words, Damon saw that the lieutenant's dark hand had deep creases around the wrist that resembled eyes and a mouth that looked like the cat-spider from earlier. "We've met already."
"Nearly," Kevin smirked. "You're faster than you look."
"Controlling your hand from afar is a neat trick."
The lieutenant shrugged, "Comes with experience."
"What did you do to her?"
"A little sting," he said. "It secretes a faint scent I can trace if I need to."
Damon's voice grew cold. "Leave her alone."
"I can't promise that," Kevin said. "She means something to you and we're curious why."
"It's none of your concern," Damon said.
"I doubt that." The lieutenant rolled his sleeve down and fastened his cuff. "Followers of the Far Gods come into our territory and take an interest in one particular person? Something is up."
"We've been here for longer than you think," Damon said.
"All the more reason to be suspicious," Kevin said. "Why would you start getting careless now? What is it about her that is so important?"
"Stay away from her."
"Again, no promises."
"You want promises? I'll make you a promise." A deep rage coursed through Damon's veins and he came to the edge of losing control. He pulled himself back and breathed one long slow breath. "Stay out of my way or you and your whole kind will die at my feet tonight."
Damon gave the grinning lieutenant one more hard look. Without another word, he turned toward the hospital.
Chapter Six
Warm spring nights in Hoboken smelled like a sour mix of beer, bronzer, and bile. To their credit, the ER staff at the Hoboken hospital kept most of that stench outside. It's impossible to know how they did it, considering that the people who contributed most to the city's unique bouquet ended up in their waiting room.
Damon pushed past the hellscape of twenty-somethings on his way to the front desk. "Rebecca Wilson."
"Excuse me," the woman responded. Her thoughts were a single-tone melody, soft and slow. She blinked a few times, then shook herself more alert. "What was the name?"
"Rebecca Wilson," Damon repeated.
"Are you family?"
"I'm her half-brother," Damon lied. "She was brought in earlier."
The woman typed, then stared at the screen for another few seconds. "She was discharged."
"How long ago?"
She looked at the screen again. "About a half an hour ago."
"Who picked her up?" Damon asked.
The woman gave him a hard stare. Fatigue washed from her features and her eyes sharpened. She took her hands off of the keyboard and looked Damon over in a way that told him she was memorizing his description. "You could call her to find that out," she said after her eyes reached his again. "What did you say your name was?"
"I didn't," Damon said. "Thank you for your time."
He sped out of the hospital. The woman called out after him, but Damon was faster than your average overworked healthcare professional. She would make a note of the conversation. No matter. No amount of questioning could undo tonight's necessary work.
Rebecca must live to see the morning.
Her apartment was in Jersey City Heights, a twenty-minute walk west of the hospital. Damon covered it in three.
He slipped out of someone's overgrown backyard and onto the sidewalk on Palisade Avenue. Two people saw him and stopped talking for a breath. One asked for change for a cup of coffee. Damon gave the man a dollar and crossed the last two blocks toward Rebecca's apartment building.
Travel on foot allowed him to clear his head and make a plan. One, get into the apartment. Two, take her back to Chris and Gracie's. Three, guard Rebecca until morning.
Had he more time, the plan would have been more thorough, but time was short and she was in more than a minimum of danger. Damon stood at the corner across from Rebecca's building for a minute and set his point of entry.
Old as it was, Rebecca's apartment was the only building in the Heights with decent security. He'd been here dozens of times already.
Beginning early in the fall semester, Rebecca held study sessions on Sunday evenings. After Gracie introduced him to Rebecca as someone who might be interested in the program the following year, Damon made the occasional meeting so as not to seem too present. Each time he showed up, he took stock of their systems.
On either side and across the street, two-family homes sat comfortably penetrable. Not this building. The doors had keycard locks and there were cameras everywhere. One over the front door. Another set over the garage and another on the far side of the building. More cameras lined the hallways, stairwells, and elevator.
Rebecca's apartment was on the second floor and her windows were right over the garage. Damon considered it. Evading one camera is a more attractive idea than evading four.
A man leaned out of a window of the house behind him, talking to no one, not even himself. One or two words would make sense, then he'd flow into a string of mumbling and curses. Damon weighed his options and wondered how this man's police report would sound read back in a courtroom.
From a standing start, he scaled the brick, tapping the ledges and holds long enough to fool anyone watching the footage later that he was just an excellent climber and not something more. He had already let his truer form get recorded once out of carelessness. He couldn't afford more mistakes. Not when she was relying on him.
The window locks were, as usual, a joke. He pulled hard enough to strip the screws out of the frame and slid into the apartment.
Once inside, he climbed down off of the couch and into the living room. He stalked past the dining room and into the hallway outside of the master bedroom.
Damon stood comfortabl
y in the dark and felt the night's worries drain from him. Things would be as they should be. He checked his phone. 1:28 am. He had hours to go before light. So much had happened already, but it was all worth it to know that Rebecca was safe.
It was when he stepped into the bedroom that he knew something was wrong. There was no melody. There was no beat. Cleanly folded sheets and well-placed pillows drew him to one painful and obvious conclusion--Rebecca was not here.
Her absence filled the space like an odor. He was lost, a feeling he knew well before Chris and Gracie saved him.
Damon shook his thoughts clear and set himself to figuring out his next move. What was he missing? He retraced the last four hours.
Did the woman at the hospital lie to him? No, he would have sensed that right away. Liars were the easiest to read.
The doors and windows in the apartment were intact and there was no evidence of a fight, so no one broke in before him.
Was she taken somewhere else? Rebecca never mentioned family. Another friend from school, perhaps? The woman at the desk never told him who came to pick her up from the hospital.
She said to call her.
It was the simplest answer, one that made little sense until now, when all other options were exhausted.
Just call her.
Damon pulled his phone out of his pocket and dialed the number.
It picked up after two rings, a good sign. Damon expected that it would be turned off or have gone to voicemail. He perked up his voice. "Hey, Rebecca. It's Damon. I lost you earlier tonight and wanted to check on you?" He heard only breath. "Where are you?"
There was another pause as someone cleared their throat. "We're at the old stone house on Palisade," a low and familiar voice said. "Come alone."
Damon's heart sank to his stomach. He drew a short breath. "Lieutenant Holmes, I don't think you realize what you are doing."