

The Shadows

Up Caper

By: A. Sigurd Olson

I

I looked at the clock on my wall and found it had been almost ten minutes since I had been on the line listening to the woman rant on about her cheating husband. The problem was; I hadn't been tracking down her husband to get juicy pictures for the divorce case. No one had yet. Another problem was that I didn't do divorce cases, they made me feel sleazy, but she hadn't given me a second to speak since I had answered.

I jumped in as soon as she took her next breath. "I'm sorry, ma'am, but I don't work divorce cases."

"But you're a detective; I thought all you guys did were divorce cases."

"I'm sorry that you were under that impression. I don't handle such cases. If you want, I can recommend you to someone who does and who is very good at it." I gave the ranting woman the name of a detective who specialized in tracking cheating husbands and quickly hung up the receiver before she could begin another tangent.

There were days I wished I had a secretary and this was one of them. Earlier in the day, I had gotten three other calls to work divorce cases. I used to do the occasional divorce case, but stopped a very long time ago, my last one being back in the forties I hadn't had any other case in the last few weeks, but I wasn't hurting for money yet.

The problem for me when it came to getting a secretary was finding one who wasn't going to be scared off by the kind of people I dealt with on a regular basis. It was kind of hard to find someone who was qualified to answer a question like, "Have you ever dealt with Witches, Vampires, or Daemons of any kind?" A question like that I was sure would scare off the average person coming in to apply for the position.

I also wanted a beautiful, female secretary who'd sit on my lap while I dictated letters... Okay, so that last part wasn't a real requirement, but I could always dream. I knew I could have hired a Succubus for the beautiful lap sitting part, but from my understanding, they were horrid typists. Apparently, typewriters never made it big in any of the Infernal Realm they could be found in, so it took them forever to learn to use a 'QWERTY' keyboard with any real proficiency. For the time being, I was stuck answering the phone myself.

At least the office was designed for a secretary. I currently used the front room where normally a secretary would be answering calls and greeting clients. The main thing that was in the back room was an old leather couch that was beat to hell and very comfortable to take naps on. It also had my gun safe, which was home to the weapons that I acquired back when the Twenties roared and before. Back then, my city of St. Paul was run by the mob who made payoffs to the Chief of Police and funded the policemen's ball.

It was a different time back then, a romantic time, and the office still paid homage to that lost period of history. It may have been the twenty-first century now, but the office still looked as if not much had changed since I first dawned a fedora and trench-coat looking like a hardboiled detective out of some dime store pulp novel by Dashell Hammet. Almost a hundred years after my start as a private investigator and even my furniture had stayed the same, it has just been reupholstered a few times.

I was getting ready to call it a night when there was a loud, fast knock on the frosted glass window of the door to my office. The silhouette turned its head to look up and down the hallway outside. During those turns, I noticed that the silhouette belonged to a woman. I was glad; women had always brought me my most interesting cases.

"Come in," I called out loudly enough for the woman to hear me.

This better be good, boss, my crow familiar, Shadow, said directly into my mind. I want to go home and watch television. I ignored him. I didn't want to freak out a client by talking to my familiar if they weren't from the magickal scene.

The woman, practically a girl now that I had gotten a look at something other than her silhouette, threw open the door and slammed it shut as soon as she was in. She was panting, pressing her back against the door as if to barricade it from someone or something that was coming after her. I had seen that look of terror on other faces before and it always meant trouble; the kind of trouble I'm well accustomed to ending.

"Help me," she whimpered. "I was told that you may be the only one who can help me and I really need help."

I got up from my desk and calmly walked over to where she was panting against the door. "Don't worry, miss," I said in my most soothing voice. "I'll lock the door and I assure you that no one will hurt you here." I reached past her to lock the door.

"Now why don't you have a seat and we'll discuss your problem." I took her gently by the arm and guided her over to the recently reupholstered, plush, leather armchair across from my side of the desk. From my chair, I could still see the office window. Having her back to the outer door may have made her uncomfortable, but there was no helping it. I then sat down in my own chair, reached into the bottom left drawer of the desk, and pulled out a bottle of nerve medicine, more commonly known as cheap bourbon, and two lowball glasses. I poured two fingers of the liquor into each glass and pushed one over to her. "Here, this will help you relax a little, but just sip at it; it's got a bit of a boomerang effect to it."

When she took her first sip, I was almost amazed that she didn't gag. Most of my friends can't stand the stuff, so I knew she really must be scared. With her second sip, I got over my surprise at her lack of reaction to the cheap booze and took the time to really look at her. She was a stunning redhead, at the oldest in her early twenties, and looking like a modern Ingrid Bergman. Bright green eyes were burning with fatigue. Her long, wavy hair was disheveled and wet from the cold April rain falling outside. Tasteful clothes seemed to have a few days' worth of grime on them, as if she hadn't had a chance to change in several days. Add everything up and the conclusion was simple. She was, or at least thought she was, being followed by someone or something and was too scared to go home.

She was shivering a little as the adrenaline that must have been coursing through her system went stale. "So tell me, what brings you to my office?"

"I'm being followed by two men. I think. And I think... no, make that I know that they want to kill me," she said staring into her glass which was shaking in both of her hands. It gave her the appearance of a child holding on to a mug of hot chocolate after coming in from the cold. But in this case, the child was a young woman and the hot chocolate was a few shots of bourbon.

"You seem to have been keeping yourself pretty scared if you only think you're being followed, Miss...?"

"Cross," she said filling in the blank. "Jamie Cross. I don't mean that I only think that I'm being followed. What I mean is that I'm not sure if the people that are following me are really 'people'. I not sure they're Human."

I nodded with a vague understanding: this sounded just like my kind of case. Once again, the Gods had pushed a good case my way in the form of a female client. "What makes you think these men after you aren't Human?"

She took another sip of the bourbon before she answered. "I can only see them out of the corners of my eyes and in reflections from mirrors and window glass, but when I turn to look at them, they're not there. It's like they're ghosts or something. I feel like I'm losing my mind."

"Let's first clear out a few possibilities so that I have a better idea of what we are dealing with. Now these questions are not meant to sound insulting, but I have to ask them." I took a deep breath before I started since I knew she was going to feel like I didn't believe her about her current situation. I knew from experience that often times, my prospective customers often had a hard time believing themselves on what was happening to them.

"First: are you on any medication for psychiatric problems, or do you have a history of using recreational drugs?" I didn't want to waste my time and her money chasing hallucinations when it would be better for her to go to a hospital where she could either be put on the right medication or get off of the recreational drugs. There are far too many things that can cause a person to hallucinate; however, sometimes the hallucinations aren't actually hallucinations. Sometimes they are from stuff that causes us to see a separate reality. It is that reality which hides things that can torment a person with false promises of delight, or show them a true evil. Either way, anything that causes one to see a distorted reality should never be consumed. It leads to some of the worst of evils. I've seen people tear their skin off trying to rid themselves of things that exist only in their mind.

"What?!?!?!" She screamed as if I had just slapped her across the face. She stood up and leaned across the desk to grab me by my tie, pulling me closer to look at her point blank. "I'm not crazy! I'm not a junkie! What I am is in danger!"

I gently took her by the wrist and used just enough force to remove her hand from my tie, which had gotten uncomfortably tight. "I just had to ask. Now since you're telling me the answer is 'no' to both questions we can get at the real heart of the matter."

I took a notebook out of another desk drawer along with a pen and got ready to take notes. I really didn't need to write anything down, but I found it helped people realize that I was, indeed, taking their situation seriously. "First, I'm going to ask some questions about you. I need to get a clear picture of who you are so I can understand what is going on and why it's happening."

I took a sip out of my glass and got comfortable. "Where did you grow up?"

"The Bay Area, just outside of San Francisco. Why?"

I jotted it down on my notepad. "I'm just trying to get a feel for you. Do you have any relatives back there? When was the last time you were there?"

The confusion was still evident on her face as to why I was asking these questions and not about the two individuals who were following her. "Most of my family still lives there, except for my sister. She moved to New York three years ago, hoping to make it on Broadway. Why are you asking?"

"And you were last in San Francisco when?" I prompted. I knew from all my past experience that this type of information could often prove to be invaluable when looking for clues as to who might be behind something like this. I also knew that it tended to drive my clients crazy.

She sighed, probably realizing that it was going to be easier if she just answered my questions without asking 'why' at every question. "I was home last Christmas."

"What brought you out here? Can't be the weather."

"I came out here for college. I was studying international business. Now, I have a new job with a multinational trying to get my foot in the door, so to speak." Her voice had the tone of frustration. Not at me, but more likely the situation she found herself in.

"How old are you?"

"Twenty-two. I turn twenty-three next month." She really was just a kid.

"What kind of work do you do? I know that you said you are working for a multinational. So what do you do there?"

She looked at the floor and sighed. "I translate manuals. It pays okay, but I keep putting in bids for better positions. The problem is that all the upper management types keep saying that I'm too young and inexperienced. On top of that, my direct supervisor has the hots for me and doesn't want to lose me."

I nodded, easily understanding how her boss could be attracted to her. She was very easy on the eyes. With her looks, she should have been a model rather than a corporate drone. She was the kind of looker that almost made me wish she wasn't my client. Stupid scruples...

"All right, let's discuss the two people who have been following you for the last few days. Can you describe them?"

Miss Cross cocked her head to one side and closed her eyes in concentration. "One of them is a tall, thin, white man, almost painfully thin. The other is a short Asian man. They've been dressed in black suits that look well-tailored, but since I can only catch glimpses, it's hard to say for certain."

"You say you only catch glimpses of them out of the corner of your eyes or in reflections?" I needed to confirm her answer because what she had described often meant serious trouble.

She nodded again. "They're never there when I turn to get a better look at them."

If my guess was right about what was following her, then they were almost definitely Shadow Men, which meant she really was in serious trouble. The question was: who had called them? They rarely traveled to the Human world of their own accord, so someone must have brought them here. "Why come to me and not go to the police?"

"I did go to the police," she said. "With the exception of one, they all told me to check myself into a hospital."

"I take it that the exception was the one that gave you my business card?" It was a rhetorical question. I had worked with the police in most of the cities and towns that made up the Twin Cities metro area. Occasionally, when they got desperate for a lead on a kidnapping or murder, a detective would come to me. Those that had used my services would usually keep a couple of my business cards with them in case they met someone who could use my help. Those business cards are my main source of advertising. Still, they hated having to give those out, since it was an admission of defeat.

"Yes. She said that if there was anyone who could help me, it was you." If it was a 'she,' it was probably Helena McKarren. Tough broad, that one: once saw her jerk a guy's arm out of its socket when he gave her too much trouble. Helps that she was a Werewolf. The two of us had known each other for a while now, mostly through her real boss. She may have been a cop, but when it really counted, she reported to the Court of Night.

"I'm sure I'll be able to help you. Now, back to the questions." I took another sip of bourbon. "Since you haven't corrected me yet, Miss Cross, I take it that you're not married?"

She shook her head again. "No. I haven't found the right guy yet." When she did, I hoped it would be someone interested in her for more than just her looks, to be more than just a trophy wife. She deserved better than some loser who would always want her to grab him a beer while he watched football. And if the guy was the type that would use her as a punching bag, I hoped she would come to me so I could put the guy in his place. No woman deserves to be hit, especially a girl who looked like my soon-to-be client.

"Do you have any life insurance?" Just because you're not married doesn't mean someone's not after you for your insurance.

"Just the fifty thousand I get from work."

Not a lot of money to kill for, but you could never tell these days. "Who's the beneficiary?"

"The Defenders of Wildlife," she said proudly, and I liked her for it: it showed that she had real character.

"I seriously doubt a charity is going to have you killed," I said with only a slight smile, not trying to make light of her predicament. "Do you have any money other than your insurance?"

"I have a few thousand in savings for emergencies and I'll be happy to give all of it to you if you can help me," she said desperately.

"Don't worry; I'll try to solve your problems without bankrupting you." I wasn't about to rob her blind, she was too pretty for that. "Now for the big question: did anything unusual happen to you before these people started following you? I don't care how unimportant it may have seemed at the time. I need to know everything." There were any number of magick users, cults, covens, and the like that could summon Shadow Men. This was going to be a process of elimination to get an idea of who had summoned these Daemons. Anyone who could summon those things were the kind of people who wouldn't mind sinking low to get their way.

"Let's see..." She closed her eyes and tilted her head in concentration. "There was a group of protestors at my office building. They were protesting one of the other companies that have offices there."

Doubt it, boss, Shadow said. Anyone who could call Shadow Men into our world wouldn't make that kind of rookie mistake to get an innocent involved. I merely nodded in reply; he was correct on that account.

"Next..." I prompted her.

"I got into a bit of a road rage incident when I forgot to use my blinker. The woman I cut off pulled alongside me, rolled down her window, and screamed her head off at me."

Anyone who had the kind of power needed for the ritual would have needed to have been having a really, really bad day not to have calmed down before finishing drawing the summoning circle. Again, it was Shadow putting in his two bits, which he had been doing since I got him from my mother after she had been murdered all those centuries ago. I found it was not a good idea to let him watch political talk shows unless I wanted to listen to him screaming in my head.

I shook my head. "Next..."

She still hadn't opened her eyes. "My boss made a rather heavy-handed pass at me. I probably shot him down harder than I needed to."

"How so?"

"This was the third time he has made a pass at me, and the third time I told him no. I told him that next time he makes a pass, I'd go to HR and file a harassment complaint."

I felt Shadow giving the idea some weight. "What do you think, Shadow?"

Doesn't sound very good, boss. I doubt a magick user that powerful would be working in a corporate setting.

"What about the Silicon Slaves? Many of them are the corporate types."

"Why are you talking to your bird?" Jamie asked, obviously confused.

"He's a familiar, basically a servant of sorts. He's smarter than most people and makes for a good second opinion."

Ask her what kind of company it is that she works for.

I nodded. It was a fair question. "What kind of business is your company in?"

"High end medical equipment," she answered.

"Silicon Slaves are still a possibility," I said.

I still don't like them for it. Not their style.

I nodded again thinking about it. "You're right. They'd be more inclined to erase her digital footprint."

"What do you mean 'erase my digital footprint?'" Jamie asked.

"They'd cancel your credit cards, erase all bank records, pull the record of you having a driver's license," I said. "You'd effectively not have any history as far as computer records were concerned."

"They can do that?" she asked bewildered.

"Any good hacker can do it if they're willing to really work at it, but they'd probably miss a couple of things. Silicon Slaves can just do it a hell of a lot faster and they don't miss anything, but Shadow's right. Summoning Shadow Men, while easily within their power, is not their style. Anything else? We are dealing with some really nasty pieces of work. There must have been something."

"No. I can't think of anything," Jamie said, shaking her head. Then, her face lit up with a 'eureka' moment. "Wait! Yes, there was something else. There was this filthy homeless woman who ran into me. She scratched me and said something bizarre to me. I had no idea what she said, it was just gibberish."

The words 'oh, crap' quickly ran through my mind: this was bad. "Can you give me a better description of her?"

My client closed her eyes again. "She was wearing a filthy, ragged dress and she stunk as if she had been bathing in polluted water." The 'oh, crap' thought ran through my mind again far more intensely. "Her eyes were yellow and she was missing teeth and part of an ear."

I looked over at Shadow. "You thinking what I am?"

Shadow's answer consisted of two dread-filled words. The Ladies.

I nodded in agreement. Turning back to Jamie, I noticed that her glass was empty and poured another two fingers of medicine for her. "I hate to tell you this, Miss Cross, but you are in very serious trouble."

Jamie swallowed hard and started to shake again. "You can you still help me, can't you?"

"I'm probably the only person within a thousand miles who would be willing to do so," I said simply. "I'm going to be honest with you; the people who have summoned these Shadow Men are a very dangerous group of women. To make it worse, they aren't the ones who want you dead. They're just contractors."

An understandable look of sheer terror took hold of Jamie's face. "Who are they?"

"They are known as the Ladies of the River." I decided that I needed to make things as clear to Jamie as possible. "They are what people think of when they think of witches that sell their souls. The Ladies of the River sell their souls to the Daemon of the Mississippi River. For that, they receive powerful magicks, though it causes them to burn out quickly. The Human body isn't meant to run magick through it in that way. A person can learn magicks that are just as powerful as those used by the Ladies of the River, but it takes a long time of serious study. By selling their souls, the Ladies cheat the system, but it catches up with them quickly and, in about ten or twelve years, they're bodies simply burn out, leaving a mere shriveled, husk of a corpse."

"Why would anyone do that to themselves?" Jamie asked in disbelief.

"For the most part, the Ladies are made up of runaways and the homeless. By selling their souls, they gain a power that no one can buy for any amount of money. For that short time, they can do things that even an Arabian oil prince could never do despite all the money he'd have."

Jamie's next question showed her understandable confusion. "If they have all this power, then why did they hire themselves out as contract killers? I mean, it doesn't sound as if they have much need for money."

I nodded in agreement. "It does sound silly, I know, but it's safe to assume that they'll send the money to an environmental group that will work to help clean up the river, thereby increasing their own powers. The cleaner the river, the more powerful the Daemon of the river is, and thus, the more powerful the magick they receive from it."

"You can stop them, right?" she asked hopefully. "If they have sold their souls for magick, what can you do?"

"I have studied magick for a very long time, plus I come from a deep family line that has provided me with more than a little natural talent. I have taken them on before and, as you can see, I'm still very much alive. So, yes, I can help you, but not only will I have to take on the Ladies, I will also have to find out who hired them before they can hire someone else to hurt you. The question is: who would wish you harm?"

Jamie shook her head in frustration, which was a clear sign to me that I was going to end up just as frustrated. "I can't think of anyone. I don't know of anyone who would want to kill me. I have disagreements with people, but nothing major. The only real person I could think of would be my boss, but I can't see him going that far for turning him down."

I hate it when people think they have no enemies: it just shows that they are blind to the world around them. Or they just want you to think that they are a really nice person who no one would dislike. I once tracked down a rapist for the brother of the victim. I talked to the bastard for a while and I turned the conversation around to the subject of enemies and he claimed to not have an enemy in the world. He was certainly surprised when I showed up on his door step the next night with the brother. I cleaned everything up so that no one could tie anything together for evidence. After child molesters, I hate rapists more than just about anyone else in the way of normal Humans.

There was another problem when people claimed to have no enemies in my line of business: I have to start from scratch. I loved a challenge, but it still made things more difficult. It could really be that Miss Cross didn't have a real enemy. The problem was that she may have gotten on the wrong side of someone who really knew how to nurse a grudge. Either way, it didn't matter in the end; the results were the same. She was in trouble and I was the only one who could help her.

She sighed. Obviously, she had hoped that this would have been a simple matter of dealing with a couple weird men who seemed to want to kill her. But now, she realized that she was hiring me to track down someone truly bent on hurting her. "How much is it going to cost me to have you keep me alive until then? I'll give you everything I have for you to keep me safe."

She meant it, too. She probably would have even offered up her body if she thought it would keep her alive. Had I been almost any other private eye, I may have asked for just that, but I'm not like that. Mixing business with pleasure was something I'd never done. That sort of thing always screwed you up if the client back stabbed you, which had happened to me before. I was not saying that the thought of spending time with her in my bedroom wasn't appealing, she was incredibly attractive, but I was a professional. I was not like Dashell Hammet's detective Sam Spade. I may have looked and sounded much like the Humphrey Bogart image of the character, save for the bright white streak running through my black hair, but I kept things purely business.

I opened up the file drawer in my desk and took out one of my 'knight in shining armor' contracts. Even though I wore a trench coat now and hadn't worn armor since my last stint in a Hell-bound army during the Knights' War, I still called it my 'knight in shining armor' contract. I wasn't about to rob her blind, but I still needed to have some payment. I placed the contract on the top of the desk facing me.

"The fee for my service is $250 a day with a five-day retainer to be paid upfront," I told her, pushing the contract and a pen towards her.

Jamie quickly read over the contract and nodded. She wrote her signature next to the 'X' and pushed it back to me. Reaching into her purse, she pulled out a checkbook and cut me a check for the retainer. "There, twelve-fifty. Now, what is the first thing that we need to do?"

Now that I had been paid, it was time for me to start earning that money. "First, we have to figure out where to keep you until I can track down the person who is after you. It defeats the purpose of you hiring me if I were to go after someone bent on hurting you, but leaving you exposed to danger from another assassin."

"I can't go back to my apartment," Jamie said simply.

"Of course not, that would be the first place they would go. No, I have two options for you. First, you can stay here. I've got a comfortable couch in the back room you can sleep on and there are a lot of places in the area that deliver. There are also many magickal protections here that will block most supernatural beings from coming here. The down side is that there's no shower here where you can really wash up, though there is a small bathroom down the hall."

Jamie nodded and looked around, clearly unsure if she'd feel comfortable sleeping in the office. "What's my second option?"

"You can stay at my place. I have a spare bedroom and you are more than welcome to use it. You'll have to cook since not as many places deliver there, but it is probably the safest place you can possibly stay."

Jamie gave me an appraising look. "How do I know that you're not going to try anything funny?"

"You're my client," I said with only the trace of a smile. "And while you are incredibly beautiful, I never mix business with pleasure."

Jamie raised one eyebrow when she looked at me with a questioning gaze. "Are you sure you'd never do that?" she asked.

"Scout's honor," I said as I held up my hand in the Boy Scouts' sign.

"You were never a Scout," she said humorously.

"You're right, I was too old," I agreed, referring to the fact that I had been far too old to join the Scouts when they had first formed.

She smiled slightly, probably thinking I was making a joke. "Then I'll stay at your place."

"Now that that is settled, let's go to your place so that you can pick up a few changes of clothes and anything else you might want."

I stood up out of my chair and headed over to my gun safe. I pulled out my shoulder holster and the Colt 1911, which I had nicknamed 'The Ace of Spades' for the image of the playing card in mother of pearl grip. I wouldn't need the other guns in the safe, at least not until I met with The Ladies. I traded out the magazine with everyday .45 rounds and swapped it with one loaded with enchanted silver rounds designed for use against many different magickal beings.

Normal silver doesn't tumble worth a damn, so the enchantment allowed it to fly straight. Silver is great for hunting all sorts of Daemons. There is a for it and oddly enough it's medicinal. Silver has antibiotic properties and Daemons are a parasite on this world, so the mundane medicinal properties effect the occult. This is also why it's effective against lycanthropes and many vampires. The whole deal about a metal of pure intentions is just superstition. In my line of work, it paid to be prepared for such things as shooting Daemons. The silver bullets were more for Werewolves, but in a pinch, they would work well enough against Infernals. At home, I had banishing bullets which were nasty pieces of work. I so rarely needed them that I didn't keep them at the office, but now, I was definitely going to need them.

II

As we headed to her apartment in my heavily modified '41 Buick Special, I kept an eye out for any sign of a tail. I wasn't the only one keeping an eye out, for Shadow was following us from about sixty feet up and a couple hundred feet back. If he saw anything, he'd contact me immediately. Thankfully, nothing other than the usual characters showed. Due to the latent mystic energies flowing through the Twin Cities, the area was chalk full of various magickal entities, but no one of interest showed up to take notice.

Once at the apartment building, Shadow flew down to land on my shoulder. Nothing to report master, he said unnecessarily.

"I want you to fly around the apartment building a full block out and keep your eyes open for any signs of trouble."

Sure thing, boss, Shadow replied before he took off.

I took a good look at the apartment building and the neighborhood it was in. The building looked to have gone up in the late seventies or early eighties and aesthetics hadn't been much of a concern when it had been built. The neighborhood was nice enough, at least for Minneapolis. It was definitely not the kind that had earned the city its ominous nickname of Murderrapolis This part of the city was mostly bland apartment buildings with a few corner stores of all kinds. As I said, not great, but not so bad as to see an armed dealer on every corner.

Jamie pulled a key ring out of her purse, quickly found the key she was looking for, and opened the outer door. I followed her in and kept looking up and down the hall. The problem in dealing with Shadow Men is that they can show up just about anywhere they want to. Thankfully, they didn't show up because it would have been hard to explain to the police why I had been involved in a shootout in the middle of an apartment building.

When we got to her apartment door, I had her give me her keys. I pulled 'Ace of Spades' out of her holster before I opened the door. I jerked the door open and quickly stepped through with my gun in hand. I took a quick look around to survey the front hall of the apartment and saw nothing right away. I motioned Jamie to follow me through and close the door, but not to come in any further. I made my way through the rest of the apartment with my gun still in hand. I wasn't about to let my guard down and risk my client's life because of a careless mistake.

I motioned for her to come into her bedroom, which was a mess. I could easily tell that she only used the place to sleep and keep her stuff in while she was out around town either working or just having a fun time.

"Okay. Pack up what you need. You may also want to get some stuff ready for a shower because it looks like you haven't had one in a couple of days," I said as I motioned her in to the room.

"What's the shower thing supposed to mean?" she asked in a rather irritated voice.

"Only that your hair seems a little oily, like it's been a couple days since you last took a shower," I said trying to placate her. "I figured you might feel better taking a shower now rather than waiting until we got back to my house."

She was quite for a moment, then nodded. "You're right. I could probably stand a shower. I feel pretty gross." She grabbed a change of clothes and quickly ran into the bathroom.

I stood in the hallway where I could keep an eye on the door, but close enough to the bathroom in case she called out for help. I didn't think she'd need help since I had already checked the place for the Shadow Men, but I wasn't going to take any chances. Thankfully, she was a quick washer and it didn't take long before I heard the water turn off. A few minutes later and she was out of the shower.

"Thank God, that feels better," she said when I turned to look at her. She hadn't taken any time to put on makeup, but as far as I was concerned, she didn't need any. "I needed that shower. I felt so gross it wasn't even funny."

"Okay, go to your room and pack up anything you feel you might need for a few nights. But please try not to pack your whole wardrobe." I had once had a girlfriend a few decades back who always seemed insistent on bringing almost everything in her closet for a two night stay on the lakeside.

Jamie grabbed a decent sized duffel bag and efficiently packed it with a practiced style that I had seen mostly used by military people. Within ten minutes, she seemed to have enough changes of clothes for four nights.

"Where did you learn to pack like that?" I asked.

"Dad was a Marine," she answered, confirming my suspicions. "He taught me how to pack for trips so that I didn't need several suitcases for a trip that would last for only a few days."

"Okay, let's get out of here." I motioned her out into the hallway and out of the apartment. "You see anything, Shadow?" I asked the thin air, knowing full well that the crow would hear me.

Nothing yet, I heard his answer.

"Let me see," I said. My vision of the immediate surroundings faded and I was seeing the area around the building through Shadow's eyes. I was glad to see that my familiar was right: there was nothing supernatural in the area.

"Okay, Jamie, let's be on our way. The sooner we can get to my house, the better off you'll be."

III

On the way to my house, I had Shadow tail us the same way he had done on the way to Jamie's apartment. The drive wasn't a long one and no one of any interest showed up on the way. We passed more than a few supernatural entities on the way, but no one I had to worry about. The typical Fey doing shady business with Humans, and some non-Humans, who were in the know. If one knew who to ask and the right questions to ask, one could find just about anything. There are easier places to do business as long as it was on the up and up. Here, the rules were faster and looser and none of the major players would get involved.

When we stopped in front of my house, Jamie was impressed with the old Victorian. "I thought all you detectives lived in run down apartments near their offices because you don't have much money between cases."

"I don't really need to do detective work for a living," I told her. "It's more of a hobby for me."

"Odd hobby."

I shrugged to show that it really wasn't all that odd as far as I was concerned. "With the things that I've seen in my life, it's about the only thing that can keep my interest."

"What sort of stuff have you done?" Jamie asked as she got out of the car.

"I fought in several wars, one of which still isn't public knowledge," I said. Only conspiracy nuts would believe that one of the wars I had fought in had ever actually happened. Anyone else would have said that it was an interesting 'alternate universe' look at World War II.

"What sort of wars?" Jamie asked.

"Let me put it this way. World War II wasn't the only war being fought back in the forties," I said seriously, "and it was a lot less scary than where I was."

"Riiight," Jamie said, drawing out the word. "Am I supposed to believe you're old enough to have been fighting during World War II, when you look no older than late thirties, early forties?"

"You can believe it or not, that's your choice. The truth is that I'm even older than that."

"Whatever you say."

"You're the one being chased by Shadow Men. Is it so hard to believe that I am a lot older than I look?" I asked as we walked past the gate to the fence that marked the barriers that blocked all magickal entities that weren't on the guest list.

"I guess not," she finally admitted. "So how old are you?"

"Let me put it this way. I killed more than my fair share of Tories and Loyalists while fighting alongside Colonel Marion," I said with a shrug.

"I assume that means you fought in the Revolutionary War. But who was Colonel Marion?" Jamie asked.

"None other than the old Swamp Fox himself," I said with a grin. "Now he was a truly scary strategist."

"I thought he was a general?"

"When I started fighting under him, he was still a colonel."

"That means..." Her voice trailed off as she realized how old I was.

"Yep. Because of my blood lines, I'm pretty damn hard to kill. Even Old Man Time tends to leave me alone," I said smiling.

Jamie gave an impressed whistle when she entered the kitchen from the back door. I was fairly sure that seeing my kitchen would help her ground herself in the "un-realness" of the situation. "Very nice. You really must have a fair bit of cash in order to afford a place like this. How much did it set you back?"

"About ten thousand dollars," I answered.

"What?! All this for that little?"

"Ten thousand went a long way in the mid-eighteen hundreds. Remember: I'm pretty old."

"Okay, I have to ask. How is it that you can be so old?"

I shrugged slightly. "I'm a half-Daemon. My dad, who was from an Infernal Realm, was a bit of a romantic and stuck around for a while, so I actually got to know him. He even sends me birthday cards from time to time. We also get together for a nice dinner on the anniversary of my mother's death."

"You're a half-Daemon?!" Jamie yelped, taking a half-step back from me.

"Yes, and I am also a pretty nice guy. I have always fought to protect the land where I was born and raised. I try my hardest to protect the innocent. I just need to charge people for my services or I'd be flooded with too many people to help."

Jamie nodded slightly, obviously trying to figure out how much she was going to believe me. "If you're a Daemon, then why are you going to help me by fighting other Daemons?" It was obvious that she wanted to believe me, but wasn't sure if she should.

"I'm only a half-Daemon. My allegiance is firmly set with my Human side. There are also Daemons like my father who will, to some extent, side with Humanity." I hoped she'd believe me. I didn't want her to run off and die because she was too scared of me to let me help her. "Look, you are my client which means I am here to help you."

"I guess I'll just have to trust you then. I really have nowhere else I can go. Do I?" She still sounded nervous of me and I really could blame her.

"As I said, I'm probably the only one who can help you that you can actually trust."

"You mean there are other people who can help me?" I could tell from the tone in her voice that she was hopeful.

"Yes there are others who could help, but trust me, you wouldn't like what they would want in exchange," I said ominously.

"More expensive than you?"

"If you define 'expensive' as giving up your mortal soul to become something completely different than you are now, then yes, they are insanely expensive." The Court of Night could help her, if they were so inclined, but she wouldn't remain Human for long if they did help. I have been on very good terms with their leader since the early forties, when I had rescued her from a Nazi experimentation facility. If she went to them, she'd end up as either a Werewolf or a Vampire, and she wouldn't get a choice as to which.

"Okay, I think I'll stick with you then."

"That's probably a good idea," I said with a humorless smile. "Now, let's get you set up in the guest room."

Once I got her settled in, I told her to make herself at home while I got ready for my meeting with the Shadow Men. I went down to my work room and searched for the small box of banishing rounds. When I found it, I realized that I'd probably have to engrave the spells on a few more bullets since the box was uncomfortably light. I opened the box and saw that only three bullets remained. I was pretty sure I wouldn't need more than one clip's worth for my gun, but I didn't want to risk it. Setting up everything I needed to make more of the bullets, I prepared myself for the hours' long ceremony to create a couple dozen banishing bullets.

After a fairly long while in the work shop, I came up the stairs from the shop. I could smell an omelet being cooked. Since cooking wasn't exactly Shadow's strong suit, I knew it had to be Jamie in the kitchen I also knew that my pantry and fridge were almost empty and that was probably some of the last of the food I had in the house.

When I made my presence known, Jamie turned to look at me. "I hope you're hungry," she said..

"I'm starving," I lied.

"Good. From what my friends tell me, I'm a lousy cook and only a truly starving man could stand eating my food," Jamie said with a slight smile.

"Miss I ate my share of K-rations during the Knights' War. I'm sure you can't possibly make anything worse tasting than that," I said. "And when you're hungry enough, even that crap tastes like a feast prepared by one of the greatest chefs to ever grace the world with their presence. Of course, when I wasn't starving, I wouldn't have subjected a Nazi dog to that shit as it could be considered cruelty to animals. Besides, you were able to use real eggs, unlike that toxic sludge known as powdered eggs. I had to choke that crap down more than a few times."

"Then I hope you still have that cast iron stomach," Jamie said. " Just so you know, there is no milk in the omelet."

"Why on Earth not?" I asked. "I know that I have milk in the fridge."

"Judging by the smell of it, the milk died a month or so ago."

"Note to self: go grocery shopping," I said, trying to make a joke... It failed badly.

"By the way, I hope you don't mind, but I gave the last of the bacon to your crow. What's his name again? Shadow?"

Tell her not to cook this stuff next time, Shadow said to me.

"Yes, his name is Shadow." I confirmed. "Don't worry about giving the last of the bacon to him, that's what it's there for. As far as cooking it goes, he would ask that you not cook it next time. He likes it raw. He just doesn't like it cold. So all you have to do is throw it in the microwave for ten seconds to warm it up for him."

Jamie pulled a sour face. "Raw? Yuck."

"He's a crow. He usually eats things that have been dead for a while," I said. "Trust me; he isn't very fussy about what he's eating for the most part. As mom said, 'You can take the crow out of the woods, but you can't take the woods out of the crow.' I've seen him eat road kill because he liked the taste of the rotting meat. Most of the time, he eats things like corn salad. The meat's meant to be a treat."

"Still... raw meat? Gross," Jamie said and gave a disgusted shudder.

Shadow gave me what I could only describe as a humorous wink. You just don't know what you're missing.

I simply shook my head, but was able to avoid laughing so as not to disturb my client. "Come on. Let me see how bad your cooking is."

We sat down for a late dinner, I was able to choke down her cooking and even managed to smile through it. It was just as bad as I had feared. She must have taken cooking lessons from Casper, our camp's cook, the food was that awful. Still, it could have been worse... It could have been K-rations. Next time, either I would cook or we would order from a decent restaurant.

After dinner, I suggested that she get some sleep since I had to make a few calls to set up something special for her two tails. I needed to question them and I needed some place quiet where I could work at least one of them over for a while without being disturbed. I needed a favor from the owner of my favorite bar.

I picked up the phone and dialed the number for the Mystic Wolf. After the fourth ring someone at the bar picked up. "Mystic Wolf. Can I help you?"

"It's Jason Black. I need to talk to Brisbane." Brisbane was the owner, and head bartender of the Mystic Wolf. The bar wasn't so much a bar as it was a pocket dimension where Brisbane was God, and it had some fun tricks to it that would make my job a hundred times easier to do.

"Hold on a second."

The silence did not last long as a familiar voice rang through the receiver within a matter of seconds. "Hey, you old Sherlock. What can I do for you?"

"I need to use the private room and have some painter's cloths on the floor. It's going to be messy."

"The bar is neutral territory, Black, you know that." Brisbane didn't need to remind me that he didn't care who you were as long as you were buying and didn't get rowdy, but I had to do something he would bend the rules for.

"I'm doing this to help a client, she has a problem."

"What kind of problem?" Brisbane asked.

"She's got two Shadow Men following her," I told him. "I need to know who sent them and, trust me, they're not going to give up that information without a little persuasion."

"Understood." I knew I could trust Brisbane to do the right thing. "I've never had to deal with them, but I understand that they're very nasty pieces of work. Do you have any idea who might have sent them?"

"I'm pretty sure they were summoned by the Ladies of the River." I had no reason to hide the truth from Brisbane; no sane practitioner of magick wanted anything to do with those women. "What I'm going to try to get out of these two is the name of who asked the Ladies for help."

"You're going to take on the Ladies? Are you nuts?!" Brisbane asked, probably alarmed that I was even thinking of trying something so reckless.

"I damn near wiped those magick whores out back during the Prohibition," I told him. "I guess I didn't finish the job or a few from more southerly climes moved north and started the group up again. Whatever the case is, I'm going to kick them out of the Cities again."

"Okay. I'll have the room ready for you." It was comforting that I knew the bartender so well. "Just make sure the Ladies don't find out about the Mystic. I really don't need them poking their filthy noses around here."

"Don't worry. After I'm done with them, there is a good chance that none of them will still have their breathing licenses," I said, trying to reassure my friend.

"Just make sure that they don't come here. I don't need any trouble, though I know we can handle it here. I still want this to be considered neutral ground."

"Don't worry, your name will never be mentioned."

"Make sure of it. I'll have the room ready tomorrow. Just make sure you clean up after yourself."

IV

The next day, I took Jamie across town to a good restaurant, seeing as I had next to nothing for breakfast in the house. I waited until she was done eating to tell her the plan for getting rid of the Shadow Men.

"How brave are you?" I asked her simply.

"I'm brave enough to not just let myself give up and die at the hands of those Shadow Men things," Jamie said firmly. "I'm not very brave, but I'm not weak by any means."

"Good because I'm going to need to you to be brave for the plan to work. I know how to get rid of those things that have been after you and it should help me find out why they're after you." I was being honest with her, to a point at least. She was going have to be damn brave not to faint from fear of what was going to happen.

"What am I going to have to do?" she asked.

"Not much. What I need you to do is walk into a bar without me being with you the whole time."

"You want me to what?!" she almost screamed as if I had just told her that I was the next person to be tasked with killing her.

"I'll be nearby, so don't worry," I said, trying to calm her. "All I'm asking you to do is to walk into a bar without me being right there. I'm fairly certain that the two Shadow Men will follow you in. Once they follow you into the bar that I'm sending you into, they'll be forced by the magickal nature of the place into taking a physical form. Once they're solid, I'll take them down and interrogate them."

Jamie nodded her head slowly. "I think I can do that. Are you sure this is going to work?"

"Yes. According to the owner of the bar, they've never had Shadow Men in the place before. It's a fair bet that they won't know that they'll be solid as soon as they walk through the door," I said.

"What did you mean when you said the 'magickal nature' of the bar?" she asked.

"The bar exists in a pocket dimension," I told her. "Everything that enters the bar must take a solid form. Also, for the most part, people can't change their form without using a physical disguise. So I know I can take them."

"I hope you can do all of that," Jamie said, sounding as if she was trying to convince herself that I knew what I was doing.

"Trust me. I've been doing this for over a century. I can do this."

"When are we going to do this?" Jamie asked nervously.

"Here's the plan." I laid out the whole plan from where she was going to leave my company to when I was going to start interrogating the Shadow Men. I told her that I was going to have her stay in the company of some friends of mine in the bar.

Now I just had to make a couple of calls. The first to the Countess Blood Wolf, the leader of the Court of Night. The second call was to another Shamus, a Femme Fatale friend of mine named 'Scar Face' Sarah.

V

"Don't bother following me! I'm meeting a real detective in this place, not some crack-pot loony like you!" Jamie yelled at me as she slammed the door to the car in front of the Mystic Wolf.

I quickly stepped out of the car to yell at her. "Be reasonable! You won't last a day without my help!" I pleaded with her.

Jamie flipped me the bird and headed into the bar where Sarah and the Countess would be waiting for her. I slid back into my car and waited a couple of minutes for the Shadow Men to make an appearance. I didn't have to wait long. As soon as they headed in, I jumped out of my car and followed them in. Shadow men look almost transparent and a bit hazy when you see them head on in the day light. Of course most people can't see them at all except in a reflection, a half-daemon like me I can see them any time they're around.

They must not have noticed the reshaping of reality around the bar, most likely because they constantly existed in two dimensions at once. I lost track of them myself as I was hit by an earful of colors and a blazing sight of sound. When I saw them again, they had quickly spotted Jamie and then just as quickly saw everything around them. They didn't have a chance to turn before I pistol-whipped the shorter one who was closest to the door. The second one, a fair taller than myself, turned around to see what the thump behind him had been. As soon as his chin was in sight, I reached up gave him a love tap with a solid left hook that sent him sprawling to the floor unconscious. He made a noise like a watermelon be cracked when his head hit the floor. The fall of nearly seven feet made for nice hollow thunk.

"What happens now?" Jamie asked.

"Interrogation," I said with a wicked smile. "Why don't you go with the Countess?" I indicated the short, brunette teenager wearing a beat-up, old army jacket. "I promised to let Sarah watch."

Jamie left with the Countess as Brisbane came over to where Sarah and I were standing. The giant of a man looked at the two Daemons sprawled out on the floor of his bar and then at myself and Sarah. "Come on. I'll get you two over to the back room I promised to let you use," he said. He then picked up one of the Shadow Men, threw it over his shoulder and started walking towards the back of the bar. I quickly scooped up the other Daemon and followed in his wake.

There had been some muttering by other patrons regarding neutrality, but once they noticed that we were dealing with Shadow Men, the muttering ceased. No one liked the bastards. No one.

As soon as Brisbane opened the door to the back room, we threw the Shadow Men into chairs and I locked them down with some handcuffs I had just for the purpose of interrogating Daemons. I gave one of the Shadow Men a few solid slaps to wake him up while Sarah did the same to the other. Once the two Daemons were vaguely conscious, they tried desperately to get free of the handcuffs and leave as soon as possible. Shadow Men weren't particularly tough. They're assassins. They went in, did the job, usually with pretty nasty results to send a message, and then left again. Now, I had the two of them locked down and was at the obvious advantage, meaning that they were in uncharted territory. They had no idea what was coming, but it was clear they were sure that they weren't going to like it.

"Don't bother struggling," I said in a casual, almost friendly tone of voice. "Those cuffs have held a lot stronger Daemons than you in their time, so don't waste your strength."

If anything, the concept that I had done this with other Daemons increased their frantic struggling. I decided to let their obvious fear play to my advantage by ignoring it.

"Now I'm not going to bother asking for your names for two reasons. First, you wouldn't give me your names for anything. And second, my friend over there wouldn't be able to pronounce them even if you did give them up," I said, indicating 'Scar Face'.

"What do you want?" The taller of the two said. His voice was deep as if coming from an empty pit..

"I need to ask you a few simple questions. You answer them, I let you go back to whatever Hell you crawled out of. You don't answer me, or even worse lie, and... well, I have to clean up a mess." I looked over at where Brisbane was still standing off to the side. "Isn't that right?"

"None of the staff is going to do it for you."

"What do you want to know?" The shorter one hissed. Where the taller one's voice was from an empty pit, this little shit sounded like a wood rasp.

"Let's start off with who hired you?" There was no malice in my voice. I really was going to give them the friendly option of answering of their own free will and then let them slink off to whatever infernal dimension they had come from.

"You know we can't tell you that," the Shadow Man on the right probably realized that I knew that they couldn't willingly answer the questions that I was going to be asking them. "We can't break our contracts."

"Brisbane? Get a mop. This is probably going to get a little messy." My voice started friendly, then quickly drew down into the malice that showed that I was about to seriously enjoy hurting someone.

"Sorry, boys, this is your own funeral," Brisbane said. "Do yourselves a favor and cooperate\ because I'm sure that if you don't... well, you'll see."

I took off my jacket and put it neatly on a nearby table and rolled up the sleeves of my shirt. Turning my back to them, I loosened my tie, reached into my satchel, and pulled out a few things to aid in the interrogation. The first thing I picked up was a set of enchanted, silvered, brass knuckles.

"This is going to go a little slower than I'd normally like to go," I said without turning back to face them. "You see, Sarah here asked me to let her watch. So I'm basically giving her a lesson on Daemon interrogation. And you? Well, you two are going to be the subject matter of today's lesson."

I heard both of them swallow hard and gave them a three count to come to grips with what was about to happen and how much pain they were about to endure. I turned back to face them and walked up to the Shadow Man on the right and massaged my hand with the silver knuckles. "Now I'm going to ask you again. Who hired you?"

"I can't tell..." was as far as the Daemon got before I smashed my fist into its gut. I then pulled back and, with a solid hook to the jaw, knocked it to the floor, still bound to the chair. There had been an almost pleasant sound of breaking bone to accompany the hit. Had it been Human, they would have needed to wire its jaw shut for a month after a hit like that. This thing, though, would heal up fast enough to allow me to work it over for a very long while and get results.

I turned to look at the other Shadow Man. "Now let's try you. Are you going to cooperate?"

"I can't tell you anything. I can't break my contract." Its voice was pleading with me not to do what it knew I was about to.

"That's really too bad," I said, sounding a little disheartened. I pulled back my fist and slammed it into the bastard's face straight on.

I turned back to the Daemon on the floor and set its chair up straight again. Looking at it, I saw a bit of bluish blood dripping from its mouth. Prying open its jaw, I saw some teeth were missing and spotted them on the ground near where it had fallen. "I'm sure that must have hurt a lot," I said, and then slammed my fist repeatedly into its gut. I then put my weight down on the chair and gave the Shadow Man a solid right hook to the side of the temple. "I'm sure that couldn't have felt very good either. Now back to my questions. Who hired you?"

"I can't..."

"Okay, Sarah," I called back over my shoulder. "This is one of the reasons it's hard to interrogate two Daemons at the same time. They tend to heal up fast enough to be ready to withstand the next round of abuse you put them through before you're done working on the other."

"Duly noted," Sarah replied, pretending to take a note on an imaginary notepad. "So what are you going to do about it? Are you going to kill one of them now as an example to the other?"

"In a sense, yeah." I pulled out 'the Ace Spades' with her magazine of banishing rounds. Aiming it at the Daemon I hadn't just been working on, I said. "What I'm about to do to your friend over there is going to be pleasant compared to what I'm about to do to you if you don't start to cooperate."

"Like a bullet is going to kill him," the Daemon laughed.

"Who said anything about killing him?" I asked. I pulled the trigger.

The bullet hit the Shadow Man dead center in the chest and then started to go to work. The bastard started screaming as the banishing round slowly sucked it inside out as it sent it back to a Hell that I didn't really bother to care about. It wouldn't be back anytime soon.

"Wow. That looked painful," Sarah said, faking a shiver.

The Daemon I was leaning over just stared at the place where its friend had just been sitting. A look of total panic made its way forcefully across its face. "How did..."

"Oh, that?" I shrugged. "Old trick I learned back about seventy years ago. Banishing rounds can be pretty messy, as you just saw. But I assure you that it was pleasant compared to what is about to happen to you."

"Please. I can't tell you. I can't break my contract."

I jack-hammered my fist repeatedly into its gut and then slammed a solid hook into its temple. "I'm well aware that you CAN break your contract. Yes, I'm aware that it will mean that you will never be able to return to this world. However, you should know that if I was to let you go without you giving me the answers I want, I would make sure that you will never want to come back. I'd just hunt you down and you'd go through all of this and then some again."

"I can't..." I hit it square in the chest and heard bones crunch. It screamed and dark, blue-green blood spurted out of its mouth.

"You're not going to be able to get any answers out of it if you beat it to death," Sarah said.

"Don't worry, this isn't going to kill it. I'll let it sit there long enough to heal up a bit," I said.

The Daemon's breath was ragged and there was still the diseased looking blood dribbling out of its mouth. I turned my back on it and waited for the sounds of its breathing to even out. I took off the silver knuckles and put them back in the bag. I hadn't really expected to get any answers out of the Shadow Man with those; they were just to soften it up a bit. I then pulled out a nasty looking scalpel with ancient runes etched upon the edge of the blade. When the Daemon's breath evened out again, I turned around and smiled at it.

"Let's start again," I said, showing the Shadow Man the scalpel. "Who hired you?"

VI

An hour and a clean shirt later, I dropped into the seat next to the Countess in a corner booth she was sharing with Jamie.

"Hi, Yvette. Have you been availing my client with wild tales of court life?"

The Countess snorted. "You know that stuff bores me. No, I've been scaring off the people trying to take Jamie down onto the dance floor."

"Anyone I should be aware of?" I asked.

"No one, really," she said as she did a triple tap on the top of the table and jerked her thumb right.

I simply nodded and took a quick look around. I saw 'The Fiddler' sitting a couple tables away with a pair of Neanderthal-looking gunsels if I was judging the cut of their jackets right. A good tailor could make it hard to see if a guy was packing an armpit full of artillery, but the tailor for these guys wasn't that good. The Countess and I had worked out signals like that over the years, back when I helped her form the Court of Night.

Decades ago, while the world was immersed in the horror that was World War II. there had been a secret war, the Knights' War, that had pitted occult forces of the Allies against those of the Axis. In an Allied raid on a Nazi research lab, led by me in '43, we discovered them trying to mix Vampyrism with Lycanthropy to create super soldiers. From the looks of the lab, there had been dozens of unsuccessful attempts, only one scared, seventeen-year-old Jewish girl had survived. That was, of course, my close friend Yvette. After that raid and a little rehabilitation, I turned her into one of the nastiest Nazi killers the Allies ever had.

After the war was over, I offered her the choice of staying in Germany or coming home with me to the States. Shortly after we arrived, we discovered that the U.S. had been flooded with refugee Vampires and Lychanthropes, mostly from Eastern Europe. They had fallen into an underground war fueled by a mix of speciesist hatred and distrust of others from different parts of Europe. Yvette decided that to keep things from bubbling over, she was going to take control of the whole mess herself. For decades, we put enough bodies into the ground on both sides to allow Yvette to step into the power vacuum and form the Court of Night.

The two of us had stopped counting which of us owed the other a favor and we just helped each other whenever the one needed the other. Right now, I was pretty sure I was going to need her help. I was in a tight spot of needing to track down the people after Jamie while keeping her safe at the same time. Thankfully, the Countess could help. She had a small army that I could bum a couple soldiers out of for a few days as body guards.

"Where's 'Scar Face'?" Yvette asked. She and Sarah tolerated each other for my sake, but neither of them actually liked the other.

"She's on her second Corpse Reviver," I said. "She needed a couple of stiff drinks after we cleaned the place up. That Shadow Man was a real bleeder, screamed a lot, too."

Yvette snorted derisively. "She never did have a strong stomach for blood, from what I recall."

"She didn't go through what you did, no. Doesn't make her weak, though." It irked me when Yvette talked like this; she always seemed to want to prove a point.

The Countess Blood Wolf was a major player on the National scene and yet, she seemed to have always had an issue with Sarah who was still not much of anyone on any sort of scene. There was nothing I could do to put a stop to all of it and I was fairly sure the problem wouldn't end until Sarah died. As far as I was concerned, as long as the two of them kept the dislike of each civilized, I would just make do. Yvette would never actively do anything against Sarah for my sake. At least Sarah knew it would be suicidal to act against my friend from the Knights' War.

"All I'm saying, Jason, is that even though she may not carry a badge anymore, 'Scar Face' still has the moral compass of a cop," Yvette said harshly. "It's going to get her in trouble. There is going to come a time when she'll hesitate to pull the trigger. I don't want to see you get hurt."

"Let me worry about that," I said just as harshly. I wanted her to ease off for now.

"So, what did you find out from those two Shadow Men that followed your client in?" Yvette asked.

"Just what I already knew," I said. "They were summoned by the Ladies of the River. Unfortunately, the one I kept around to properly question didn't know who had hired the Ladies."

"Bad business if the Ladies get involved," Yvette said. "Are you sure it wasn't lying to you about not knowing who had hired them?"

"With what I did to it, I know it would have told me if it could," I said with nasty smile. "Used the scalpel on it."

"I remember seeing you use that thing before and you're right. It would have told you." Yvette knew what I could do with that thing and it was a nasty piece of work.

"Look, I need a favor," I said.

"Name it." A few minutes ago, she had sounded like a jealous ex-girlfriend. Now, she sounded like who she truly was: someone who was in the business of having peoples' legs broken.

"I need to borrow a couple of your toughest enforcers to keep an eye on my house for the next few days." Yvette's goons made the toughest guys from any of the organized crime syndicates look like kittens. Which was why many syndicates and cartels contracted with her to hire her soldiers. She kept tabs on who was working for who and kept groups of Werewolves and Vampires who were working for differing clients from killing each other. It was bad for her business if her workers were to kill each other.

"Anyone in particular?" she asked.

"Can you spare Black Hat and 'the Dentist'?"

"They're yours," she said with a smile. "But I want something in return."

I never liked it when she gave me a condition, it never lead to any good. "Okay, Yvette, what do you want?"

"A trip with you up to the North Shore," Yvette smiled. "Two nights."

"Yvette, you're seventeen..." I started.

"Don't give me that. I've been seventeen for nearly seventy years now." I hated this part. "We've put a lot of bodies into the ground together. What's a couple of nights going to hurt?"

"You're how old?" Jamie asked. I guess she had finally started to come to grips with the Mystic Wolf. At least enough to really start paying attention without looking like a deer caught in the head lights.

"Eighty-six," replied Yvette. "Look pretty good for an octogenarian, don't I?"

"Are you a Daemon like Black?"

"Hardly. I'm half-Vampire and half-Werewolf. I was one of the Nazi's many attempts at creating a super soldier. I was the sole survivor of that particular project."

Jamie looked at me in shock. "You put me in the hands of a... a..."

"No she's not a monster. Well, maybe in the classical sense of the word, yes. However, she is a lot less of a monster than many quote unquote normal people out there," I said, trying to calm my client. The last thing I needed her doing was insulting one of my closest friends.

"But she just said that the two of you had, well..." She didn't finish the sentence and let it hang in the air for me to answer.

"Oh, that. After the war, she came to live here. At the time, the Vampires and Werewolves in North America, most of who were foreigners, were in a constant state of war. With my help, we culled both sides deep enough for Yvette to step into the leadership role for both groups and force a sort of peace treaty," I explained. "And so far, it's worked fairly well."

"How long ago?" Jamie asked.

"The court has been around for almost forty years now," Yvette said. "And before you ask, I didn't bother to keep count of the number of corpses we left in our wake."

"Well, I have to go check in with a friend of mine," I said, getting up from the booth. It was time to check in on 'the Fiddler' and see what had interested him enough to try to dance with Jamie even though she was sitting with the Countess. "Yvette, can you take Jamie back to my place? You still have keys, right?"

"Right next to the keys for my own home," she said with an obvious smile. "I'll call Black Hat and 'the Dentist' and have them stake out your place. I'll stay with Jamie until they both get there. And don't worry, I'll make sure 'the Dentist' knows exactly what you'll do to him if he tries to have a drink."

"Jason, are you sure..." I didn't let Jamie finish the sentence.

"Don't worry, you'll be safer at my place with those two guarding you than with me out on the street," I said. "I'll call you in a little while."

"Okay," she sighed.

"Come on, dearie, I'll take good care of you," Yvette said, sliding an arm around Jamie. She then turned to look at me. "Remember ... two nights."

"I'll make a reservation for the nicest place I can find once I'm done with this case." The things I went through to wrap up a case.

Once I saw Jamie and the Countess get to the door, I turned my attention to 'the Fiddler'. I saw one of the men he was with get up and follow the two ladies out the door. That left 'the Fiddler' with only one gunsel and he would be easy enough to deal with. As I walked over to have a friendly chat with the hitter, I slipped my hand into my coat and wrapped my hand around the grip of 'Ace of Spades'. I approached 'the Fiddler' from behind. I had never seen his help before, so I was fairly sure that he wouldn't know my face or the reputation that went along with it. Once I was within touching distance of my target, I yanked my heater from her holster and jammed it into the idiot's ribs. The goon went for his gun, but halted when he realized that I could plug his boss and then kill him before he could draw.

"Francis, it's good to see you again," I said. "Now be a good boy and tell your monkey to take a hike. The way he's grabbing his chest has got me nervous and my hand always starts shaking when I'm nervous, along with the finger on the trigger."

"Hit the bar and get me a whiskey neat. You want anything, Black?" 'the Fiddler' asked casually. If the guy was nervous, he wasn't showing it.

"Double shot of bourbon," I ordered.

The gunsel didn't make a move. "Didn't you hear me?" Francis asked harshly. "I said a whiskey neat and my friend here will have a double shot of bourbon."

His man nodded and left the table. "Seems like a nice kid. Bit dumb, though," I commented.

"A primitive I picked up a couple months ago," Francis said. "They learn fairly fast, but aren't much better than monkeys. However, they do like hurting people which is all I really need them for."

"Well, be sure that the one you just sent to follow my client doesn't run afoul of the Countess Blood Wolf, or the guys who'll be meeting up with her soon. It might be hard to replace the guy."

"True enough, I guess," he said. "But you'd be surprised at how easy it was to acquire both of them in the first place.

"I'm sure I would be. You're too cheap to risk expensive help," I said as I sat down across from the hitter. "So, what's got you interested in my client?"

"The question should be: what is going on with her that warrants you getting help from both 'Scar Face' and, more importantly, the Countess?"

"That's a dangerous question to be asking," Sarah whispered into 'the Fiddler's' ear, having snuck up on him from behind.

From the look on 'the Fiddler's' face, my companion had jammed her own heater into the man's back.

"No need for that, 'Scar Face'. I'll step off. But keep this in mind, you're not a real player on the scene," 'the Fiddler' said. The professional hitter gulped heavily and made a slight lurch forward as Sarah shoved her rod harder into his back.

"Maybe I should do something about that right now," she said.

"Call your bitch off, Bla..." was all Francis got out before Sarah pistol whipped him.

"Dumb ass," Sarah said, spitting on the unconscious hit man.

It was at that moment when Francis's gunsel showed up with the drinks. I took my bourbon from him and gave it a quick sniff. The idiot had tried to doctor the drink on me. I grabbed the thug by the back of his head and gave his face a hard bounce off the table.

"What did he try to deserve that?" Sarah asked when I gave the primitive a rib breaking kick in the side.

"He tried to slip me a Mickey," I said. "Let's go."

"Where to now?" Sarah asked.

"The Shadow Man confessed to being hired by the Ladies after you left. Now comes the hard part of tracking them down."

"Do you have any idea of where to start?" Sarah asked.

"The last time they had a base of operations in the area, they were holed up near an area where the 35W bridge is currently," I said. "I doubt that they'd be dumb enough to go back to where I could easily find them, but they're still going to be near the river."

I grabbed a passing Succubus waitress and asked her to apologize to Brisbane for me regarding the mess the two of us had just made. The Succubus looked at 'the Fiddler' splayed out across the table, his face buried in his dinner. She merely shrugged and kicked his chair out from underneath him. "He's a lousy tipper," she said before walking off. I couldn't help but laugh.

"This way," I said, motioning Sarah toward the door that led to the mortal world.

"So, how are we going to find the Ladies of the River?" Sarah asked again.

"That's where Shadow comes in."

"Of course!" Sarah clapped her hand to her forehead. "He'll be able to fly up and down the river and be able to spot the magickal signature coming off of them, and then he can show you where they are."

When we got to my car, Shadow was already there perched on the hood. "Reading my mind again?" I asked.

As easily as if it were a dime store pulp novel, he replied smugly.

"There haven't been any dime stores in decades," I reminded him.

Says the man who just stepped out of The Big Sleep Shadow replied. I often forgot that the idiot crow was a big Raymond Chandler fan.

"Point taken," I replied.

So what do you want me to do?

"How would you like to track down the Ladies of the River." It wasn't a question and Shadow knew it.

You have got to be kidding me! Shadow screamed in my head. Do you have any concept of the number of diseases that are in their familiars?! Those wretched things are more polluted than the river!

"I'm not asking you to do battle with them." This was going to get irritating, I just knew it. "All I need to know is where I can find them."

I still don't like it.

"I don't care if you don't like it," I hissed at the bird. "This is a direct order. Go find the Ladies of the River."

Your mother would never have made me do this, Shadow sulked.

"In case you haven't noticed, I'm not my mother," I snarled.

Yeah, yeah. I've noticed.

"Good, now get going," I said, taking a swipe at him.

"I'll never get used to that," Sarah said.

"What? Me talking to Shadow?"

"Yeah. I mean, I can see you talking to a bird and, while I know that he's talking back to you, I can't hear it."

"I'm sure that you'll get used to it sooner or later," I said with a shrug.

"Now what?" Sarah asked the logical question.

"We head towards the river and find a place to park and wait until we hear from Shadow," I replied.

"Until you hear from him," she said.

"Whatever."

VII

We had been parked near the 35W bridge for nearly two hours when I heard from Shadow. Found them. At least, I think I have. There is no way that I'm going any closer. Remember: their familiars can sense me almost as well as I can sense them. If I got too close, I'd be in a lot of danger.

"Not a problem. Just wait until I come for you, then you can wait it out safe in the car," I said.

From where I'm perched, the Ladies are between me and the only real way for you to get here. I'll just stay put until the coast is clear, Shadow replied. It was a sensible plan. Shadow was loyal. Not terribly brave, but loyal.

"I'll see you soon," I turned the engine over and the car crawled out of its spot on the side of the interstate. Soon, we were merging seamlessly into the light traffic.

I looked over at Sarah who seemed a little on edge. "You don't have to come with if you don't want to. In fact, I'd almost prefer it if you didn't come," I said.

Sarah glared at me. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Look, Sarah, what I'm about to do is going to be messy business. I'm going to be shedding a lot of blood tonight. And when I say blood, I mean Human blood. Not like the blood of the Daemon I was cutting on earlier." I was remembering what Yvette had been telling me earlier that night. Sarah was still a cop deep down. Tonight, I was going to performing butchery. I didn't need my friend to see that side of me. This wasn't going to be the first time I dipped my hands shoulder deep in the gore of Humanity, and, by the Gods, I knew it wouldn't be the last time either.

"I..." She didn't finish the sentence. There really was no need for her to do so.

Sarah was silent for the rest of the trip. The silence sat there like a fog, no real substance, but still able to obscure anything out there. An hour later, I took the car off the main drag and down a side road that led closer to the river. I shut the lights off and let my Daemonic senses show me where I was going.

As soon as we got close, I shut the engine off and we coasted another hundred yards or so before I slid her to a stop behind some bushes.

I reached to the back seat and grabbed an old friend of mine from the Prohibition.

"A Tommy Gun?" Sarah asked in almost disbelief.

"Yep. Used this girl all throughout the gangster wars. These babies are what made the Twenties roar," I said with a wicked grin.

When I got out of the car, I took my whippet out from behind the seat. I eased my trench coat off and slung the short strap of the sawed-off twelve gauge under my right shoulder Bonnie and Clyde style. I put my trench coat back on, obscuring the gun from sight. The whole point of the whippet is that you'd be able to carry something as fierce as a Remington twelve gauge as easily as if it were a pistol in a shoulder holster. It had taken me a little while to get used to carrying it, but once I had, I made sure to always have it with me when I knew I was walking into a fight.

I then made sure that 'Ace of Spades' was securely tucked away in her holster under my left shoulder. That little girl had seen me safe through two World Wars. With a little love and care, she'd always be there for me when I needed her.

I had been armed this way the last time I had rid the Twin Cities of the Ladies of the River, back during the Depression. In fact, these were even the exact same guns. The Colt in its shoulder holster, the whippet under my right, and the Tommy in my hands. I was as ready to spill a lot of blood as I was ever going to get.

"Be careful," Sarah said as I closed the car door. I simply nodded. She would be safe here; I didn't want her getting to close to this. She'd be just one more thing for me to worry about.

"How many are there, Shadow?" I asked my familiar, who looked to be several hundred yards away.

Thirteen, just as you'd expect, the crow replied.

Covens of witches, both good and bad, always tried to form up into groups of thirteen. I never knew exactly why since my mother had never been able to give me a suitable answer herself, and she had been an old school good witch. There were various theories, one of the most common, though wildly inaccurate, being that it was part of the spread of Christianity over pagan Europe, with revisionist idiots pointing to the fact that Jesus had twelve apostles with him making thirteen. Whatever the reason, all that mattered at the moment was that I was facing thirteen magick whores.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I opened my eyes halfway through the long exhale. Now was the time to send these cockroaches of the magickal world to the Hell that had been reserved for them. I casually rested my Thompson on my shoulder and nonchalantly walked down the path towards them. The Grim Reaper was about to get busy.

The night was cold, even for spring. The thirteen witches were grouped close around a couple of trash can fires. I spotted them before they saw me which played to my advantage. Their first warning of my presence came from the barking of a pair of mangy, mongrel dogs that I immediately knew to be familiars. The dogs were fairly large, but I knew they'd probably be half as large if they were eating on something other than the same garbage the witches subsisted on. The second warning cry, though it was no longer needed, came from the ragged trees that grew around this part of the bluffs by the river. A murder of crows were belting out the raucous cries. The thirteen Ladies of the River turned to look at me and I knew, and I was sure that they knew, too, that this encounter was going to end in blood shed.

"What do you want, creature of the pit?" One of them asked me. I figured that since she had spoken first, she must have been the leader of this coven of cockroaches. By the look of her, she wasn't much long for this world, two maybe three months max. However, it really was only idle speculation on my part. In a few minutes, I'd be putting all of them out of the world's misery.

"Now, now, that's not a very nice way to start what I hope to be a pleasant conversation. I was hoping that we could keep this friendly." They obviously knew that I was lying. There was no way that they'd let another Daemon, even a half-Daemon such as myself, walk away if they could help it.

"Hardly friendly if you're carrying a gun like that," their leader spat.

I surveyed the group and quickly spotted the witch that Jamie had described heading left. "I just need to ask a couple of simple questions and then I'll leave. Simple as that. No need for things to get messy."

The other witches were breaking off, but they were still close enough that a sprayed barrage from my Tommy would cut all of them down.

"Ask your questions," the leader finally said after a bit of a pause. She was obviously stalling. They were starting to surround me like a pack of wild dogs on anything that looked tasty.

"You recently summoned up a couple of Shadow Men to stalk and kill a client of mine. I want to know who hired you," I said. I dropped the Tommy from my shoulder and shifted it to a two-handed grip. I was starting to get nervous, they seemed to know what they were doing.

"What makes you think we had anything to do with a summoning of any Shadow Men?" the leader asked, lying through her decaying teeth.

"Oh, that's easy. One of them told me after I cut on it long enough to get it to break its contract to stop the pain." I smiled evilly.

The leader shrugged. "Oh, well, seeing as there's no denying it, I may as well tell you. We were hired by Landers Goldweight."

I was honestly surprised that Landers was involved with any of this. Last time I checked, the guy was nothing more than a two-bit magick Shylock. If Jamie was involved with that little piece of sleaze, she wouldn't have been so surprised to have had Shadow Men after her. No, there was someone else involved.

"Why is he after my client?" I asked.

"He didn't say, but he did say that he might need another job from us soon. However, that doesn't really concern you," their leader said.

"And why's that?" I asked, even though I already knew why. I could feel the crackle and pop of dark energies polluting the air.

"Because you're not going to leave this place alive," she cackled. It wasn't a good cackle, she hadn't had enough time to practice, and she would never get any more. However, since the rest of them were laughing as well, it left me with plenty of time. Idiots.

"Suit yourself." I grinned as I squeezed the trigger.

The gun jumped to life with a rattling roar sounding like a thousand Daemonic typewriters. It was that very sound that had earned the Tommy one of its more sinister monikers, 'The Chicago Typewriter'.

My first burst caught their leader full in the chest, cutting her almost in half. I spun a half circle round and, with a few pulls of the trigger, rattled off enough rounds to cut down another five witches. The polluting energies of the witches fractured as the terrifying sound of the furious Tommy shattered their concentration.

As I kept turning, I could see that the remaining Ladies were trying to run, knowing that their magick was no match for the death I was writing across the landscape. It would do them no good. Bullets ripped through their backs, their blood painting the ground. They were no better than cockroaches and I was an exterminator come to clean the Cities I loved of their filth.

Then came two of the crows. Most had died when their mistress had lost her breathing license, the others I didn't care about. But these two were diving towards my face, obviously trying to rake out my eyes. I dropped the Tommy and then rolled for the ground, leaving the crows catching nothing but empty air.

As I rolled, I reached high into my coat and grabbed my whippet from under my right shoulder. I brought it to bear as I finished the roll, coming to my knees. As the crows came in for a second dive, the gun bucked hard as I pulled the trigger twice. The crows disintegrated in explosions of blood and feathers as they were hit by the twelve gauge shells mere inches from the muzzle of the sawed-off shotgun.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw that one of the mongrel dogs was still moving and he was coming fast. I didn't have enough time to bring the shot gun to bare on the dog. I let go of the shotgun with my left hand and grabbed the charging dog by the throat as it jumped at me. Squeezing the dog's neck, I lifted it easily as I came to my feet. The dog kept snapping at me, trying in vain to bite into me with its diseased mouth. I reached under my left shoulder and yanked out 'Ace of Spades' and put two rounds into the frenzied beast's scrawny chest.

I slid the Colt back into her holster and casually tossed the carcass of the beast away to survey the carnage. I had barely started looking over the area when a sudden weight landed square on my back. The hit knocked me flat on my chest, my left hand was down at my side at an awkward angle. My right hand was still on my gun with my chest pinning it down in such a way as to make it impossible to get any good leverage. All I knew was that somehow, I had missed one of the whores and that I was soon going to be paying a harsh penalty for my mistake. What truly amazed me was how much she weighed. On their diet even the largest of them shouldn't have weighed more than a hundred pounds. This one felt to weigh a couple hundred. How, I didn't know, but I couldn't shift her off.

I twisted my head round and saw a rusty, magickally diseased butcher's knife pull up and I knew that it was soon going to end up in my neck. My one regret was that I was letting Jamie down and that soon, she would be paying for my failure.

Just as the knife was about to fall, I heard two loud cracks. The witch's weight decreased ten-fold, then simply slumped off my back. I rolled to my side and, upon standing, saw Sarah shaking and holding a .357 revolver. As I walked up to her, I approached her from the side and eased the gun out of her still fully extended hands.

"It's never as easy to put a couple rounds through a person as it is shooting silhouettes down at the range," I said gently.

"She was going to kill you." Sarah was still badly shaken up by it. "It was just like what happened to me, just in reverse. It was... it was..."

Sarah collapsed into me, bawling like a child. I put my arms around her and just held her for a couple of minutes. Maybe Yvette was right about Sarah. There might come a day when she might hesitate and not pull the trigger when she needed to. However, today had, thankfully, not been that day. I brought her over to a large rock and set her down. "I have a little clean up to do," I told her.

Looking around, I saw that all but two of the Ladies of the River were already starting to crumble in on themselves. I took my Colt back out of her holster and shot those two in the back of their heads. It was a merciful end for the wretches. Soon, all of these witches would crumble into dust, no longer of any use to the Daemon of the Mighty Miss.

Sarah was still shaking when I walked back over to her. I pulled my hip flask, the one I had had for well over a century, out of my pocket. I unscrewed the top and handed it to her: she could use a couple drops of the medicine to help stop the shaking. "Here, this'll help. Trust me."

Sarah took a quick swig and gave a shudder. "I always forget you drink cheap bourbon," she complained.

"We all have our vices," I said with a slight smile and a shrug. A little conversation would help just as much as the alcohol. "That tastes pretty close to what I had to drink during the Prohibition. I just acquired a taste for it."

She took another, much longer pull from the flask and gave another shudder.

"Feeling a little better now?" I asked.

"Well enough, I guess." She stood up slowly and headed back to the car. She seemed to have successfully pulled herself back together. I was, again, reminded of what Yvette had said. Sarah was going to have to develop a thicker skin if she was going to make it in the world I had introduced her to.

"Shadow," I called into the air. "I want you to meet us by the car."

Way ahead of you, he answered.

I surveyed the scene again. By this time, all of the bodies of the Ladies of the River had crumbled in on themselves. It was odd, in a way. If they died naturally, they left a withered body, but if they died violently, they would crumble to dust and just blow away. All that was left of them now was bullet riddled clothing. Someday another group like this would probably infect the area, but I could worry about that later. For now, I had washed their blighted presence from the land and it was time to find out how that two-bit shylock Landers Goldweight fit in with all of this.

As I walked over to the car, I saw that Sarah was scratching the top of Shadow's head. I guess she was finally starting to come to grips with the familiar and how much he had helped us tonight. "Enjoying that, bird brain?"

Yes and you're going to make her stop, aren't you? Shadow complained.

"You bet," I said. I then turned my head slightly to look at Sarah. "Come on. Let's get going."

I lit a cigarette and took a couple long drags before I got into the car. Once in the car, I put her into gear and started her up the path to the main drag. I felt Sarah's hand come to rest on my leg.

"Thanks," she said cryptically.

"Why?" I asked, confused. "I should be the one thanking you. And thank you, by the way."

"Because seeing you there, pinned down about to die like that, a knife through your neck, it reminded me of that night," she said. "That was fourteen months ago and it all came flooding back to me when I shot her. I just don't remember if I thanked you properly for that night."

"You've thanked me more than a few times." I patted her hand gently and just held it for a while. As we got back onto 35W, I took my hand away from hers and put it on the steering wheel to merge seamlessly into traffic. My only hope at this point was for Sarah to not say she loved me. Having to deal with spending two nights on the North Shore with Yvette, who would not accept anything but sharing a bed with me, was going to be hard enough. I didn't need to hear a similar request from Sarah.

"So, what's next?" Sarah asked, thankfully breaking my train of thought.

"We're going to talk to a Shylock named Landers Goldweight," I said.

"What would a loan shark be doing that would make him go to a group of witches like the ones you just wiped out?" Sarah asked. It was a logical question, since she didn't know what kind of stuff Landers was in the business of lending.

"Landers isn't exactly a loan shark, well not a normal one," I said.

"But you just called him a Shylock. I thought there wasn't a difference."

"In this case, there's a very important distinction," I said. "In the circles I have always traveled in, and which you do now, a Shylock is someone who lends magickal power. So, in a sense, Landers is a loan shark of magickal power and the interest rates he charges are preternaturally high."

"What do you mean?"

"Landers goes after his borrower's soul if he doesn't receive payment," I told her. "Before I started shooting, the leader of the Ladies told me that he said he might need their help again."

"Which means that Jamie wasn't the one who was doing the borrowing," Sarah said in sudden realization. "He can't receive payment from a corpse, not even the soul if he's not right there."

"Exactly." She was learning fast. I knew she'd have a fast learning curve when I took her under my wing. Her superior told me while she was in the hospital recovering that it was a shame she'd have to leave the force. "Jamie's death was meant to be a big ass warning to somebody."

"How are we going to find out who he is after?" Sarah asked.

"Simple. I'm going to kick in his door and ask him," I said with an almost manic grin.

It was at this time that I got a call on my cell. The ringtone that was playing belonged to Yvette. I pulled the phone out of my jacket pocket and slid my thumb across the screen to answer it. "Hey, Yvette. What do you need?"

"One of my goons that I contracted out just showed up at your place. He stopped by a car where some Neanderthal-looking guy talked to him. When he started coming over to the house, he saw Black Hat. He turned to walk away, but he didn't get far before 'the Dentist' grabbed him," she said, skipping the pleasantries.

"Let me guess, he's working for Landers Goldweight," I replied.

"How did you know?" There was a sound of total amazement in Yvette's voice.

"I'll explain when I get there," I said.

"So, what do you want me to do with him?" Yvette asked.

"Have him call his boss and tell him that there's no one there, and that he's going to wait," I said after a second.

"And after that?"

"I'll be there in thirty minutes, give or take. Just sit on him until then," I said.

"Understood. I'll be here waiting for you." Normally when she would say something like that, it would have been with a romantic lilt in it. Thankfully, she knew when to be serious.

"Thank you. I'll see you in thirty," I said as I hung up.

"What's next?" Sarah asked.

"You'll see." With Landers' heavy in Yvette's possession, it was going to be a case of me having the advantage of the situation over the Shylock. First rule of being a detective: try to know, or at least be able to fake knowing, the answers to any question you're about to ask. If you have the answers, it'll unnerve them enough to be truthful regarding any other questions that might come to you. Also, if they lie to you, you'll be able to find out why they're lying.

VIII

"Where is he?" I asked as soon as I walked through the door.

"He's in your 'trophy' room." Yvette's smile was wicked and with good reason. The trophy room could unnerve even hardcore horror fans because everything in there was real.

She then looked past me and saw Sarah walking through the door after me. "Hello, 'Scar Face'," she said coldly.

"You're looking well, Blood Wolf," Sarah replied in an equally cold voice.

"Where's Jamie?" I asked Yvette.

"In the library."

"Sarah, go join Jamie," I ordered. I needed to separate the two girls before Yvette killed Sarah, which would force me to kill my old friend.

"But I wanted to..." Sarah started to protest.

"Go!" I barked. "I'll tell you all about it later."

"She really needs to learn her place," Yvette said as soon as Sarah was out of the room.

"That chip on your shoulder must weigh a ton," I snarled at Yvette.

"What chip?" Yvette sounded shocked with the tone I had just taken with her.

"The one you put there as soon as I took Sarah under my wing and started training her," I said.

"She's no good for you," Yvette said. There was a sense of longing in her voice that irritated me. "She'll get you hurt."

"I'll worry about that when the problem comes up," I said. "In fact, if she hadn't been with me tonight, you'd be looking at me in a coffin."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Yvette asked, obviously confused.

"She double tapped one of the Ladies just as the bitch was about to put some sort of magickally diseased knife through my neck."

"Oh." The revelation that Sarah had saved my life seemed to take all the wind out of Yvette's sails. "If you'll excuse me, I've got to have a little girl-to-girl chat with Sarah."

The Countess walked down the hall towards the library. Hopefully, that would buy me some peace between those two. At least for a while, not that I expected it to last.

Not wasting anymore time, I walked into my trophy room, a room, a room holding things that should never be mentioned in polite conversation, I don't let most people in the place, only magickally powerful individuals can handle being in there for more than fifteen minutes give or take without going insane. Unless you were invited, this was the last place you ever wanted to be in.

Cursed items from all over the world had come to live here. Much of the wood furniture had materials coming from the Death Forest in Japan, torture tools of the Spanish Inquisition had made their way here, and that was some of the more pleasant items. I was particularly proud of the collection of shrunken heads I had acquired a while back.

I saw my prisoner, who had taken Human form, sitting a chair with a look of pure terror on his face. On one side of him sat 'the Dentist' who looked impeccably clean as usual. As befitting his moniker, his smile was blazingly white with a set of menacingly white fangs. He was dressed as if he was about to go to the opera, and, knowing him, he'd probably take some young lady there, then have a drink... her treat.

On the other side of him was Black Hat. Dressed like a blue collar construction worker, he was in a partial Werewolf state, looking much like Lon Chaney Jr. Black Hat had gotten his name from the black stocking cap he always wore. According to him, he had been wearing it when he had first turned and had just grown attached to it. He had been a cage fighter and, apparently, a good one before he had been bitten by a Werewolf.

One couldn't imagine two more unlikely friends than those two, yet they were. They liked to work together. This was odd, considering one was a Vampire and the other a Werewolf. The relationships between both groups had been near full out war before Countess Blood Wolf had slaughtered her way to the control of both sides. The remnants of that unease were still there and she sometimes had to remind them that they were all working for her now. However, these two were close friends and were two of Yvette's best enforcers.

The Werewolf between the two of them I didn't know, but that didn't mean much. He did look tough, though, which was probably why Landers had hired him in the first place. In this case, however, I was more than willing to lay a hundred down with my bookie that he was all bark and no bite.

I pulled up a chair and sat across from the bruiser. "Let's have a nice conversation," I said in a friendly voice. "As I'm sure you have by now realized, I am a close friend of Countess Blood Wolf. So, you seem to have found yourself in an awful situation." There was no reason that this conversation couldn't be civilized, after all I had given the Shadow Men a chance to cooperate. Here the situation was better. I didn't have to ask him who had hired him and, by now, he would have realized that I was a friend of the Countess. He was in no situation to lie to me without the consequences being very severe.

"Let's go over the facts. First, you were contracted out by the Countess to work for Landers Goldweight. I know that, at the very least, you were told to track down a girl named Jamie Cross, who is my client. Now from here, I will ask you some simple questions. If you answer truthfully I let you keep your breathing privileges. If not, well..." Black Hat gave the Werewolf's shoulder a painfully hard squeeze.

"I'll talk! I'll talk! Just don't let them hurt me." As I had thought ... all bark. Of course, having a pair of notorious hitters on either side of him as well as having his contractor in the house probably took all the bite out of him.

"My first question: how did you know where my client was?" I asked, keeping the tone of my voice friendly.

"Mr. Goldweight got a phone call. He didn't seem to like what he heard. He then gave me a picture of the girl, her name, the address to this place, and told me to come here. I was told to simply wait and keep an eye out for the girl," the Werewolf said.

"Did you recognize the name or the number?" I asked. It didn't really matter since I already had a pretty good idea of who had tipped them off.

"The voice sounded familiar, but I couldn't quite place it." The guy was eager to help. Of course, the fact that Black Hat had used his claws when he squeezed into the guy's shoulder had probably helped. I really didn't care who had made the call, I had a good feeling that the tip had come from 'the Fiddler'.

"Let's get to the real heart of the matter," I said. "Why is Landers after my client? Remember: right now, honesty is the best policy. And I assure you that it will be very beneficial for your health."

"Here's what I know. Mr. Goldweight had someone come by the office a couple of weeks ago. The guy said that he wanted help with some sort of interview that was coming up, something about a big promotion, some sort of bullshit like that." The Werewolf had started to sing. "Mr. Goldweight says that they should be able to work something out. He then starts interviewing the guy about all sorts of shit."

"What sorts of shit?" I asked.

"The usual sorts of shit. Stuff about family, where he likes to eat, what his handicap at golf is. How the hell should I know? I didn't pay attention," he said shrugging.

"Why didn't you pay attention?" I asked. This sort of stuff was always important when dealing with someone who brokered any sort of power, especially magickal power.

"Hey, look, I'm just muscle. I don't get paid to take notes. I..." The Werewolf yelped in pain as Black Hat squeezed hard into the stool pigeon's arm.

"Play nice or I get mean and feed you your own arm," Black Hat snarled less than an inch from my interviewee's ear.

"Okay, okay, I'll talk." The guy wasn't much on brains, but he was obviously familiar with Black Hat's well-earned reputation for liking to hurt people.

"Back to this customer of Lander's. Did you catch anything like the name of the guy? Maybe you can give me a description?"

"Yeah, I can do both for you easy. His name was Eric Fish. He was a pretty tall guy and he looked like he was in pretty decent shape, but I wouldn't swear to it since he was wearing a suit." The guy was starting to sing like the proverbial canary, and I would lay more than even odds that it was all the more beautiful because it was a performance inspired by the gracious threat of Black Hat. The guy may not have taken notes on the conversation, but he knew more than enough about the guy to be able to spot him in a hundred-man line up. I was sure that the reason he could remember what the guy looked like so well was in case he needed to track down someone who had skipped town instead of paying up.

After a ten-minute serenade, I had a pretty good idea of what the man who had borrowed the power from Landers looked like. He was a tall man somewhere between six-six and six-eight. Hard features, almost as if he had been chiseled out of stone, the Werewolf had said. The guy had blue-green eyes and his black hair, showing just a touch of gray, was cut short, not a crew cut, but still short. He then went on to describe some of the finer details, from the height of his cheek bones to the exact shape of his nose. I eventually cut stoolie off at the part about the college class ring.

"Okay, now you are going to stay put for a while, while I take care of a few things. Once I'm done with that, you and I and everyone else here are going to move this conversation to your boss' office."

As I stood up to leave, I looked at Black Hat and 'the Dentist'. "He's been a good boy. So don't rough him up." I heard a sigh of disappointment from Black Hat once my back was turned. I also heard a sigh of relief from Landers' goon. He had given me everything I had needed so there was no need for any violence.

When I got to the library, it seemed that the Countess had made some peace with Sarah. In fact, they had gone so far as to be having a civilized, if somewhat tense, conversation with each other. I didn't know how long it was going to last, but for now, I was going to enjoy it. "I need to ask you a couple questions, Jamie," I said, interrupting the flow of the conversation.

"Anything," Jamie said eagerly. "Sarah said that you had a lead on who contracted those Ladies of the River people to kill me."

"Yes, we do have a lead, which is why these questions are going to be so important," I started. "First, do you know anyone named Landers Goldweight?"

Jamie closed her eyes and cocked her head to one side. "No, not that I know of. Why?"

"Didn't think so." I really hadn't expected her to know the sleaze. "How about an Eric Fish? He's supposed to be a tall guy, short black hair, and blue-green eyes."

Jamie didn't even close her eyes this time. "I know exactly who you're talking about, but his name isn't 'Eric Fish' it's 'Derek Fynch'. He has a slight speech impediment that always causes people to make that mistake." Well, at least the Werewolf wasn't an idiot for names.

"So how do you know him?" I asked her.

"He's my boss." Then a light sparked behind her eyes. "Are you saying that it was my boss who asked me to be killed? That sounds a bit extreme for me turning him down. Sure, I threatened to go to Human Resources for harassment, but wanting to kill me?"

"Actually, it isn't your boss that wants you dead. I'm fairly sure that the person who ordered your death meant it to be a very big and messy warning to your boss," I told her. "Do you know if your boss was up for any sort of promotion?"

"Actually, now that I think about it, I'm fairly sure he was. He made some vague promises that he could get me a promotion if I went out with him. I didn't think too much of it at the time because when he said that, he didn't have the authority to give me a promotion."

"I hate to tell you this, but you seem to be nothing more than collateral damage in a nasty piece of work," I told her.

"So what happened that got me involved in this whole mess?" Jamie asked.

"Your boss got involved with a type of Shylock the deals in magickal power..." I started before Jamie interrupted me.

"What's a Shylock?"

"A loan shark." Kids these days have no sense of what they're missing out on now that the classic slang of the Roaring Twenties through the Forties is no longer being used. The next thing I knew, I would have to explain what a zip gun is to someone. "Anyways, this Shylock is a mean piece of sleaze named Landers Goldweight, probably felt that your boss hadn't paid his debts in a timely enough fashion. So, to make it well-known to Mr. Fynch that he wanted his money, he was going to have you killed in a suitably gruesome fashion as a warning."

"You're saying I was going to be killed because my boss didn't pay up to a loan shark?" Jamie asked in a justifiably shocked voice.

"Pretty much. Don't worry, I'm going to get all of this sorted out." This wasn't the first time, and it certainly wouldn't be the last time, that a Shylock used a trick like this. I've seen cops clean up these types of messages for more decades than I cared to count, but this time was different. This time, I was being paid to keep the message from being delivered. I knew what Landers was after, or rather whom he was after. I was simply going to make a trade: Jamie's safety in return for a guy who was probably scum anyways.

"So, what's the plan, Jason?" Yvette asked.

I thought about what the next move would be. "Do you have a limo that can take seven passengers?" I asked her.

"Of course. I take it that we are going to be paying Mr. Goldweight a little visit then?" Yvette replied.

"Of course. I was thinking that we could move this little party to his greasy little office," I said.

"He's come up a long way if you're still thinking of that run down office building down in the warehouse district. How that place stayed open with all those code violations is beyond me," Yvette said. "He's got a corner office in one of the newer high rise office buildings in downtown Minneapolis."

"High risk, high paying loans aren't limited to just banks then," I mused.

"Hold that thought," Yvette said, holding up a hand. She pulled out her cell phone and called one of her people to bring a limo and a change of clothes. "And don't forget my work clothes."

I looked at her and raised an eyebrow. "You really are serious about making an impression, aren't you?"

"You of all people should know that it's important to dress for success," Yvette said. "Now, I don't know about the rest of you, but I plan on getting Landers properly worried."

I suddenly realized that she was going to be changing into her 'I'm the biggest bad ass here' clothes. I only saw her in those clothes when she was going to set an example to her followers about what it meant to cross her. Normally, that meant she would rip the offender's arm off and then feed it to them. When she was dressed like that, she looked like a high priced dominatrix that was looking ready to kill someone very painfully instead of playfully slapping them around. The leather of the outfit was tanned Werewolf hide, studded with Vampire fangs. Truly nauseating when you knew the history behind it.

I decided that I, too, could use a change of clothes after my rather messy encounter with the Ladies of the River. The limo arrived thirty minutes after Yvette called for it. Once it arrived, she quickly changed and was ready to go.

When we got into the limo, one side had Landers' goon siting between 'the Dentist' and Black Hat. On the other side, Jamie sat next to Sarah. At the back of the limo, Yvette sat next to me. I saw Sarah's distinct glare when Yvette's hand seemed to all too casually make its way onto my lap. The brief peace between the two of them wasn't going to last and, as head strong as the two of them were, I knew I was going to just have to suffer through it.

"Does Landers have any other muscle than just you?" I asked the Werewolf.

"No one other than me," the Werewolf said. It was an obvious lie from the way he said it.

"Dentist, if you would be so kind," Yvette said sweetly.

'The Dentist' pulled a pair of pliers out of an inner coat pocket. He forced the Werewolf's jaws open. "Please try not to bleed on this suit. It's dry clean only," the Vampire said as he casually wrenched out a canine.

The Werewolf screamed in pain, but was smart enough to try his hardest not to bleed on the Vampire's expensive tuxedo. Jamie looked away quickly, burying her face in Sarah's shoulder. For herself, Sarah didn't even flinch, but considering what she had seen me do earlier in the evening, this was tame by comparison.

"Now, are you going to tell us the truth or is 'the Dentist' going to have to look for some more cavities?" Yvette continued with her sweet tone.

"He's got a pair of Incubi in the office with him at all times. They never leave. I don't think their contracts allow them to," the Werewolf whimpered.

"Oh, don't be such a baby," Yvette said, patting the werewolf on the knee. "You'll grow a new tooth soon enough, at least as long as you do exactly what I tell you to do."

"Anything you say, Countess,' the Werewolf whimpered, fresh blood drooling down his chin.

Yvette turned her attention to me. "Incubi. Those are pretty nasty pieces of work. Are you prepared to handle them?"

I simply gave Yvette a withering glare.

"Sorry, I shouldn't have even bothered asking," Yvette conceded. "So what exactly is the plan?"

"Simple. Black Hat kicks the door in and I put a banishing round into each of those scum sucking Daemons." I never did like those types of Daemons, probably because the Nazis were so fond of them, and anything that the Nazis liked had to be viewed with suspicion. Plus, they were all serial rapists, so it sort of goes without saying why I hated them. "Then I'm going to grab that two-bit Shylock Landers and pound on him until we come to an understanding."

"What is it with you and beating people up?" Jamie asked.

"In the circles you have found yourself thrown into, Jamie, violence gets results," I said. "Here, it gets you names and motives. And tonight, it's going to get you off the hook from someone else's mess."

"I just think you enjoy it," Jamie said.

"Maybe a little more than I should," I conceded. "Mom always did say I was a bit too much like my father in that regard. Though, for as long as I can remember, dad never touched my mother with anything other than a loving hand."

"Considering that you're here, he must have touched her with something more than just his hand at least once," Sarah said, trying to make a bad joke. She then quickly shut her jaw when I glared at her. It was a standing rule with my friends and associates that all matters regarding my family were off the table, unless I brought it up. There were to be no questions, no pushing for more information, and definitely no jokes.

"Is there something I should know?" Jamie asked.

"Yes. What I've already told you about my parents is all you need to know. Everything else is off the table." I then turned my attention back to Sarah. "Isn't that right, Sarah?"

"Sorry, Jason," Sarah said in a quiet voice. She realized that she had crossed the line. I wasn't so much mad as I was irritated.

The rest of the ride was fairly quiet. Not that Sarah and Jamie weren't talking, but everyone else sat in stony silence. I was fairly sure that the only reason Jamie was talking to Sarah was to keep her mind elsewhere. I didn't blame her. After all, she was on her way to meet the man who had put a contract out on her head. Had I been in the same shoes as my client, I probably would have been scared, too, but she managed to put on a brave face. I had to admire her.

A couple of days ago, she had been like most people: oblivious to this magickal underworld of the Twin Cities. And now, she was sitting in a limo with people who normally would have been the villains in a horror movie. What was probably the weirdest part of that was that we were, with one exception, the good guys. True, the only reason that Black Hat and 'the Dentist' were being good guys was that they were acting on Yvette's orders. Still, we, the monsters, were going to be saving Jamie's life.

When we arrived at our destination, I was impressed with what I saw. Apparently what Yvette had told me about Landers' large step up in society wasn't an exaggeration. The last time I had endured the displeasure of dealing with that louse, he had been working out of an office building in an, if you wanted to be generous, rundown office building. Back then, his only muscle had been a brutish thug armed with a gun and an axe handle. The area had become the kind of place that had earned Minneapolis its name Murderrapolis, which at times was a very justified name. This new place was a world away from there. It was in a clean part of downtown, the kind of area where the cops did the rounds of kicking vagrants off the street corners.

"This is the place," Yvette said as we exited her limo.

"Let me guess: his office is on the thirteenth floor?" I asked, not that it was really a question.

"Of course, where else would a guy like that have his office?" Yvette smiled.

I took 'Ace of Spades' out of her holster and swapped out its current magazine with one that was fully loaded with banishing rounds. I chambered a round and put the gun back in its holster. The Incubi in Landers' office were in for a painful one-way trip back to which ever Infernal Realm they had been summoned from.

When we entered the office building, I made a quick survey of the building's business directory. The place was infested with the offices of lawyers and business consultants. It was under the listings for financial consultants that I found Landers Goldweight's office. If it wasn't for the seriousness of the situation, I almost would have laughed, but in this case, it wasn't anywhere near funny.

As we took the elevator up to Landers' office, the Shylock's muscle was still uncomfortably squeezed between Black Hat and 'the Dentist'. The two of them were quietly menacing the Werewolf, whose name I still hadn't bothered to ask for. Neither of them actually had to say or do anything to make it well-understood that they had no qualms about hurting people. They were used to inflicting pain upon people and usually it was not out of any sort of malice, but simply because it was part of their job description.

When we reached the door to Lander's outer office, the glass to the side of the door showed that the lights in that office had been turned off.

"Are you sure he's in there?" I asked the Werewolf as I grabbed him by the collar and pulled him so close that I could smell his fetid breath.

That was the problem with many Werewolves: sure, they could hide what they were on the outside, but often times, they couldn't hide their smell. This one needed a box of breath mints.

"He's in there," the Werewolf yelped. "He never leaves."

I looked over at Black Hat. "If you would be so good as to knock," I said, motioning to the door.

Black Hat kicked the door so hard that the metal of the frame twisted as the door ripped away from its hinges. I walked through the now vacant doorway.

As soon as I entered the outer office, I could hear alarms go off in the inner office. It took me less than a second to realize that these alarms were designed to go off in case someone of power entered the office, and most of us fit that description. The only one who didn't was my client. Even Sarah would have set the alarms off because of the magickal eye I had given her to replace the one that she had lost.

Four Incubi in well-tailored suits showed up, which was their mistake. Just as they started to rush, I put a banishing round into each of them so fast that one would have thought that this was an action movie. The fact that there were more than the two that Landers' rented muscle had told us about meant some dire consequences for the possibly soon-to-be dead muscle.

As the Daemons were being painfully sucked inside out, I heard Yvette tell 'the Dentist' to teach Landers' goon why it was a bad thing to lie to her, but not to kill him. She must have been in a good mood. I switched magazines in the Colt, no point in using expensive banishing rounds on a Human like Landers. Once again, I motioned to Black Hat to kick in the office door, which he seemed more than happy to do.

As I walked into the inner office, the short, bloated toad of a Shylock Landers made a huge mistake and gave me both barrels of a side-by-side twelve gauge. The two shells didn't do much to me, but they did ruin a perfectly good dress shirt, and I became fairly pissed when I realized that my trench coat hadn't been spared. I was mad because that coat had been tailor made to hide the shoulder holster and had cost me a couple grand.

I grabbed the shot gun out of Landers' hands and hit him with the butt stock which sent him sprawling. I then vaulted the desk and grabbed him off the ground by his collar and slammed him into his high backed office chair.

"I'm sorry, Black! I didn't realize it was you!" he yelped in fear. I was fairly sure he had already realized that he had just put me in a very foul mood. "I just heard the shooting out there and got scared. It was nothing personal."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever. You pay for a new shirt and coat and I'll forget the shotgun bit." I said sourly. I really had liked that trench, but I had to expect that kind of thing in my line of work. "Now, back to the business at hand."

"What can I d..." Landers was cut off mid-sentence by a scream of pain as 'the Dentist' removed one of the goon's teeth. "What the hell was that?!"

"That would be 'the Dentist' working on that idiot you hired from me," Yvette said as she came to rest against the door frame. I hadn't heard her come in, but then again, she was one of the few people who could consistently get the drop on me.

"Dear Christ! Not you, too!" Things just weren't going Landers' way tonight.

"Don't bother getting religious on me..." I started before I was interrupted by another scream. "It doesn't suit you."

"Okay, what do you want, Black?" Landers asked. "You've kicked in both of my doors and 'the Dentist' is removing Mikey's teeth, so I'm assuming that this isn't a social call."

"It has to do with my client." I motioned for Sarah to bring in Jamie. "Now, I have it on very good authority that you hired those whores known as the Ladies of the River to kill my client."

"Who told you that? It's a wild pack of filthy lies." Even if I hadn't already known the answer to the non-question, I wouldn't have believed him for a second. He always was a lousy liar.

"The Ladies told me that themselves, right before I shot the shit out of them," I said, a happy note in my voice.

"Oh." Landers' face dropped so much that it looked as if he had aged a good twenty years in a couple of seconds. "Wait a second. Are you trying to tell me that you killed all of them?"

"My second time cleaning house of those cockroaches," I said with a smile.

"Why doesn't that surprise me? Everyone knows that you're a nasty piece of work, Black," Landers said dejectedly.

"What can I say? I need to keep my reputation for being one of the biggest hard asses around going. You know, the ultimate hard-boiled detective and all that," I said with a shrug. "However, that still doesn't answer the question of why you put a contract out on my client's head."

Another scream came from the outer office. "Now, I'm going to ask you a simple question. Lie to me and I'll make a dental appointment for you."

"Shit! Okay, okay, whatever you want! I don't want that blood sucker looking at my teeth!" The sound of panic in the Shylock's voice sounded like he was willing to be cooperative.

"Here's the question; why do you want my client dead? I know she didn't come to you. So why do you want her dead so much that you were willing to work with the Ladies?"

"An idiot client welched on his debt, so I needed to let him know that I wasn't pleased." I had been right, not that I was surprised about that. "He had told me about this dumb broad at his job that he had a thing for. Said that once he had that promotion he was after, he would give her a promotion if she went out with him. While I can't get money out of a stiff, may as well try juicing a rock. So I decided the best way to scare him into paying me would be to make her death as messy as possible." He turned to look at Jamie. "Look, it wasn't anything personal, you understand. It was just business."

"Don't worry, I understand," Jamie said so sweetly that I did a Loony Toons style double take. She held a hand out to Sarah. "Do you mind if I borrow your gun?"

Sarah pulled out her .357 and handed it to Jamie. I had to admit that I was impressed. My client was quickly learning how to play by the rules of the circles of society that she had so recently been thrust into. She expertly cocked the gun and walked behind the desk to where I was standing over Landers. "No offense, but this is just business. I hope you understand," she said as she put a bullet into each of Landers' knees.

The Shylock was screaming in pain, holding his shattered and bleeding knees as Jamie walked back over to Sarah and returned the gun. "Thanks for letting me borrow that. I've had the worst urge to shoot a bad guy since I found out what was going on," she said.

"Feeling better?" I asked her.

"Much."

"That bitch just..." Landers started before I jammed my heater under his jaw.

"I would really think hard about what you're going to say next," I snarled.

"Understood," Landers said with a hard swallow. "Perfectly understood."

"Okay, Landers. I'm going to make you a deal," I said ominously.

"Can I at least put my knees back together before we talk?" Landers asked.

"Sure, I really don't care," I shrugged.

"Thank you," Landers pulled out a vial of some green ooze. Opening the vial, he poured the contents onto the remains of his knees. In a minute, the blood and fragments of bone had disappeared and his knees were, once again, intact. "Okay then. What's the deal?"

"I hand over Fynch to you. You can collect whatever you want out of him, it's none of my concern."

"And in exchange?"

"You disappear," I said. "I don't care where you go. I just want you out of my city."

"That seems like an awfully steep price," Landers said.

I leaned in so close that I could smell his breath. "Let me put it this way, Goldweight; you were going to kill an innocent person in order to collect from someone who welched on you. That I will not tolerate," I snarled. "If you stay in this city, that green stuff you used on your knees won't help you heal from where I put a bullet in your hide. Understand?"

Goldweight looked away from me and seemed to sink into his chair. "Perfectly, Black. I'll be more than happy to leave since you asked me so nicely."

I slapped him lightly on the cheek a couple of times. "Good boy, good boy."

"So, how are you going to get him for me?" Goldweight asked.

"Simple." I shrugged. "I'm going to kill Ms. Cross."

It was so quiet that you could have heard a pin hit the desk, since the carpet would have kept the pin from making any noise if it hit the floor. "You're going to do what?!" Jamie shouted the question in disbelief.

Yvette started laughing hard. "That's always going to be a classic."

"What do you mean?" Jamie asked, still sounding panicked. "I paid you to keep me alive. What do you mean you're going to kill me?"

"Don't worry, I'm not actually going to kill you. I'm just going to make it look that you were turned into a rather bloody mess," I said. "Unfortunately, I'm going to have to pretty much destroy your apartment, but that is the way things are going to have to work."

"Well, as long as I'm not actually going to be dead, it shouldn't be too bad," Jamie said evenly. "How is this going to sit with the law?"

"Don't worry, I'll take care of that. I've faked people's deaths in the past." I then turned to look at Landers. "So what do you want out of Fynch?" I asked.

"He owes me five hundred thousand," the Shylock said. "Three hundred from the initial loan, fifty in interest, fifty as down payment to the Ladies, and another hundred from having to deal with you."

"And if he doesn't have the money?" I asked.

"I'll settle for his mortal soul," Landers sneered. "That bastard has caused me a lot of trouble since it got you involved."

"I can handle that," I said. I then smiled at Jamie, Yvette, and Sarah. "Come on, ladies, it is time to get ready to make a mess at Jamie's place."

Yvette stopped and turned to glare at Landers. "Before we go, I have one question?"

"Will it get you out of here if I answer politely?" Landers asked.

"Why did Mikey show up at Black's place? There was no way you could have known Jamie would have been there."

"Francis 'the Fiddler' called me and told me he had one of his boys follow the girl."

"How did he know who to look for?" I asked, realizing I may have to ventilate Francis just on principal.

"I keep him on retainer," Landers said. "I told him that it was possible that she had gone to you and just to keep an eye out. He must have been mad that I had started outsourcing with the Court and kept out the fact that she was with the Countess."

"You are an idiot," the Countess said. "However, you're a decent client. Black will get you your money, but then you and I will have to have a pleasant talk about Mikey's future employment with you."

Landers turned green at the thought of having a pleasant talk with the Countess. I couldn't say I blamed him. During the Knights' War, her having pleasant conversations with Nazis often meant she would string them up with barbed wire, then rip their intestines out with her bare claws. She was almost as good at torturing people as I was, but when she shifted into her debased Werewolf form, she looked like Hell itself had taken physical shape to walk the Mortal world.

As we left, I saw Landers' goon on his hands and knees looking for all of his teeth. I must have gotten so wrapped up in my conversation with Landers that I had stopped hearing the Werewolf's screaming.

"Come on, boys," Yvette said to Black Hat and 'the Dentist' as we all headed down to her limo. "We have to go make it look like someone got butchered. Where to next, Black?"

"Can you loan me about four liters of blood?" I asked my friend. "I want this to be as messy as possible."

"Oh, that's easy," Yvette said.

"All from the same person?" I asked her.

"Of course. Would ruin the plan if there were multiple DNA samples in the evidence."

"Do I even dare ask why you would have so much blood from just one person?" Sarah asked the Countess.

"It's nothing illegal, I assure you," Yvette said with a smile. "Some of my followers develop a taste for one donor over another. Since I have so many Humans who want to be part of the Court, they have to give blood for a while before I approve their change. So yes, I can easily get enough blood from the same person to have enough for the illusion of a messy death."

"It's getting late," I said. "We should probably let the Human get some decent sleep before we do this."

"Good point," Yvette agreed.

"I'm not tired," Jamie protested.

"When was the last time you got a decent night's sleep?" I asked my client.

"I admit it's been a while, but I'm still awake enough to do this."

"No, you're not. Now sleep." I slowly waved my hand in front of Jamie's face and she immediately fell asleep. I knew she wasn't going to be happy when she woke up, but she really did need the sleep.

"I should get some sleep, as well," Sarah said. "Can you drop me off at my place?"

Yvette tapped on the window to the driver and had Sarah give him the address to her apartment. After we dropped off Sarah, we dropped off Black Hat and 'the Dentist', then we headed to my place. Yvette said that she was going to drop me off before she went home herself... I knew that was going to be a lie. She was going to stay in the house and keep me up talking about old times. She really could be a pest at times.

IX

"That was a dirty trick," Jamie said when I woke her up twelve hours after I had put her to sleep with a little charm.

"You needed the rest," I said calmly. "You've had a rough few days and, while I may not be a doctor, even I could tell that you needed some decent sleep."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever." She didn't seem up to arguing with me, or she had realized that there was no point in not admitting the truth. "So, what's the plan?"

"We're going to take a trip to your apartment so that you can collect whatever you want to have in the immediate sense of time, since the police are going to cordon off your apartment for a while." Last time I had to do this for a customer it took over a week before they could get back into their house. No sense in making things harder on her than necessary.

"What do I tell my neighbors if we run into any of them?" It was a sensible question.

"Tell them that you are going on a much needed vacation after a very stressful time at work for the last few days." Jamie nodded. She seemed satisfied with the solution to the problem.

Twenty minutes after we arrived at Jamie's apartment, my client was heading out to her car with the spare keys to my house and carrying a couple of suitcases. She was meeting Sarah there so that she would have some company while we destroyed her apartment. Black Hat was on hand to help me destroy the place. 'the Dentist' hadn't come since this wasn't really his style.

I gave the Werewolf free reign to have fun. He took on his half-wolf form and started shredding everything with his claws. He smashed through furniture, flipped over tables, and knocked down bookshelves, putting holes in the plaster of the walls. We then liberally smeared blood throughout the place making sure it looked logically placed to fit with the shredded upholstery and carpet. Much of the blood was smeared around with Black Hat using his now oversized fur-covered hands as paint brushes. After thirty minutes of smash and destroy, Black Hat and I left. After making sure that no one was around to hear it, I had the Werewolf kick in the door. All in all, it had taken a little over an hour to get Jamie packed up and for the Countess's hitter and myself to make a big enough mess to make everyone think that my client was very much dead.

X

Jamie, Sarah, Yvette, and I were watching the evening news when we saw the story about Jamie's apartment. The police had called my client's phone which I had told her not to answer. We were going to keep her under wraps for a few days, at least until I had turned Fynch over to Landers. After the story aired, I called a homicide detective in Minneapolis, and I was fairly sure it wasn't going to go well.

"Detective Rogers, homicide." The detective answered.

"It's Black," I said.

"Can this wait, Black? I'm up to my nose in this Cross case," the detective said. "I'm sure you heard about it. Or have you not been watching the news."

"That's the reason I'm calling you," I said. "I need information about it."

"It's an ongoing investigation, Black, so don't bother asking. Now step of my case or I will arrest you."

"I'm still on your shit list, aren't I?" I couldn't say I was surprised. I had solved several of his cases by going over his head and made him look only borderline competent.

"You bet you are," he seethed through obviously clenched teeth. "Now what do you want."

"I'm fairly certain I know who ordered the hit, I just need your help in tracking him down."

"What do you mean 'hit'? That place was straight out of a nightmare. I've seen shit like it before and I'm almost dead certain that there's a serial killer out there that no one is talking about."

"I have it on good authority that this was a pay for play job. So how about it? You give me what I want, I'll give you what you need."

"Why should I help you? If it was a hit, I should be able to find out who ordered it easily enough." Stupid and cocky. Truthfully, I always wondered how he had made it to homicide in the first place.

"Tell you what: I'll make you a deal. You do exactly what I tell you to do and I'll give you all the evidence you need to wrap this up all neat and tidy. You get all the glory of solving this. No one will know I was involved."

"What do you really get out of this, Black?"

"I'm working for a third party that wishes to remain anonymous at this time. As I said, you will get all the glory in the press and on the force. My client gets the satisfaction of knowing who the killer was."

"Fine, then I'll work with that deal. What do you need?"

"I need you to track down Ms. Cross' boss. I'm almost dead certain that he is the key to this whole mess."

"You think he's the one who ordered the hit?"

"I never said that, did I? I just need you to find him for me so I can have a chat with him."

"I can talk to him myself, why should I let you have the fun?"

"Simple. I can make him crack faster than you can and I won't even have to work him over. You see, I have a lot of evidence that could tie him to all sorts of problems. Don't worry, I'll hand all of that over to you as well, but I need to speak with him alone first."

"Deal. I find him for you, then I'm going to give you three hours to talk to him before you hand him over. Not a minute longer or I arrest you and your client for obstruction."

"Fine by me. I just want you to find him before he skips town."

XI

It took three days for the cops to find Fynch. During that time, Jamie learned, much to my annoyance, not to draw to an inside straight. Still, I was taking enough of her money to not really want to steal any more playing poker. One nice thing was that she proved to be interesting to talk to and it still amazed me at how well she adapted to the new world she had been thrust into.

I was bluffing with nothing more than garbage, ace high, when Rogers called me. "What have you got for me?"

"Fynch is holed up in a flea bag motel on east seventh a couple miles out of downtown St. Paul. That Pepto pink place. You know the one I'm talking about?"

"Yeah, I know the place." The motel was nothing more than a place to bring hookers. They changed the sheets too infrequently and charged by the hour. To rate the place as a flea bag was to give it higher marks than it deserved because fleas died ten steps into the door. It was close to the airport and the person running the place knew where to get well-made fake IDs.

"I'm going to go pick him up and tell the guy who found him not to tail me when I take him out of there."

I headed out the door and got ready for a visit. More kicking down doors for fun. I pulled up in front of the motel and walked to the office which was manned by a dope fiend named Franky Callaghan. His face barely changed when he first saw me. It took a few seconds until my face finally registered in his baked brain. "Shit, Black, what do want here?"

"Fynch, he showed up here not too long ago. What room is he in?"

"Don't know who you're talking about. No one named Fynch here," he lied.

"Maybe not anymore, but only because you set him up with that forger, Shutterbug," I snarled. "So, what room is the low life shit in? He tried to kill my client and I intend to make sure he spends a long time in prison. Either you give him up to me now or I make it my business to shut this cheap roach motel down. I'll make sure you have no money to get your next fix of black tar. Now, give him up."

"Shit! Okay, Black. No need for threats like that. Room six. His new name is Howard Fischer," the dope fiend said.

"Key."

Franky handed me a key on a filthy keychain. "Here. Now please, don't bring the cops down on me."

"Next time, don't play stupid with me, though in your case, I'm more than willing to bet that you weren't acting." I picked up the keychain and headed over to room six.

I knocked on the door. "Mr. Fynch, Landers is looking for you. Now come on out or do I have to come in after you?"

There was no sound coming from the room, so I opened the door slightly so as not to break anything when I kicked the door in. I heard an explosive "Oomph" from behind the door and a lamp crashed to the floor as the door rebounded off of Fynch's chest. I grabbed him by the arm and forced him up to look at him. "Come on, Fynch, up on your feet. Landers wants to talk to you."

"Let me go, I can pay you. Just tell your boss that you couldn't find me." he said desperately. He reached into his back pocket and grabbed his wallet and pulled out ten 'C' notes which he waved in my face.

I knocked the hand out my face. "Save the money for Landers. You're going to need it."

"I'll double it, just let me go."

I jammed my heater into his ribs. "Sorry, we're going to talk to Landers. You see, right now, Landers is sitting on evidence that says you're the guy who killed Ms. Cross. Now you hand over the money to him and he hands over the evidence on the guy who actually ripped her up."

"I don't have the money," he said.

"Well, well, well. You're just going to have to give up what you put up as collateral. Come on, let's go." I grabbed his shoulder and marched him to my car, never taking my heater out of his ribs.

Twenty minutes later, we were in front of Landers office door. I marched Fynch into the office and shortly after that, I shoved him into the chair across from Landers.

"That was a nasty business you did, wasn't it?" Landers asked him.

"I didn't do anything. That was you and your goons."

"You were the one who welched on our deal, I had to let you know I was displeased with you. If you hadn't been dumb enough to run from me, she would still be alive. So it was indeed you that killed her." He popped his knuckles. "Now I'm going to offer you a deal. You pay me what you owe me and I don't hand over the 'evidence' that you made a mess of her."

"I don't have the money," Fynch said.

"You know I don't believe you." Landers kicked his feet up on the desk. "I had another detective look over your accounts. What's in that safety deposit box, at that small bank on Grand?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Fynch said.

"You aren't in a good position," Landers said with a smile. "You see, my friend here called the police and told them that he'd be able to hand over the killer in three hours. That was almost two hours ago. Now, what's in the box?"

"Gold," Fynch said quietly. "But not enough to pay all that I owe you."

"Then you know what I want," Landers said with an evil smile.

"How are you going to collect my soul when you weren't able to give me enough influence to get that promotion?" Fynch said defiantly.

Landers smiled. "It's not my fault that you are that worthless. All I can do is stack the deck in people's favor. If you were worth anything, you probably would have been able to get that job."

"Let's get to work," I said. "I think it's time for you to talk." I grabbed Fynch round the head with both hands and ran through a spell that would make him tell us exactly what we wanted to hear. The recording was for the cops in case Fynch decided to be uncooperative.

I had a sorcerer friend who would act as Fynch's lawyer, as well, just to make sure everything went well. He would also collect the idiot's soul for Landers and that wrapped everything up neatly. Except for Rogers.

The detective was pissed as hell when he found out that the third party who had hired me was the same person whose death he was investigating. He was only half relieved that she alive, but it meant no glory for him. That meant I was still on his shit list. I'd have to do something about that later. Maybe get him out of homicide and on crossing duty in front of an elementary school.

XII

I was sitting in my office when Jamie walked in with the remainder of what she owed me: another two-fifty. The thing was that I didn't want her money. I hoped she would be willing to do something else for me.

"I want to ask you a question," I said handing her back her check.

"Um ... sure," Jamie said nervously. "What do you want to know?"

"I need a secretary. I was wondering if you would like the job," I said. "I'll pay you more than what you're getting paid now. What do you say?"

Jamie looked at me in what appeared to be a slight state of shock. "You want me to what?" she asked.

"I would like to hire you," I repeated.

"But why me?"

"For several reasons," I started. "First, you're level headed. You know when to keep your cool and how to handle my friends. Second, you seem to have adapted well to this new circle of society which you were so rudely thrown into. Most importantly, having spent so much time with you over the last few days, I feel that we have formed some sort of bond and that we could work well together. So, what do you say?"

Jamie cocked her head to one side and closed her eyes for a few seconds. Over the last few days, I had come to realize that not only did that mean she was trying hard to remember something, but also that she was just giving something some serious thought.

I almost held my breath as I waited for the answer. I really was hoping that she would say yes, she was just what I was looking for in a secretary. She was smart, calm, and could handle the people I dealt with. And she was very attractive, though I was fairly sure she wouldn't sit on my lap while taking dictation.

While Jamie was thinking the phone rang in the office. Jamie picked up the handset. "Black Shadow Detective Agency, how can we help you?" Jamie asked as if she had worked for me for years.

Jamie nodded a couple of times. "I'll pass on the message." She then turned to look at me. "That was the Countess Blood Wolf. Your ride is here."

I sighed, two nights with a woman who wanted to be more than friends. This was going to be a dreadful two nights. Still it could be worse. "Don't worry, boss. I can manage the phone while you're on vacation," Jamie said with a smile.

"Welcome aboard."

