Into the Shadows (5 page)

"A gunman came in through the hallway door
and fired just as I was providing cover. I returned fire; I think I
hit him in the shoulder. We traded a few rounds, and then he moved
off. Once they knew Mr. Everett and his wife were basically penned
in here, they left a man outside the door. I think their team went
to deal with the rest of ours before coming back in force. Just
before you got here, one of them started shooting through the door.
I was away from cover, checking out the view from the west window,
got hit again. I returned fire."

"Well, you got him, buddy. You said you think
Dan is in the kitchen?"

"Yeah, he was in there when the attack came,
along with the chef and one of the servers." Cordell's tone gave me
a bad impression of Dan's situation.

"Okay, I'll check it out. I think it's clear
out there, but I need to be sure. I don't want any more
surprises."

"Can you do anything for Alan or Marie?"
Everett asked. I assumed he meant Mr. and Mrs. Morgan, who were
very dead.

"Sir, there may still be a threat in your
home, and I can't compromise myself and do my job effectively. I
have to consider everyone here. From what I saw, though . . . No,
sir, I can't help them. I'm sorry." I hope he understood that I was
basically saying Alan and Marie were gone and I wasn't going to get
shot while trying to resuscitate corpses.

"What's the plan?" Cordell asked as he
checked his weapon.

I looked at the others in the room; saw the
fear in their eyes. Fear could lead to stupid reactions. I turned
my eyes back to Cordell and said, "Stay here, keep them covered.
Just wait for the sirens; the police should be here in just a few
minutes. I have to check on Dan and Diego."

HONOR

I stepped back out into the dark, quiet
hallway. The only movement I saw was the twitching foot of the
intruder whose windpipe I crushed. With my gun out in front of me,
I edged around the corner to my left and peeked into the big family
room.

In the middle of that room, beyond the
dark-stained bodies of the Morgan's, were two other figures. One of
them was the newcomer - overcoat guy - sitting on a low ottoman,
facing some kid. I say kid because he couldn't have been more than
five feet tall, wearing a child's nylon poncho and one of those
stocking caps with the ball on top. Where he came from, I had no
fucking clue. The two seemed to be having a whispered conversation.
I took a step out, gun trained on them, and waited to be
noticed.

The kid glanced at me once but turned his
attention right back to overcoat guy, who didn't turn his head my
way at all. They simply ignored my gun pointing at them. That
didn't do much for my confidence.

The kid's face looked distorted somehow - it
must have been an odd cast of shadows. He was mostly listening and
nodding during the short, hushed conversation. The overcoat guy . .
. shit, I don't know. Even staring right at him, my eyes wouldn't
focus. I couldn't get a defined shape of his silhouette. At a
guess, I thought he was wearing a hoodie under the long coat, and
the hood was up. His hazy form - a shifting, shadowy outline - in a
room where everything else was more or less distinct . . . I'll
admit, it freaked the hell out of me.

The overcoat guy stood and handed the kid a
tote bag with handles. Even unable to see his defined shape, I
could tell that he had at least half a foot on me in height. The
kid took the bag and then shot out of the room too fast for me to
react. He went toward the billiards room, and was out on the patio
before I could swivel my gun in his direction. I couldn't help but
wonder who the hell those people were.

I pointed my gun back at the blurry shadow
dude. "Hold it right there, chief. I need some answers. First off,
who are you?"

He turned to face me, gave me his full
attention . . . and I wish he hadn't. I've been in combat zones and
chaotic firefights, but I'd never been more rattled than when
overcoat guy faced me. I still couldn't see any part of him
clearly, but he gave off an air of deep, enveloping
power
.
I'm not sure how else to explain it. It was like a constant wave
that demanded respect, caused fear, and held dark wisdom, all at
once. And he hadn't even spoken yet.

When he did say something, the creepy factor
went up a notch. "There is not much time, Leopold."

The voice was low and guttural, like he had
hot embers in his throat. Let's not forget that the big, scary
fucker knew my name. Not cool. I replied, "Time for what, and how
the hell do you know me?"

"The authorities are approaching. I will make
this quick." He paused for a moment, and I could faintly hear
sirens. "You may call me Vormund, for lack of a better name." When
he said 'Vormund', it came out as
'vormoondt'
, like he knew
the proper pronunciation of whatever country the name came from.
"It is twice now that I have intercepted harm that was meant for
you, yes?"

I lowered my gun. "That was you at the
nightclub two nights ago, wasn't it?"

"So it was. Would you concede that you are in
my debt for actions on your behalf?"

Shit, he had me. One of the few things that
couldn't be taken from me was my honor. A handshake was like giving
my word, and giving my word was like making a vow. It was that same
damn honor that forced me to accept an obligation to be met, or a
debt to be paid. Any decent soldier probably followed the same
basic code of conduct.

I didn't think Vormund saved me from much at
the nightclub - I didn't consider pretty boy much of a threat - but
he more than likely saved my ass inside the mansion. All the same,
he was about the last person - or whatever he was - that I would
want to be indebted to. "Yeah, I am. I appreciate your help here
tonight. What exactly do I owe you?"

"You may wish to include me in your police
reports," he answered in that deep, menacing, almost mesmerizing
voice. "Your debt to me will be considered paid when you make
no
mention of me - none. I know you, Leopold Beck; you will
not take false accolades. So, for whatever assistance I have given
this night, offer the credit to your downed companions. You will do
this."

Even if I didn't owe him, didn't recognize
the debt, I doubt I would have had the balls to refuse him anyway.
"Yeah, I can do that," I said with a sigh. "Now, who are you, who
are you
really
, and why have you been following me?"

"We all owe debts, Leopold Beck," was his
cryptic reply. "You should see to your associates."

At Vormund's reminder, I looked at the
hallway to my right where one of the kitchen entries was. I turned
back to say something to captain creepy, but he was gone. I mean,
like a trick - like he was never there in the first place -
gone
. I shook it off; I didn't want to think about that
right then. The sirens were louder. I still had to find two of my
team.

Quick and quiet, I moved into the kitchen.
Dan was there, and his body was a mess; I guess he didn't go down
easy. The bodies of the chef and two more intruders were there as
well. I found the other food server in a corner, a lady in her
thirties wounded in the thigh and holding a cleaver. She was nearly
hysterical. Couldn't say I blamed her.

After tying a clean towel around her leg, I
took off my jacket and had her do the same to my arm. Even though
the blood loss was minimal and looked like nothing more than a deep
graze, it had started hurting like a bitch. As soon as I got over
the pain of her accidently poking a finger in my wound, I went into
the garage. The cops were only a few blocks away by then, and it
sounded like they called in everyone for back-up. A door in the
garage that faced the back of the property was sitting open,
letting in cold air. Still cautious, I went through it and turned
toward the east lawn.

There were two dark lumps out in the trampled
snow; one of them was moving. I recognized it was Diego just as
warbling red and blue lights colored the snow. When I ran over to
him, I noticed his earpiece was gone. I also saw that he'd lost a
lot of blood from the bullet wounds to his legs. There was a trail
of rosy pink snow from where he'd dragged himself toward the
mansion, the stubborn ass. He'd tied a couple of his wounds off
with strips from his ripped pants, so I did what I could for the
others until paramedics got to him. When we saw flashlight beams in
the garage, I called out for help.

Fuck, what a weird, violent, bloody, scary
night. Oh, and painful, in more ways than one.

INFORMATION

An EMT patched me up while a detective
questioned me. My left cheek was swollen, my left arm was grazed,
my right shoulder was a big, ugly bruise, and I had little cuts on
my face and hands from tree bark and marble chips. I was a lot
better off than the rest of my team. Two of 'em were gone - two
friends. Dan only had an estranged wife, but Craig had just started
a family. I was told that Cordell and Diego were both going to be
okay, but all medics say that. Needless to say, I was in a foul
mood.

John Crane, my boss at Silas, got to the
scene while I was walking cops through my series of events. Bodies
had already been removed by then. I'm sure Crane cared about us,
but I knew him well enough to know that he was also making sure no
one sued his ass off.

Mr. Everett personally thanked me and told me
to call if I needed anything. It was a nice gesture, but all I
wanted from him was to find out who sent twelve men to kill him.
Silas Security didn't do that kind of work. Stanley Everett, on the
other hand, had the contacts, resources and the motivation to get
some answers. I didn't want the death of Craig Addazio and Daniel
Harper to mean nothing. Everett didn't owe me that; he owed
them.

I was kept for hours at a police station,
telling my story over and over while I pressed an ice pack to my
face. Not once did I mention Vormund or the track-star kid. They
asked me about a personal safe upstairs in the mansion that had
been opened with some sort of explosive. I never went upstairs,
never heard any explosion, and didn't know about a safe, but I had
a fair guess that its contents left the mansion in a tote bag.

My Glock was held as evidence, but I was
finally released in the middle of the night. Crane drove me home,
and said he'd have my car delivered in the morning. Half a bottle
of Jack later, I was dead to the world and dreaming of shadows. I
woke up groaning, sore as shit. I chased the handful of aspirin
down with more Jack. I called Keegan and said I needed the weekend
off. When asked, I gave him a quick overview of the story, and that
he and Deb could hear more about it on the news.

Looking out a front window of my house to
late morning sunshine gleaming off the snow, I squinted and saw my
old '05 Wrangler parked out front as promised. I felt an urge to go
off-roading again, and maybe do some camping. Wrong time, wrong
season; I promised myself I would when I could.

While I sat back on the couch and held a bag
of frozen peas to my face, I called Gwen. After I made sure what
hospital Cord and Diego were in, she wanted details about the
Everett attack. I indulged her, but glazed over any part that the
shadow-man was involved in. On a whim, I did ask what kind of a
name Vormund was. She looked it up while we chatted about Diego's
health. As for the name Vormund, Gwen said she found it as an
uncommon surname, but not as a given one. Then, for trivia's sake,
she casually offered that when translated in German, vormund meant
'guardian'.

OFFER

I visited Cordell and Diego in the hospital,
and met their respective families again. I'd been introduced to
them all at a company dinner six months prior. Cordell only had a
father and younger sister, while Diego's catholic family took that
'multiply and prosper' quote from the bible and ran with it. There
were kids, siblings, parents and extended family packed into his
room. Because of bone and/or tendon damage, both of the guys needed
surgery. Cord's condition wasn't bad; Diego would need rehab.

I debated stopping by Keegan's for an
afternoon drink. Since half of my face was still swollen, though, I
just went back home. I didn't have to worry about the media
bothering me since my company wouldn't release my name or
information, so there were only a few messages on my cell phone
that I forgot to bring with me again. One was from Crane; just a
check-up call. Another was from Gwen, who gave times and dates for
the funerals of Dan and Craig.

The last message wasn't one I expected. The
caller I.D. listed the number as private. It was from a woman with
a slight accent - French, I assumed - named Dominique Rondeau. She
said she wanted to discuss a lucrative business opportunity with
me. No other info was given except for a local phone number, and
the request to call back at my earliest convenience. I wondered how
lucrative she was talking about. Hell, there were a lot of things I
was wondering.

Ms. Rondeau sounded professional and honest
in her message, but something didn't feel right. Maybe I was still
edgy because of a dozen hired guns and the spooky shadow dude.
Maybe the timing was just wrong; I was still a little twitchy from
being in combat less than a day before. Maybe I hadn't let go of
Dan and Craig yet; we weren't best buds, but they still meant
something to me. Maybe I was afraid of a 'business opportunity'
because it might change the safe little world I was hiding in.

I finally decided to find out what the
opportunity was, and could easily walk away with no regrets if
something still felt wrong about the offer. I poured myself a Jack
and Coke and then dialed the number. A guy with a youthful voice
answered, "Realm Management, how can I help you today, Mr.
Beck?"

Okay, that caught me off-guard; I didn't
think receptionists had caller I.D. on their phones. I also never
dealt with a male receptionist. "Uh, yeah, hi; I was asked to
return a call from someone named, uh, Dominique Rondeau? Does she
work there?"