Shrouds of Darkness (27 page)

“What’s going on, Yuri? It seems a little tense around here,” I say to break the ice.

Yuri laughs but in a way that actually increases the tension instead of relieving it. It’s the laugh of a man that’s spitting in the face of his executioner.

“Tense, yes, is very tense. Focking devils kill half my men and I am very tense.”

“Who killed half your men, Yuri, what devils, when? Tell me what happened.”

Yuri throws back another shot of vodka and slams the glass on the table. “Early this morning, maybe two, three hours after you call me for focking Star Trek Xeon phasor or whatever de fock you call it. Focking devils come and start killing everybody! They shoot my men with guns, hack them with focking swords, and they tear my men apart with their bare focking hands like animals! We fight back hard. We shoot them but they ignore bullets or get back up if we hit them enough to knock them down. They were so fast, so strong. We run and fight our way to the cars and drive away.”

Yuri pours and slams back another shot of vodka, shatters the glass against the wall, snatches the pistol off his desk, and points it at my head. I refuse to flinch and meet his gaze dead on.

“I saw you. I saw you take bullet in my club. Focking vest my hairy Georgian ass! I know vests. I shoot people with vests and you were no wearing no focking vest! You took that bullet and you didn’t care. Just—like—them. I bet if I shoot you right now, you get back up just—like—them,” Yuri says, punctuating his theory that I am one of them.

“That’s right, Yuri, I took that bullet. I took that bullet for you,” I remind him.

“You work for me many years, Leo Malone. You tell me honestly. Whose side are you on?”

“I’m on the same side I’m always on—mine.”

Yuri stares into my eyes a full ten seconds before slapping the pistol back onto the desk and sitting down. “My bebia—grandmother—she is Romani. She tells us children’s stories her deda and her bebia tell her when she is little girl. She tells us of the night men—strigoi—who hunt at night, killing and feeding off blood of people. She tells us these strigoi are so fast and so strong they slaughter entire villages. We think they are just stories to frighten children to make them go to bed, but I see my men killed by these things and I don’t know what to think. You, Leo Malone, you tell me what to think.”

“I think you should listen to your grandmother,” I reply ominously. “How did you end up with him?” I ask, inclining my head towards Freak.

“After we flee, we see him running, so hard I think he is about to have heart attack. I think Hanako sends these things to kill me so my men grab him up.”

“And Hanako, what about him?”

“He says they are all dead. He and his brother were the last alive and when his brother fell he just ran. Been big pile of blubbering crap ever since. These things, more will come?”

I shake my head uncertainly. “I don’t know, Yuri. I don’t know why they even attacked you and Hanako.”

“I send out a few of my men. They say Carletto got hit too in East Bronx. He did not do as good as me but better than Hanako. This has to do with Martin?”

“Martin is a tool in someone’s game. Why they are targeting local mafia is beyond me. Every time I think I start to put the puzzle together someone throws in a bunch more pieces that I’m not sure even goes to the one I’m trying to figure out.”

“How many are there? Do they all want to kill me? How much should I be afraid?” Yuri asks me. “You think maybe they decide to sell drugs, prostitutes, and push Yuri out?”

 “I don’t know why they attacked. There is something going on inside the—organization—but I don’t exactly know what. Even if I think I know the what of it I’m not sure of the why.”

“So not all want me dead?”

“No,” I respond, shaking my head.

Yuri looks thoughtful. “Ah, is power play. Yuri knows of power plays. Someone wants promotion, wants more power, more money.”

“That’s my thinking but my main suspect has money and power.”

“Never enough money and power for some people. Maybe he fears rival. Maybe he wants to make sure he stays in power or wants to make another look bad so he cannot get more power. Whatever, I don’t care. What I want to know is how to kill them. You know how to kill them, yes?”

I give Yuri an evil smile. “Oh yes, I have become quite adept at killing them.”

 “Now that’s the Leo I know!” Yuri barks out with a laugh, a genuine laugh, not the gallows laughter from earlier. “Tell me how I kill them. If they come back for me, I will show them what it means to go to war with Molotov!”

“If you shoot them enough, they will go down but they’ll get up eventually. The best way to kill them is to take the head off. Take out their knees then take off the head. Fire is also effective. They’ll burn like any man and when they die by fire they stay dead.”

“Yes! Yuri knows all about fire. I will burn them, burn all that come for Molotov!”

I have to call a cab since once again no one is gracious enough to drive me home after shanghaiing me. I am starting to feel as unappreciated as an ugly girl does the morning after prom night. Wham bam than you Leo you can find your own way home.

I walk into my loft and stare in disbelief. It looks like a Radio Shack exploded in my house or the war room at NORAD.

“Marvin, what the hell is all this?” I ask the hacker who is barely visible behind a wall of huge monitors.

“This is command and control right here! This is where I exercise my mad hacking skills.”

“Why do you need so many monitors?”

Marvin points to the various displays and explains. “This one shows my botnet; second largest in the world. I set it to attack the datacenter using thousands of computers all over the world. Each one is unknowingly running some code I wrote that seeks vulnerabilities in various parts of its system and exploits them when they find it. Once inside, it writes a small code giving me backdoor access to the server. When it does that, it sends me a message letting me know I’m in. This monitor goes to my main system here. It’s the one I actively work at when I need to get hands-on.”

“So why does it look like you’re not doing anything?”

“Oh I suppose you want to see me mash away on the keyboard like some retarded monkey like they show in the movies? Man, fuck Hollywood! Every time I see one of those morons pretending to be a hacker, typing away at a thousand words a minute without ever once hitting the space bar or enter key, I want to slap someone. Hacking is about running scripts. I write the scripts then let my botnet run it. This ain’t no Nintendo Wii game where the guy that waves his hands around the fastest wins. Please.”

“Ok, what about this monitor?” I ask.

“That’s for watching YouTube. Look, the monkey is drinking his own pee. He’s nasty!”

“How Are you coming with getting into the system?”

“Look, he stuck his finger up his butt and is gonna smell it. Oh that’s so nasty it knocked the little nigga out of the tree!”

“Marvin, focus!”

“Oh right. I’m getting close. I should have something pretty soon.”

Sitting in my chair, I ponder the implications of vampires making a concerted attack against notable human figures. It violates all of the rules set by the Council, rules largely recognized around the world amongst the various ruling Councils.

No vampires in recent history have belonged to major crime organizations. There is too much risk of exposure in such a high-profile career. Modern technology makes it too easy for law enforcement to track them.

If this is a grab for underworld power, how do they expect the Council to sanction it? The Sheriffs are obviously compromised but surely not the entire department. If the Council loses control of them, they can call in Sheriffs from other regions to clean house. It has happened before where outside enclaves were forced to purge a rogue enclave for gross violation of the rules that threatened exposure.

None of this makes sense and I am little closer to solving it now than I was before. At this point, all I can do wait for Marvin to get those security logs and for whoever is behind this to make another move, which I am certain they will. Despite my lack of clarity, I know am getting closer to the truth.

I imagine they assume I am suspicious of the Sheriffs, therefore suspecting someone highly placed in the Council. That means I am a dangerous loose end and they will have to move soon to silence me, and every time I force them to act, they risk revealing themselves.

I do not particularly like the idea of being my own bait, but unless Marvin comes up with some particularly damning evidence, it is the only strategy I have. Fortunately, being a pain the ass is what I do best, and the more I am a pain in the ass the more overt they will have to get to deal with me. I just hope I live long enough to move on whatever they reveal when they do.

My phone starts buzzing in my pocket and I think it is Yuri and I’m surprised when Angel’s name is displayed on the screen. No way is this good news.

“Malone,” I answer.

“Leo, you have to help me here,” Angel says in obvious agitation.

“I sincerely doubt that I
have
to help unless you want me to help you bury Castillo’s body then I certainly would
want
to help.”

“Damn it; don’t screw with me right now.”

“Fine, what can I do for you?”

“When’s the last time you saw Yuri Poplonovich?”

“What’s going on?” I ask, intentionally evading the question.

The fear and frustration is evident in Angel’s voice when he answers. “I got a goddamn warzone here, that’s what’s going on. I have nearly a dozen charred corpses in a warehouse and what looks like a massacre of three major organized crime families along with two dead feds that were staking out Poplonovich’s primary hangout.”

“Two dead feds, sounds like a rock band.”

“Damn it, this isn’t a joke, Leo!”

“Comedy is very subjective,” I reply dryly.

“You work with Yuri. What can you tell me about his whereabouts or at least what’s going on?”

“I am occasionally hired by Yuri and that’s as far as our relationship goes. The only advice I have for you is to keep your head down, wait for the smoke to clear, and then come clean up the bodies.”

Angel asks, “You think there’s going to be more?”

“I would almost count on it.”

Thankfully, Angel gives up trying get specifics out of me. I just hope he takes my advice and stays out of the way. I can hear Marvin tapping away on his keyboard. Apparently, there is some occasional human interaction necessary to do what he does. I hate sitting around doing nothing so I decide to pay Katherine a visit. I feel it is safer if I see her at her office than her coming here.

“Marvin, I’m stepping out. Don’t let anyone in and keep that shotgun close by.”

Marvin gives me a thumbs up, too preoccupied with whatever is on his screen to give me any further recognition. I take a cab to the King’s County District Attorney’s office. There is a small business a block away where I can rent a locker to stash my arsenal. Even so, I pack light. It is daylight and I’m not going far. It is unlikely anyone will make a move against me in such a public setting.

I manage to pass through security without a problem but getting to Katherine’s office suddenly proves problematic. Just as I round the corner, I run right into Castillo. She is so surprised to see me in the DA’s offices that it doesn’t register in her brain that I cop a feel when we collide.

She quickly suppresses her surprise and snarls, “What are you doing here, coming to confess your crimes?”

“Actually I came to file a complaint. I don’t feel safe walking the streets anymore with the sudden increase in violence, and it doesn’t seem to me that the police are doing a thing about it. The murders don’t bother me so much but then someone lit a bag of shit on fire on my doorstep and that’s just rude. It made it personal.”