Revamp the Night, Pt. 3 (short story)

Part three (and temporary conclusion) of the vampire romp. With Narration!

Welcome to Damsel’s Snuggery of Storytelling!

And here it is. The semi-conclusion to my vampire story.

For the complete experience: Part One and Part Two.

Want to know what happens after? Bug me in the comment section!

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The stairwell door opened silently and the scent of stale cigarette smoke and cheap alcohol wafted up to us, mixed with a little blood. I heard the breath of two men far below us and I edged toward the railing for a peek. There, three levels below us, stood two vamps chatting idly.

Monica peeked over as well, tapped the new grenade in her hand and shook her head. I nodded in agreement—the doors they guarded didn’t seal completely, we might get an unwanted death.

I could hear music through one of the doors down there, saxophone music, and…wait one moment. Pinnelli’s player! I’d recognize that temperamental sax solo anywhere. Saint’s blood, but Lambert had gone and filched our merchant and musician! Unacceptable, arguably treasonous, and therefore grounds for extreme action.

The two schmucks never knew what hit ‘em. It was me, of course, falling down from on high like an avenging demon. Their bodies disintegrated under me and I raised my brows in approval. Maybe I could buy the two leather-wrapped wooden spikes I’d borrowed from Monica. I waved cheerily up at her.

Two doors led off of the area. One had the familiar heart painted in black. While Monica took her sweet time descending, I cracked opened the other door marked “Exit.” A small yard lay beyond, lit by lights on the club’s wall. A few trucks and a collection of wooden crates occupied the space.

I whistled once, waited a moment, then whistled again. Surely Remi would understand a code when he heard one. Luckily he did.

He appeared from behind a stack of crates and trotted to me.

“What did you find?” I let him inside and quietly shut the door. Monica arrived, her grenade casually held in one hand. She nodded a greeting to Remi.

“A human was here, but I cannot say if it was Conrad,” Remi took out a cigarette, struck a match on the doorframe and puffed the tobacco to life. “I did not see any crates belonging to him, but the workers made mention of Swansea. He is most definitely the necromancer.”

“Those vamps coming back around, Remi? I got a nice grenade you can use,” Monica held her gift aloft.

“That will not be necessary. They are inside now,” he gave one of those “such is life” shrugs.

“When did they come in?” I glanced at the door leading to the club.

“Just a few minutes ago. Is that not why you called me in? To say the air is…how do you say? clear?” His puff of cigarette smoke synched with the last note of the saxophone’s solo.

I frowned and swatted the air in front of me. “It’s coast, not air, but never mind.” I turned in a circle but the space was as before: the exit and the club entry. “Were those workers wearing good clothes or stuff only fit for unloading trucks?”

“They would stand out among the club guests.”

“We didn’t see any workers on the stairs, so where did they wander off to? Monica, you see any other ways out of here?”

“‘Bout time you asked, sonny. You must be losing your book-smart edge. We’re standing on it,” she tapped her foot on the unremarkable off-white floor. When neither Remi nor I made a move, she pushed us both against the exit door and flicked one of the light switches on the wall beside us.

A previously unnoticed white spiral in the floor fell smoothly out of sight to form a staircase befitting a secret lair.

“For luck,” she pulled the pin on her grenade and chucked it out of sight.

“I thought that was for me,” Remi held out his hands in despair.

“Next time,” she stretched out a hand to pat him but was so focused on the new entryway, she only hit air. She reached into her bag and withdrew a flashlight. “Come on, boys, we got ourselves a lair.” She crept down the stairs, light and stake at the ready.

“After you,” I waved Remi ahead of me, more than a little leery of lingering smoke.

Remi dropped his cigarette and followed Monica.

I skirted the edge of the space to reach the club door. The familiar sounds of clinking glasses and murmured conversation punctuated by bursts of laughter were clearly defined, even over the traitorous sax music. I’d return for him later.

Remi and Monica waited for me at the bottom of the stairs and once my feet hit the floor, she flipped another switch and the steps rose back into their original position.

“No customers for the grenade,” she said with regret, her light landing on the spent canister. “I need to make a bigger order next time.”

“Wade,” Remi pointed down the sloped tunnel leading deeper underground. “A human was here, the same smell as from up above. And there is something else, something…I do not know, but it is unpleasant.”

“Let’s add our own unpleasantness. Monica, would you be so kind as to lead the way?”

She set the flashlight’s beam straight ahead and marched off, her silver spike ready for action.

Remi and I stayed close at her heels, he sniffing the air and I listening for any threats.

The tunnel itself was plain: stone walls, uneven floor and the occasional box or pile of trash. We took our time moving, but pretty soon I heard a faint heartbeat and saw a blue light that pulsed in time to the soft beat.

“Monica,” I hissed. “Stop. Turn off your light.”

“The scent. It grows stronger,” Remi said as the light blinked out.

With the flashlight’s yellow beam extinguished, the blue light became apparent to my companions. It didn’t seem ominous, until a human shape appeared from around a corner and I realized the light emanated from it.

“Is that the work of a necromancer?” I asked no one in particular.

“Normally I would not know,” Remi stepped around Monica and took her light. “But considering this man is wearing the uniform of Veinglory’s other workers, I would say yes.” He turned the light on.

Before us stood a corpse unlike any I’d ever seen. Its flesh bubbled like cheese fondue and looked about as unhealthy. In place of eyes, jaundiced orbs protruded so far, I had a morbid urge to knock them free. Its nose had sunken into irrelevancy and the mouth was stuck as a functionless maw. It belonged in the ground, but walked with the upright confidence of someone headed to a Sunday picnic. The name tag printed on his shirt’s left breast pocket read “Jim.”

Now, every man, regardless of his state of living, would unhesitatingly declare his ability to fight any foe. It’s our default state of mind and rightly so. I feel confident in saying all those men would run from Jim before you could say, “Hell and damnation.”

I didn’t run, but it took a beat for me to realize Jim was choking Remi. Alarmed and slightly jealous of Jim’s speed, I gave Jim a punch no real man would survive.

An impartial third-party would’ve seen the flaw in my attack. Jim’s risen from the dead twice; what exactly will a punch to the face accomplish? If your answer is, “unrestrained rage,” congratulations, you are correct.

One moment I thought I’d dealt a blow to the face of perdition, the next I was crashing into the wall. And a second later, Remi joined me, his pained grunt reminding me of his closer ties with mortality.

I struggled to sit upright.

Monica hadn’t moved, her silver spike still gripped tight and jaw clenched. Jim’s bulging eyes were fixed on her while his hands opened and closed in time to the pulsing of his blue light.

Monica sliced Jim’s eyeballs in half: shaved the front of them clean off with a knife she’d produced from some hidden pocket. She then drove her spike up through his jaw and lodged it in the brain space before taking hold of the spike with both hands and twisting the head clean off. The tunnel went dark again.

I’m no expert in the humanities, but this struck me as something every human would loudly applaud—even Jim, if he wasn’t the third-time winner of unusual deaths.

I hauled myself upright and gave a helping hand to Remi. “You alright?” I asked and handed him the flashlight.

Remi turned on the light and and went to inspect the fallen Jim. “I don’t know, but I have never felt so powerless.”

“I guess we owe her a drink, or a bowl of soup. Ain’t that right, Monica?” I called to our savior, but she merely grabbed the light and keenly examined Jim’s still-impaled face.

Remi and I shared a look of amusement, as though we often watched Monica inspect the recently decapitated.

“Anything of interest, Monica? Or might we continue this horrid little expedition?” Remi rubbed his back.

She placed her foot on the head and pulled the spike free. “I got the impression the necro can see through the eyes of those he re-animates. What I don’t want to guess at is whether killing this two-bit Jim has hurt the necro in any way. What do you say, Wade? Do those who control the dead feel pain?”

It’s hard for me to judge humans sometimes, but I think the old bitty saw me as better than the necro, almost a friend in comparison. What an unexpected thing to be happy about. “I don’t know,” I replied. “But if he is connected to his puppets, we’ve lost our moment for surprise. Don’t suppose you have any other nasty weapons in that sack of yours,” I asked as we set off once more.

“I have all sorts of goodies in here, sonny. You just keep any more of those things out of my path and I’ll make sure the city is down one necro tonight.”

“Any ideas on how to defeat more Jims?” I asked Remi. The tunnel had grown brighter, but not with a blue light.

“Become a rat and hide in the wall?”

I snorted out a laugh but managed to turn it into a cough. “No wonder you have no friends; your sense of humor is terrible.”

He stopped walking and I stiffened. Had he smelled something?

“Monica told you, didn’t she?”

I sighed and scratched my neck. “Remi, I got no interest in talking about how you’re lonely and you need to find a nice kennel or whatever. We got bodies to keep in the ground and a blood supplier to liberate. If you need a shoulder to hold after this is all over, find someone else. Now, are you going to have my back in there or not?”

Remi seemed unmoved by my words. “So long as you don’t need to hold my shoulder.”

I grinned wickedly. “Not this side of living.”

“If you two are done flapping your gums, you’d better get on up here. We have ourselves a lair.” Monica wiggled her light in our eyes before disappearing around the bend in the tunnel.

We exited the tunnel onto a small landing with some stairs leading down to a river that flowed in either direction as far as I could see. West Haven must be right above us, but we were in an otherworldly zone now, a place where sprawling mushrooms and blind fish cohabitate. A place that didn’t have much in the way of exits.

But what really caught my eye was the large gazebo rising from the river, complete with a pointed roof and frilly railings. Call me narrow-minded if you must, but an underground gazebo, even with its own river, didn’t seem right for a vamp lair.

A couple spotlights shone at stalactites and lined up on the riverbank were a handful of men, presumably Lambert’s thugs. Standing on the gazebo’s steps before them were Lambert, Conrad, and a heavyset man in a brown suit who must be the necromancer.

Lambert was addressing his men but my attention flicked between Conrad and our necro, Swansea. Conrad had more interest in his shoes. Normally he didn’t let his surroundings go unnoticed nor a movement un-calculated. They’d gotten to him. I might have to knock him out first and get answers back at the Scarlet.

In sharp contrast, Swansea oozed confidence and self-satisfaction. Something about that man spoke of many dangerous talents. I couldn’t believe the thought entered my mind, but did Lambert know he wasn’t dealing with a comforting soup brand, but the scalding soup itself?

“Any bright ideas?” I asked my silent companions.

“I have some industrial sized grenades,” Monica patted her mysterious bag. “But it’ll only do if you want everyone dead, including us.”

“Let’s save that as a last resort. Remi?”

The dog still watched the proceedings below us, his eyes narrowed and ears metaphorically twitching. “Lambert has finished giving them instructions on building something for the necromancer. They’re unloading those crates. Look,” he jerked his chin at the dispersing workers and the several crates close to the gazebo’s steps.

If those vamps were distracted with unboxing, we might slip to the gazebo, grab Conrad and…what? Float downstream and hope we didn’t drown? I should’ve taken the blood of a master strategist.

“All right. I’ll go to Conrad and convince him to leave these rats to their gangrenous cheese. Monica, you and Remi have to keep the rest of them busy until I can get Conrad to safety. Got it?” I looked between the two.

“That is a terrible plan, Wade,” Remi sniffed disdainfully, his mustache doing a dance of equal disdain. “I did not agree to a suicide mission, and while Monica would gladly kill us all, I’m sure she would prefer to see the dawn. Why don’t we go get Conrad and you be the bait?”

I rolled my eyes. “Because Conrad doesn’t know you from a can of beans. I can get him to leave without a fuss; you two are good at making fusses, so go get fussy.” I made shooing motions with my hands.

A shadow fell over us and we three leapt backward to the exit. Lambert had arrived, and looked damned snooty about the situation. “I don’t believe we’ve met. Come closer, won’t you?”

There comes a time in every man’s life, be he alive or mostly dead, when the urge comes upon him to do only the most foolish, daring action. This was my time.

I gave Lambert an uppercut to the jaw which sent him…somewhere. I’d already lifted Remi and Monica and jumped to the gravel ground, taking off like a vamp from church. There weren’t any boulders or trash or random barrels to use as cover and when you’re facing off against other vamps, darkness is mighty pointless. I see why men only make foolish, daring actions once in their life: most of them didn’t survive to make a second one.

I skidded to a halt and dropped my passengers.

“I still have some juicy grenades,” Monica said as all the vamps turned in our direction.

“Anything that won’t kill Conrad too?” The other human’s curiosity rested on the necro’s doings. The traitor.

“It has a four second delay,” Monica murmured, and pressed something heavy and knobby into my hand.

Lambert’s six vamps were racing toward us.

“Alright you two, let’s get ready to dance.” I flicked the pin out, dropped the grenade, waited one second, then hoisted my charges and ran farther down the shore.

White light filled the whole space, the kind of light nothing hid from. I felt a strange sensation of both hot and cold on my back, and heard a sound like a large drum being hit once, followed by a crinkling sizzle. I stopped running and we all tumbled to the ground, waiting for the shockwave, the noise, the sense of hopeless destruction.

Nothing. Not even the reassuring sound of body parts hitting the ground.

I blinked the light spots out of my eyes and sat up. “And just what was in that grenade?”

Monica adopted her idea of the picture of innocence. “Some consecrated this and holy that. Everything an undead vamp needs.”

I grunted, not really sure what to say. I carried them back to where I thought the grenade went off, but there were no bodies and no piles of ash. Monica deserved two drinks for this.

Checking that my carnation hadn’t fallen out, I walked closer to the gazebo, glancing at the open crates I passed; not much to see on that score, just some crumpled brown paper and odd shaped metal things. My fingers danced along the edge of a crate and I whistled a tune. Lambert stood from behind a crate, a touch dazed. “So how about it, Lambert?” I smiled smugly. “You hand over Conrad and we’ll forget this whole episode ever happened.”

Lambert recovered his composure quickly. “You’re working for Nico Pinnelli. And she,” he looked behind me, “must be the famed monster hunter, Monica. A delight, ma’am.”

I heard Monica harrumph.

“And you brought a dog.”

Now it was my time to harrumph. “Enough of your pointless words, Lambert. I came here to get Conrad and I’m not leaving without him. The question is whether or not you’re leaving too.” I gave the empty shore as significant a look as possible.

Lambert smirked. “Bold talk for a man in over his head. Swansea?” he called over his shoulder.

The necro’s attention rose from a bottle he was polishing. He handed the bottle to Conrad and strode down the gazebo’s steps, tossing his rag at Lambert’s face as he passed him. Lambert recoiled and swatted the rag to the ground.

Stocky, his flesh straining against his suit, Swansea looked every inch an unholy butcher. He shrugged off his coat and rolled his shirt sleeves up tattooed arms. I straightened and shifted my stance. I could take him.

“You’re just what I need, little lady,” Swansea licked his lips.

Swansea reached Monica in the blink of an eye and rested his hand on her collarbone. The tattoos on his arms glowed an eerie blue and both parties froze in place. I stepped towards them, prepared to bludgeon Swansea into soup, but some invisible shield repelled me. Remi also tried to reach them, but to no avail.

I whirled to glare at Lambert. “What’s he doing to her?”

Lambert paused his examination of a crate’s contents. “Swansea is taking her essence.”

I dreaded what I might see, but I faced the crisis again. She was dying. No question what her shrinking flesh and dulled eyes meant. Hell below. I needed to talk with Pinnelli about a raise.

“Kill him the first chance you get,” I ordered Remi, who hadn’t left Monica’s side. “Either of them,” I added before bounding up the steps and taking Conrad by the shoulders to shake him. “Conrad,” I gripped his hair and yanked his gaze up to mine. My red eyes cut through his stupor and he shook himself free.

“Mr. Wade, what are you doing here?”

“Does a missing shipment of blood sound familiar? Or did you forget about your contract with Pinnelli?”

Conrad mustered an ounce of embarrassment. “If it will close things out, tell Pinnelli the contract is broken.”

I snatched him again and lifted him to my level. “You’re gonna have to do better than that.”

Conrad swallowed hard and smiled weakly, brow glistening. “Lambert offered me a better deal. I-I’ll have the last shipment sent to the Scarlet; Pinnelli has been a good customer up to now. He’ll let bygones be bygones, eh?”

I opened my mouth just enough to show my fangs. “What deal?”

Conrad squirmed but I let my hold slide closer to his neck. “It’s that necromancer. Swansea. Lambert said if I make him my exclusive customer he’d have Swansea bring back my…my darling. He said I could see her again. But not only that, I could talk to her. It’d be like she never left. My darling would come back to me,” the man’s eyes welled with tears.

I dropped him. He stumbled but righted himself and launched at me to feebly clutch my jacket.

“Don’t do anything to him, Wade. Just leave now and tell Pinnelli he’ll get his order within a day. There are other dealers I can put him in contact with and all parties can go back to their normal schedule. It’ll be just like old times. You wouldn’t do anything to disrupt that, would you, Wade?” He put on his best used car salesman voice.

I pushed him away. I hate used car salesmen.

It all started so simple: find Conrad and the shipment of blood. Now here I was in an underground lair wondering how to save two humans from the control of a necromancer. I checked on Remi; he hadn’t moved from the unfolding transfer.

I stomped over to the owner of Veinglory who now had an odd contraption resting by his feet. I hadn’t the foggiest what it might be, though its empty vials must hold something.

“I don’t like you, Lambert, and I sure wouldn’t lose a wink of rest if you died, but for the sake of West Haven, have you considered that you’re crazy?” I pointed at Swansea. “Hiring that man to do your dirty work? Do you really think you can control him?”

Lambert smoothed his necktie. “He’s an employee, just like we all are. He’ll go and do what the money stipulates.”

I could’ve asked him a boatload of questions, but his sudden attention in the activities behind me brought only two questions to mind.

“Can Swansea return Monica’s essence?”

Lambert shrugged and tried to push by me.

I raised an arm to stop him. “Can Swansea be killed?”

Lambert brushed my arm away and sneered up at me. “You are nothing compared to him.” He walked to Swansea’s side.

I went to Remi and guided him farther away from Monica. How could I convince Swansea to reverse his hellish plunder? “Did you notice any weakness?” I asked Remi. The blue light on Swansea’s arms was dimming.

“It’s hard to find a weakness when I do not know the extent of his strength. But there is someone who might know,” he nodded at the trio.

“I’m not in the mood for riddles. What do you see that I don’t?”

The light died completely and Swansea dropped his hand from Monica. He looked bigger. Monica’s body sagged to the ground and only Remi’s sharp clawed grip stopped me from lunging at Swansea as he and Lambert ascended to the gazebo and the pacing Conrad. They didn’t seem bothered by our continued presence.

I forced myself to look at Monica’s gaunt and sallow skin. She was smaller, her bones protruding through the papery flesh, her head half consumed in the folds of her bag of tricks, now useless without her expert knowledge. Pinnelli would not be happy to lose her, but I’d regret the loss too. I bowed my head and made a sloppy cross over her chest.

“She’s not gone,” Remi tucked the thinning hair behind her ear.

“Of course she is,” I ground out. “Her essence is in that lout.”

“Her essence may be elsewhere, but there is enough blood left.”

I went metaphorically cold. Drinking blood from the living came with a whole heap of troubles. We merged with the person and took on their mannerisms, ticks, talents, and faults, all while their most potent memories crashed over us. To say it was an intense experience didn’t begin to cover it. With someone like Monica, who’d spent most of her life fighting a variety of terrors, it was an especially vile idea.

I must’ve betrayed some inkling of my thoughts, for Remi stood and shook out his coat. He’d lost his bowler hat somewhere. “Then I suggest we leave. You cannot fight them. I cannot fight them. What more is there to do but go home?”

I watched Monica’s chest rise a fraction, then fall. Who’d’ve thought today would be the day I made all the reckless choices. I carefully lifted Monica’s head and tossed her bag to Remi. “Find something in there you can use. Things are about to get messy.”

I couldn’t remember the last time I’d taken a drink from a live human. It was much simpler to take from the dead, and West Haven stockpiled those.

Suspicious sounds were coming from the gazebo, but I ignored them as I brought Monica’s throat closer to my mouth. She’ll have my hide for this, I thought as my fangs punctured her skin.

The blood flowed smoothly down my throat, warm and thick. I swallowed only a tiny bit before the effect hit me.

Grenades. I needed grenades. And where was my trusty silver spike, the one from…Pinnelli? I saw a chart of common hexes and counter hexes stuck on a refrigerator. Charms, ancient prayers, holy sites, the cure for werewolf bites, and how to sedate a were-bear. Sugar cookie recipes and crochet patterns. The Reverend’s birthday, moon phases, pixie songs to make crops grow, siren calls to lure ships from other countries, the best place to buy cauldrons—Irene’s jingle of, “You can’t cast spells without iron clad protection” rang clearly in my head—wards to protect against fire, curses to call down lightning, Pinnelli’s personal phone number, and a pie chart showing the breakdown of church denominations. Vinnie from the fire department can’t come by to fix the faucet. Buy more soup before the coupon expires. The hairdresser is skimming funds. Call the hospital about the uptick in lacerations. The stove isn’t on, is it?

I shuddered and gasped a breath of bloodied air. My own thoughts crawled back into focus and from what felt like a different room, I watched Remi bandage Monica’s neck.

“Based on your intense reaction, I’d say you learned something?” Remi, normally your run-of-the-kennel dog looked…the same, but I knew there was information on him if I just reached out and…I batted the temptation away. Now was not the time for dilly-dallying.

“You could say that,” I grumbled. My muscles twitched and spasmed as I eased myself to standing and glared at the gazebo group. “Follow my lead, sonny.”

A whole catalogue of curses, charms, wards and sneaky tricks were now available to me. I was one happy clam.

Swansea had the odd contraption by his feet, and Lambert and Conrad were watching him adjust it.

“Those will house any essences trying to escape,” I heard Lambert explain to Conrad. “He’s using Monica’s essence as the fuel to reach your woman. He normally doesn’t need much help, but since she’s been gone for so long, he needs the extra fuel. It really is all fascinating, isn’t it?”

The hell it was fascinating. I wasn’t about to let Monica be used like a 24 hour gas station. Without thinking, I sketched a ward of protection in the air for Remi and me. The stuff Monica had crammed into her brain would’ve taken many nights to sift through, but thankfully her spontaneity and calmness under pressure had entered my veins too. Would a ward of entrapment work? Neither of us knew, but I only needed a second to knock out Swansea.

I flexed my hands as I mounted the steps. Just a few more feet before I had him.

Swansea finished adjusting his contraption and straightened, smiling hugely at Lambert. “Nice workin’ with ya, Bert.”

I surged forward, my hand writing a symbol in front of Swansea’s face just as his tattoos glowed again and his own ward of protection popped up around him, making him untouchable once more. The contraption hummed and one of its vials gradually filled with a sickly blue light.

Lambert’s face shriveled with fury. “That double-crossing parasite. He’ll wish he never crossed me.”

“W-what’s happening?” Conrad’s jaw hung open.

I turned a withering scowl on Lambert. “I thought you said this necro would do as you ordered.”

Lambert’s nostrils flared and he thrust an accusing finger at Swansea. “You think I hired him so he’d stab me in the back and ruin my plans? He’s broken our contract and now he’s using my resources for his own gains, which definitely do not,” the finger moved to Conrad, “include bringing back his darling.

“Now,” he slicked back his hair, “I’m going upstairs to get more men. I suggest you and your pet leave.” He walked by Conrad, now slumped on the floor, and halted as Remi materialized to block his path.

“I’m not leaving without my essence,” I said to Lambert’s back. “Er, Monica’s.” The urge to slash Lambert’s jugular had me trembling.

Lambert swiveled to face me, his face incredulous. “You drank her?”

I heard glass shatter and a force, like whistling wind, rammed me through the gazebo’s railing and down into the water.

~ ~ ~

When all the facts were laid out in their logical sequence, I can’t say Pinnelli’s reaction wasn’t justified.

Turns out I should’ve kept a closer eye on Conrad. He’d removed a filled vial from Swansea’s machine and stepped on it. I’m not sure what he intended to accomplish, but it did have the unexpected side effect of obliterating the gazebo and sending us all into the river.

Monica’s ward kept me and Remi safe from serious damage.

Lambert appeared to have battled a grizzly.

Conrad’s condition remained unstable. His whole body was covered in lacerations, some of which were not caused by gazebo splinters. The docs weren’t sure if he’d live.

Monica had a better chance of staying alive, assuming we got her essence back soon.

But those weren’t the only reasons for Pinnelli’s rage.

“Swansea escaped,” Pinnelli muttered for the umpteenth time.

I stared at the upper corner of his office, not wanting to witness his anger any more than I already had.

“Lambert the fool. When will these young bloods realize money alone doesn’t buy anything special in this town?” Pinnelli picked up his phone and I took that as permission to leave.

I walked the edges of the Scarlet’s main floor. Only a few customers remained, the kind that drank dead poets and stared at empty glasses. I parked myself at the bar and watched the barman give the counter one last clean. His hand moved in steady circles, streaks of water beading then fading into the wood’s smooth finish.

Hands moving in circles…

I bolted back to Pinnelli’s door, knocked briskly and immediately let myself in.

Pinnelli had his coat in one hand. He raised an eyebrow in question.

“The symbol I put on Swansea. It wasn’t for entrapment. It was a spell of tracking. And I know how to find him.”

He nodded, a sliver of pleasure peeping out from behind his calm. “Good. Find him, Wade. And say goodbye to your girl.”

“Boss?”

Pinnelli pulled on his coat. “Rita’s coming with me. It’s time I paid Lambert a visit.”

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THE END…FOR NOW

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