Stormfront Page 4

  “I’ve never heard of it called a Coke,” Archer said.

  “It comes with a smile,” Raven said.

  Archer looked blank. Serafino rounded the corner with another man in tow. The newcomer was shorter than Raven, with close-cropped black hair and a small soulpatch beard below his lip. He was wearing a black suit that did nothing to hide the stockless Thompson gun under his jacket.

  “Ms. Storm, I would like you to meet Mr. Blake. He will assist you this evening,” Archer said.

  Blake reached for Raven’s hand, a slow gesture that Raven did not resist. He kissed her knuckle and bowed. “Fräulein Storm, a pleasure.”

  “Frau, Mr. Blake,” Raven said, taking her hand back. “You may call me Fürstin. One of yours, Archer?”

  Archer cocked his head. “How can you tell?”

  Raven tapped her nose. “The smell. He’s human, but not. I’m surprised he isn’t trying to hide his accent.”

  Blake’s smile never reached his eyes. “I can do a right proper Brit, Miss.”

  It was almost perfect, which somehow didn’t reassure Raven. Something about Blake didn’t jive.

  “Good for you, nobody will shoot you for talking,” she said. “Come on, let’s get this over with.”

  “What about your uk…coke, I think you called it?” Archer asked.

  “Later, when I come for Mason. He better be okay when I come back,” Raven said.

  Archer bowed. “You have my word, Fürstin Storm.”

  Blake’s car was a 1937 Duesenberg Model J. Low slung, sexy and fast. The engine purred like a well-tuned Porsche and accelerated well into the corners, making the trip back toward the Loop almost fun. Raven was surprised at how well Blake handled the big car and wondered how much was skill and how much was from his enhanced abilities as Archer’s familiar. Either way, he made being a passenger entertaining.

  As they neared downtown, Raven realized where they were going and soon the familiar wrought-iron fence that surrounded Old Town was in view at the end of the street. The buildings on this side, mostly Victorian houses and apartment buildings, weren’t there in present day, but what was beyond Raven would know with her eyes shut. The familiar storefronts and gas-lit streets gave Raven a sense of belonging she’d been missing since arriving in 1943. The sandwich shop was a butcher shop called Hooker Meats, the Olde Curiosity Shoppe was Dicken’s Books and Isle of Night was a smaller pub called Nightmane’s, but this was still home.

  Blake parked the Duesenberg near the entry-arch and shut off the engine. It faded into silence allowing Raven to hear the sound of Jazz playing from the pub and voices raised in fun.

  Raven climbed out and adjusted her holster before following Blake through the arch and into Covenant Garden. The courtyard, which Raven was used to seeing filled with food carts and partiers dressed in Goth clothing, was instead decorated in a tableau of patriotism that included an airplane decked out in Army-Airforce colors, war bond posters and a statue of Uncle Sam looking off to the east. A few vampires were making out and feeding in the shadows of the garden, an act that made Raven’s stomach twist.

  Blake caught her wrist. “The crime scene is this way.”

  He jerked a thumb at the opposite side of the courtyard, where Club Purgatory should have been. Instead of the glaring red lights and line of waiting guests there was a series of storefronts behind which stood the packing plant, barely recognizable with its wood facing and “Delaney’s Meats” sign. A group of vampires stood around a brazier guarding the scene. Their weapons were holstered, but Raven could see them peeking out from beneath their jackets. More Thompson submachine guns.

  “What’s with all the hardware?” Raven asked as they walked.

  “These are dangerous times, Fürstin Storm. Surely you’ve heard the rumors?”

  Raven shook her head. “I know the city okay, but I’m new here.”

  Blake’s smile was without humor. “Nazis, Fürstin Storm. Real Nazis on American soil. Who would have thought such a thing?”

  Raven shrugged. “Wait about seventy years and they’ll be allowed to vote for President.”

  Blake shook his head. “I can’t think of such a thing. Monsters I understand, but humans hating their own kind because of their skin and beliefs? Ridiculous.”

  “The monsters you can’t see are always the worst,” Raven replied.

  The body, or at least what was left, lay between an old Victorian church that looked closed and the shops outside Delaney’s Meats. The church had once been an imposing structure with a high turreted belfry, peaked tin roof and stained glass windows. The windows were still intact, but so dark it was impossible to tell what the depicted. Whatever had happened, the church was no longer holy ground. It couldn’t be or neither she nor any preternatural could go near it without suffering a headache and nosebleed at the best of times.

  Raven nodded at the three vampires and stepped into the circle of ribbon they’d erected around the scene. One of the vampires reached to stop her and Blake cleared his throat.

  “This is a Fürstin working for Lord Karayan. She and her partner Mack Mason have his trust.”

  The vampire raised his hands and stepped back. Raven watched him from the corner of her eye then turned her attention back to the scene. Though the body and any obvious physical evidence had been removed, it was clear where Lash had fallen. His body had collapsed in a sort of prone position with one hand to his face and legs curled beside him. Blood had pooled around his remains, forming an outline Raven could read like the back of her hand.

  Raven knelt beside the blood and touched it with her left index finger. It was almost dry, in that gelatinous, sticky stage before it hardened. She raised it to her nose and sniffed, savoring the odors and letting her senses do their job. It wasn’t human, there was too little iron. It had a sweet scent, almost like flowers, combined with the stench of sulfur. Bori fed on the blood of animals and the occasional human virgin, sulfur made no sense at all.

  She rubbed the blood between her fingers. It had a strange texture that had nothing to do with congealing. Whatever had killed Lash it had cooked him from the inside out.

  She stood and something caught her eye, a shape in the blood where the body had fallen. She borrowed a flip-top flashlight from one of the guards and used it to take a closer look at the strange outline.

  “Did any of you notice this?” she asked.

  The leader of the guards shrugged. “It’s skin and blood, what of it?”

  “Not just blood. Give me a knife,” Raven said.

  The Embraced drew a long Bowie knife from beneath his coat and handed it over handle first. Raven used the tip to scrape away chunks of charred flesh and blobs of boiled blood until a pair of words came into view.

  “Black Eon,” Blake read. “What does that mean?”

  Raven handed the knife back. “You tell me, I just work here.” She straightened and looked at the vampires. “Anyone?”

  “Never heard of it. Maybe it was one of those old books Nappy was always reading,” one of the vampires said.

  “I doubt he would have written the title of his favorite paperback with his dying breath,” Raven replied. “Blake, where is his store?”

  Blake nodded at the storefronts down the block. “Just there, beside Hunter’s Meats.”

  “Why are there two butcher shops so close together?”

  “Hunter’s caters to the preternatural community, Hooker caters to humans,” Blake replied. “It is better not to mix the two.”

  Raven cocked her head. “What happens if a human goes to the wrong one?”

  “They are strongly encouraged to go elsewhere,” one of the Embraced said with a chuckle.

  “I’ll bet.”

  Lash’s shop, a wide storefront with the name Fortunes and Luck picked out in gold lettering on the window, was next door to Hunter’s Meats and the scen
t of blood, offal and frightened humans made Raven feel queasy. She swallowed bile and glared at Blake.

  “That building smells like people.”

  Blake looked confused. “Of course, Hunter drains them and supplies Claret to the childer of the city.”

  Raven’s monster clawed at the inside of her skull. “You’re kidding me.”

  “I am not. Hunter takes those he is allowed and helps feed the preternatural community. What does your Master do? Offer up animal blood? Hardly healthy or sanitary,” Blake said.

  Raven clenched her fist so hard it shook. “We use volunteers and operate blood banks. Preying on the innocent is illegal!”

  “You are predators, humans are prey as God intended. All things kill to li−”

  He was stopped by Raven’s hand on his throat. “We don’t have to kill, we don’t have to be monsters! We can control ourselves!”

  Blake met her eyes. “Very hypocritical, Fürstin Storm. You killed six vampires this night and caused six others to be killed, not counting poor Johnathan.”

  “That was self-defense!”

  “Yet you appeared to be enjoying yourself.”

  He swallowed. “Are you going to kill me, or shall we catch a killer?”

  Raven let go and turned away. She couldn’t tell what bothered her more, what Blake had said, or that he was right.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Covenant Garden, The District, 1943

  Fortunes and Luck was unlike any antiques shop Raven had ever seen before. She wasn’t much for antiques as it was, but the Manor was filled with them and she’d developed an eye for what was and was not a true antique. The things in Lash’s window weren’t antiques, they were items a pawn shop would call ‘gently used’, from dented Gem-Lites and baseball gloves to a globeless oil lamp and French pin-up cards that were ‘perfect for Pinochle’.

  The door was locked, but gave way to pressure from Raven’s hand. She stepped through into a maze of shelves and displays that made her feel like she’d stepped into the Mad Hatter’s flea market. Rows of musical instruments took up the left-most wall, while old tables, chairs and desks filled the middle of the shop. They were laden with more stock that seemed to consist of televisions that didn’t work, radios with missing knobs and Bakelite telephones with cracked or missing handsets.

  The right side of the shop included the sales counter, which was made of glass and wood, as well as the cash register and a curtain that led to the back room.

  “I’ll check the register and back room, you check out the sales floor,” Raven said.

  “What am I looking for?” Blake asked.

  “Anything pertinent. Out of place stock, broken glass, bloodstains, that kind of thing.”

  Raven heard him mutter, “All this junk looks out of place,” as she crossed to the counter. Inside the display was a variety of small items, cigarette cases, match boxes, liquor flasks and lighters. The case was broken at one end as if someone had punched through it leaving a semi-circle of broken glass. There was a square of clean surface within indicating something had been taken. Raven moved behind the counter and rifled through the drawer beneath the cash register hoping there was a manifest of some kind. She was rewarded with a sales book and stack of receipts paper clipped together. She placed them on the counter and popped the register open. It contained less than twenty dollars in small bills and a handful of dollar coins. Raven wasn’t current on 1940s prices, but from what she remembered that was an average amount of money in a register.

  Raven closed the register and turned to the receipts. Lash had curled, flowing handwriting reminiscent of Victorian calligraphy and wrote in shorthand. Most of his sales were small items, nothing worth more than two dollars, however he’d recently sold a wooden chest to someone named Poole for five hundred dollars. It would have been worth ten times as much in present day, which meant Lash had won the lottery that day. What would make a wooden chest worth three month’s salary?

  She was clipping the receipts back together when a sound caught her attention. A muffled cry or cough from the back of the shop.

  “Blake? Are you okay?”

  There was no reply. Raven drew her pistol and padded through the store. Her vampire sight let her see the path Blake had taken, his footsteps glowed orange against the cold wood floor. He’d stopped to examine a few items here and there then proceeded to the back of the shop where a dressing screen obscured the back foyer and door. Raven could see two heat signatures on the other side of the screen and aimed her pistol at the taller one.

  “Who’s your friend, Blake?”

  “Take another step and I will kill him,” a voice said. It was a deep voice with a thick German accent.

  “Who are you, what do you want?”

  “Who I am is unimportant. Bring me the chest and I will let your friend go,” the man said.

  Raven raised her weapon a little higher. “First, I have no idea what you’re talking about, second, he isn’t my friend. Let him go!”

  “Please, do not insult my intelligence, Fräulein. Where is the chest?”

  “Can’t insult what’s isn’t there. Blake, hold still!”

  She squeezed her pistol’s trigger. The noise filled the room and momentarily deafened her. The bullet punched through the screen and Raven saw it explode the German’s head like an overripe melon. She yanked the screen out of the way and saw Blake lying in a heap on top of the strange German. He was bleeding from the mouth and his neck looked bruised, otherwise he seemed fine. Raven helped him up and knelt to examine the German. It saved her life. The rattle of a submachine gun echoed outside and bullets punched through the door and wall, missing her head by inches and nearly cutting Blake in half. He fell to his knees with blood streaming through his lips and a helpless look on his face. He tried to say something then pitched onto his side. Raven felt for a pulse, but she’d seen enough wounds to know what she would find. Blake was dead.

  “Swell,” she muttered, and then she was through the door and rolling. Two men with MP38s stood in the alleyway while a third was behind the wheel of a sedan. Raven put a bullet through the skull of the nearest and was surprised when he exploded into a shower of ash and sparks. Her shock caused her to hesitate, allowing the second vampire to jump onto the footboard of the sedan, submachine gun spitting lead. Raven rolled out of the way behind a trash bin and returned fire. The thirty caliber Automag rounds punched through the fender and ricocheted harmlessly off the door beside the vampires head, making him flinch. His cry of surprise was drowned out by the screech of tires and the sedan disappeared into the street.

  Raven straightened and her eyes fell on a Harley Davidson motorcycle chained to a slat from the meat-packing plant. Twenty seconds later she was roaring after the sedan on the bike. The controls were somewhat different, with a hand-operated shifter and foot-mounted clutch, but a bike was a bike and this one responded easily to her almost like it was made for her. She raced through the gears and spotted the sedan leaving the District at a high rate of speed. It skidded around the next corner and Raven followed, nursing the bike over treacherous ice and pockets of snow that threatened to dump the bike to the ground. Once it was safe, she accelerated again, keeping the sedan in view. The passenger, who had climbed into the back seat, must have seen Raven, because he appeared in the window, weapon barking furiously. Raven swerved to avoid the gunfire as bullets impacted the pavement and sent sparks flying beside the tires. One of the ricochets caused Raven to almost lose control on the slippery pavement and she skidded to a halt just short of a parked car. Ahead, the sedan turned and vanished toward the lake.

  With the bike righted, Raven kicked the starter and turned down a nearby alley that paralleled the route taken by the sedan. She dodged trash bins and ducked beneath fire-escapes on a mad dash between buildings so close she could almost touch them. She crossed intersections, each time hoping for a glimpse of the sedan, and a
ccelerated into noisome alleyways until she was almost out of room. Ahead, the alleyway ended in a brick wall and a staircase that led up into the black sky. Raven swerved toward the stairs then pushed the little Harley to redline and lifted the nose. The bike climbed noisily up the stairs, almost throwing Raven from the seat, and exploded over the top to land almost behind the sedan, which had slowed to a more normal speed. Raven swerved around oncoming traffic and accelerated once again. The gunman in the back leaned out and unleashed another barrage from his MP38. Raven guided the bike onto the sidewalk for what cover the newsstands and telephones would provide and drew her pistol, waiting for a break in the gunfire. Papers blew and glass exploded from the booths, making her duck low over the handlebars to avoid being cut or taking a newspaper to the face. Visions of Marks Brothers chases filled her mind and she shook her head. Those never ended well for the one giving way.

  The sidewalk ended at the next intersection and Raven skidded back behind the speeding sedan. The gunman leaned out again and Raven yelled, “Drop it, punk!”

  He ignored her and Raven squeezed the trigger. His ashes dissolved away in the breeze leaving only Raven and the driver, who again accelerated. Raven moved up alongside and shot out the left rear tire, which burst and spewed pieces of whitewall all over the street. The explosion caused the sedan to spin out of control into a parked car. Raven slowed and turned back, intending to park next to the sedan and get some answers. She was putting the side-stand down when a single shot rang out and there was a flash of light from the car’s interior. By the time she got the door open there was nothing left but a jaw bone and a silver Death’s Head ring.

  “More Nazis. Marvelous,” she muttered.

  An hour later, Raven sat once again in the Tea Room. She sipped cola from an ice cold bottle and listened to Archer rant in the next room while she went over the sales book from Lash’s shop. He’d kept meticulous notes on every sale, including descriptions that could only have been written by a complete madman. No one cared how long the wick on a lighter was as long as it lit their cigarette when asked.