Are normal cases a safe thing?
Chapter 8
Intention
That is, what drives our actions. Well meant and all too often they turn out to be flawed. Until somebody turns light into darkness, feeding the demon inside...
Dark Intentions
Mr. Fulton shoved the blood stained claw into the sleeve of the coat which he had worn, sousing it with gasoline from a small bottle and then he threw the burning spill on it. With a dull whoosh the bundle went up in flames and in the light of the dancing flames he watched with satisfaction, that the material of the cheap coat was charring until the flames grabbed for the claw.
The smoke was sharply stinking of burnt horn and he coughed, when the wind blew a whole cloud of the smoke right into his face.
In the middle of the night, out here nobody would be watching him. And if anybody would find the remains, that would only add a further nuance to the riddle from last spring. Minds full of fantasy would think that to be the remains of a demon, who had burnt up like by magic.
Fire destroyed every usable DNA traces.
In fact he had intended to slice the throat of this blonde P.I. Chick, exactly like these demon murders, but he hadn´t counted with such a well trained defense from her side. At least he had caught her belly with his weapon and what he could see in a few seconds, was that the blood was gushing out between her fingers in a sufficient amount.
The only thing that was gnawing on him, was the fact that he hadn´t heard or read anything in the media about a young woman found dead. But perhaps she was lying dead in her rooms. And then it would take time until her corpse was found.
Fulton thought it over, if she should sneak in there at nighttime to check it. On the other hand her rooms were in the bustling Huron Street and this would heighten the risk, that he´d be seen. With an angrily grunt he decided to wait. Because this P.I. hadn´t been showing up at work today, his chances weren´t that bad, that his attack was showing to be successfully.
When as well the coat as if the murder weapon were burnt up, of the last were only charred splinters left over, he shoved soil over the glow and then he went his way back to his car, which he had parked in some far distance.
Won´t be that good, when my tire traces are leading to the burning place..., he thought.
Inside his car he noticed, that he was strongly smelling of smoke. No wonder with this damned wind. So showering and giving his clothes to a laundry, but for sure not in Toronto.
The last murder had been way easier. Small order in Ottawa, where he had dispatched a middleman, who had tried to get the better of Mr. Huan.
When he was near to Mississauga, his cellphone was ringing. Fulton pulled his face when the caller-ID was showing Mr. Li Vu Huan. He steered the car over to the roadside, to answer the call.
"Mr. Fulton!" Mr. Huan´s voice sounded angrily.
"Ah, Mr. Huan! I was about to still call you tonight. I´m in the car in the moment." The first was a lie, the second point was true. Fulton tried to keep his voice jovial, business like, when he asked himself, what his boss wanted from him.
"I´m expecting a new delivery from Macao tomorrow, Fulton! I´m expecting from you to take care of it. And make use of the connection 92654..."
"It´s okay. Connection 92654. I´m bringing everything on its path. I..."
"And don´t it screw up like the latterly over the Bermudas! I won´t appreciate it, Fulton! Otherwise I might be thinking about, if I´ll have further use for you!" Meanwhile his tone had become ice cold and Fulton could imagine exactly, how the type was already refining to remove him from the business. The Mafia tended to concrete-cast their looser. They got fitted a pair of concrete-shoes. Huan was a Chinese. But in Toronto currently were a lot of buildings under construction and anywhere always a groundwork was excavated for a new skyscraper. And until somebody would be missing him... Nobody would break up a groundwork under a skyscraper to search for a probable corpse.
"And damn it, look once again to remove this crapped bookings from the system. Mr. Johnson has employed a new volunteer and I suspect it, that she shall sniff around . When this blonde bitch steps in our path, dispatch her! PCR! Pronto come rapido!* ( *Italian for; immediately like fast, in the sense of; a bit suddenly) Have you gotten that?"
"Yes, Mr. Huan!" Fulton´s heart was beating faster. Where the heck did Huan know of that blonde? Was there any grass in the company?
Probably this snippy bucket carrier... assistant of the maintenance man, who constantly was scurrying through the offices with a canine devotional smile. Factotum. Chinese. The Igor of the Johnson Ltd. A disgusting subject. He asked himself who had smuggled him in. But Huan had everywhere his fingers in the pie.
"Ya know what´s hanging from the delivery! The whole Canadian market stands or falls with our new product and I don´t give a fuck who´s biting the dust when anything goes wrong!"
That was not to be misunderstood!
For sure he´d be the first one!
Mr. Huan hung up.
Dr. Mohadevan controlled the flow of the infusion, regulating the drop number up and laid her finger at Vicki´s throat. Her pulse had calmed down a bit again after Henry had put her in the bed again. The accentuation was lying on bit. Her body was not only fighting with her heightened pulse rate, caused by the temperature rise of the fever. But also the volume loss, the loss of large amounts of blood, which had happened to her, was pushing her pulse up. Anywhere her heart had to compensate the blood loss to provide her body with oxygen... Dr. Mohadevan was knowing exactly about the factors which were called shock signs. In almost all cases she was standing at the end of the chain, when once again she was getting a dead on her table, who finally had died from blood loss and thereby heart failure.
In doctor´s jargon this was called a primary final target event.
A coolly logical transliteration for death.
And Vicki must have lost very much blood. If the infusions won´t be supporting her enough, they won´t get around a blood transfusion. Her blood group would be easily to verify, that wasn´t the problem.
Henry watched concerned, how the doctor was acting on Vicki. He could hear her heart beating, felt the heat that was exuded by her feverish body. The scent of her wound was filling the room and more than anybody else, he knew the signs of a massive blood loss. The modern medicine was able to help where in the past people had died from blood loss or he had only been able to save somebody by turning him.
Dr. Mohadevan noticed, how tensed Henry was standing behind her, keeping himself from constantly feeling for Vicki´s pulse or temperature with some effort. He was impatiently chewing on his lower lip waiting for Dr. Mohadevan to turn to him, talking to him. His fingers were clasped around the small silver cross, which was hanging from a leather cord around his neck. Finally she turned around to him. The unspoken question was written in his face.
"I´m looking for how the Ringer works...if it is stabilizing her circulation. Otherwise I´ll get her blood. We have to fill up her system as fast as possible, because her heart is already very stressed by the fever, Henry." Probably his extraordinary hearing was able to notice more as she´d have been able to with simple means in here.
"Vicki has lost lots of blood, Dr.! When we consider the size and depth of her wound, I´m honestly wondering how she has made it to me all alone. I couldn´t reach her yesterday evening and tonight, she surprisingly showed up here..."
His hand squeezed the cloth in the water bowl and he dabbed her face and her forehead. Her skin seemed to be glowing, he breath was coming in a fast staccato. Her belly wall lifted and sank with her hard going breath and despite the morphine, she seemed to twitch on a certain point with every intake of breath...so as if her wounded body would shrink back from the movement.
He newly moistened the washcloth, his fingers carefully lifted the blanket, pulling it back down to her thighs and his hand moved deeper, dabbing her chest and her belly around the bandage. His view went to the soft fleece of hair on her lower belly. Her legs were slim and well-formed. Muscular without looking artificially trained, a result of her sports training. Vicki jogged and in her rooms was a sand bag hanging from the ceiling, which she used for boxing and leg training. Carefully his hand went deeper to her calves. Here her skin was glowing hot too.
"Do you have clothes available, Henry?"
"Yes..."
"Good! Make calf wrappings. Cold moist clothes wrapped around her calves. Let them on some twenty minutes, then you can moisten them newly. How far it´ll lower her fever I can´t say, but it would do her any good at least, Henry..." Dr. Mohadevan suggested.
Henry nodded.
"I know the procedure. I´ve gotten wrappings as a kid when I´d fever. That´s comfortable, because it cools at least..." The Duke of Norfolk, where he mainly had been growing up, had made cold wrappings on him nights long, when he´d been lying in bed with high risen fever. In the winter of 1527. Dark winter days and long nights, interwoven by the fever fog of the flu.
Norfolk had treated him like his own son, had educated him together with his own son, who treated Henry like a brother. His physical father, Henry VIII, had been too much involved in politics and processes and intrigues at court, as that he would have found time to care for him. His mother Elisabeth Blount lived in a noble residence far off the palace.
Henry VIII used to treat his mistresses with generosity, but kept her on distance to the court, when his love affairs hadn´t been without consequences.
His father´s passion for beautiful women: a never ending story. As well at court as outside too.
Sometimes Henry had, completely independent from his vampire nature, the feeling that he had inherit the susceptibility of his father for the seduction skills of beautiful women. Constantly women had been courting for his father´s favor, had been skillfully placed in front of the king´s nose by their parents, like, for example the Boleyn sisters. His father had let him educate in the art of love making at age twelve by one of his mistresses and since the age of fifteen he practically was constantly surrounded by the countless ladies at court, who hoped for much advantages by a relation to the king´s royal son.
It hadn´t been so easy to resist it.
Henry disappeared to the bathroom, was back after a few moments with a bath towel and moist clothes. Mohadevan took the wrappings and Henry carefully lifted Vicki´s lower legs, spreading the towel on the sheet.
Vicki groaned extended. Normally she must not have any pain, Henry thought. The morphine dosage should be sufficiently. Her eyes were opening and she tried to look at Henry. Her lips moved and even he could barely understand, what she was mumbling.
"It´s all good, Vicki...I´m making wrappings around your legs. That may cool a bit. Don´t have fear...stay simply lying completely relaxed..." he tried to calm her down, when she totally drowsy tried to pull her ankle from his hand. She mumbled anything, her calf tensed, but Henry hold her fixed with gentle force. Not that easy to find the right amount of strength to overcome her resistance without causing her pain. As a vampire it would be an easy thing to use his strength, but he had to take care. In relation to him, mortals were rather breakable.
He fixed her leg with one hand, bent over her and with the other hand he stroked her hot temple, his view fixed on her eyes. She groaned low, her eyes were murky glistening by the fever glow.
"Easy, Vicki...stay calm!" he smiled at her and felt when she slowly relaxed: "All good, Vicki...sssh."
Then he nodded to the doctor, lifting up Vicki´s calf and she moved the cloth over the skin, heard Vicki sigh sharply.
"I know...it´s cold, but that will be good for you..." she said in a low voice, when she wrapped the cloth around the calf. Then she repeated the procedure at the other leg. Halfway turned to Henry, she meant: "Do it slowly. First dab the leg, then wrap it around...Then the sudden coldness is better bearable..." she explained to him. Henry nodded and he bent so deeply over Vicki, that her hot breath was stroking over his face.
"Relax, Vic..." he softly whispered, while his fingers stroked over her face.
"Le...let...me not...alone. Please Hen...ry..." she pleaded.
"No, I´m staying with you...don´t be afraid. You´re in safety in here." he assured her. He would be watching over her until sunrise. Until Coreen would replace him.
Sunrise! When the sun would be rising, he would fall asleep and she would be all alone, it shot through her mind.
"Sun...you..." she croaked.
"Coreen will stay with you at daytime. She´ll come in the morning, no fear. We won´t let you alone yet, Vicki!" His fingers caressed her cheeks and he smiled at her. The expression of fear yielded from her eyes and her head rolled against his cool hand. Mohadevan nodded to him and he sat down to Vicki on the bed´s edge, beginning to dab her face with the moist cool washcloth. Slowly Vicki was relaxing, her lids closed and she gave herself over to the comfortable coolness. Henry heard by her changing heartbeat that she was gliding down into sleep. Finally! He wondered how much resistance she brought up against the morphine, how much she fought it to give in to her exhausted and halfway bled out body. Henry asked inwardly how she had made it through the day.
She has to be terribly afraid, that she so desperately fought for consciousness and staying awake. Or was it already the high risen fever that switched off her reasonable mind? He knew how much a body in fever didn´t react normally anymore.
Additionally her fear of the guy who had hurt her.
Back then in the dungeons of the Spanish inquisition, when he had been tortured and halfway bled out, he couldn´t sleep at daytime. Blood loss, pain, his wounds weren´t healing anymore and the fever when his body fought the infection in the wounds. He had been completely drowsy by the fever, when Maria had come to him. Maria, who felt pity for him.
God, when this lunatic would have caught her! His guard, who helps a captive, a creature of hell, offspring of the devil, how Mendoza had called him.
Luckily this was past. Over and out!
In one point Henry was wrong...
He put the cloth into the bowl and grabbed for the cross, that he was wearing around his neck.
Dr. Mohadevan watched when Henry closed his hand around the small silver cross with the ruby in its center. His lips moved when he started to pray in a very low voice. Words in Latin were flowing from his lips. An old prayer with the request for succor for Vicki and for her healing. The forensic understood the words and their meaning, because she naturally was educated in Latin. But the prayers were unknown to her, as she was a Hindi. But it gave prayers for healing in her religion too.
Henry must be deeply rooted in his beliefs, she thought when she watched him, while she checked Vicki´s pulse, which was still very fast though, but no more so irregular as in the beginning. The infusion and the sleep under morphine made her heart working a bit calmer. Hopefully the antibiotic would take effect.
Here in Henry´s condo she won´t have the possibilities like in a hospital; cardiac monitor, artificial ventilation etc. Should Vicki´s condition become worse, then she would have no other choice than to deliver Vicki to a hospital. Irrespective if she or Henry would agree with it or not. The doctor went over to her large bag, which was standing beside the bed, checking for its content. Bandage materials, infusions, surgery instruments, diverse ampules with meds plus catheters and urine bags. No such nice prospect to connect Vicki to a whole bundle of tubes.
Coreen´s apartment
When Coreen had finished the call with Mike, she felt very uncomfortable. Had she done anything wrong today, that she had only thrown a short view into Vicki´s bedroom in the evening, in the assumption that she was sleeping deep and firmly?
Mike had sounded so concerned and pissy. For sure, he seemed not to be even a friend of Henry, was probably a bit jealous cuz of Vicki. Though Vicki was more than reluctant when it came to men,Coreen had felt the tension, that was lying in the air when Henry was together with her. He was such a charming man and even Vicki seemed unable to resist her attraction for him, so hard she even tried not to let on anything.
Coreen admired Vicki´s resistance, watching it and was often thinking, that she wouldn´´t hesitate a moment when Henry would have been courting her. Anyway she didn´t understand Vicki. When she had looked into the bedroom in the evening, Vicki had been lying in the bed with her eyes closed and there had been nothing uncommon. She put on her coat, determined to drive over to Henry to look, what was going on there. When Vicki was with Henry, there were in and of itself no reasons to worry about anything. In the company of a vampire one couldn´t been any safer, especially when he was a friend. A mere mortal won´t be that crazy to pick a quarrel with him seriously, but for Mike perhaps.
Just when she had the key bundle in her hand, her cellphone was ringing again.
Once again Detective Celluci? What does he even want?
"So fast I can´t be back, Detective..." she mumbled, before she answered the call.
It was Henry.
"Oh, good evening, Henry! I was just on my way to come over to you...Is Vicki with you?"
"Good evening, Coreen! Yes, she´s here with me! Stay please at your home, until I´ll let you pick up! Don´t, in no case, go out, the less to Vicki´s office or home! Did you understand me?"
"What? Why? What´s up, Henry? And what, for heaven´s sake, is with Vicki? Did anything happen?" she blurted out excitedly.
Had been Norman reappearing? Astaroth?
"Slowly, Coreen! Alas: Vicki is here with me. There have been difficulties with her new case..." he breathed deeply.
"What kinda difficulties?" she felt how her heartbeat was speeding up.
"Yesterday Vicki had been on her way to a client and on it...she got stabbed down by a suspect in the street!"
"Oh my God!" Coreen had the feeling, that the ground would give in under her feet. "She...she is..." her voice was trembling and she didn´t dare to speak on.
"No! She´s alive, Coreen! But she is...seriously hurt. Dr. Mohadevan is here. She has treated her wound and right now she gets infusions for liquid substitution and with an antibiotic..."
"How is she...?"
"Not good! To tell honestly: rather miserable. She has lost lots of blood and has a high risen fever."
"I´m immediately coming to you, Henry!"
"No! Stop!" His voice was dark. Then he sounded...normally again. "Stay at home, Coreen! You´ll be picked up. By a private detective! Mick St. John. He´ll pick you up. He´ll identify himself. Dark, curly hair, young, brown eyes, some 6´ 0 3/4". He´s a P.I. From Los Angeles!"
"Okay, so I´ll wait for him! When does he come?"
"Before sunrise. So you´ll be over here, before I will have...to sleep." Henry explained. "And there´s something else, Coreen!" he added.
"Yup!?"
"St. John is a vampire!"
Coreen let almost drop the cellphone.
"Vampire? But I thought, you..." Henry heard her stammering. "God, I thought, you...you can´t together with another vampire..." He had told her once, that he would...in no case...tolerate another vampire in Toronto. Under no circumstances.
"I don´t share the territory with him. He´s investigating in a case which has led him from Los Angeles to Toronto. International drug racketeering! And it´s the very same case on which Vicki got set on! We´ve found that out just tonight, when I begged him to come to me..."
"You have begged him in, Henry?"
"Yes! Sometimes even I have to make certain concessions, stepping aside my rules. I would be searching for the attacker on my own, but I can´t leave Vicki alone now, as far as it´s possible for me. That means that I need somebody with experience in investigations. I´m a vampire, no private eye, Coreen...!"
"But you´ve banished Astaroth back to hell too, Henry!"
"That´s something else! I know about it, just to say so. But here we´ve to do with freaking normal criminals of the worst kind. They would barely react to some exorcism in Latin! Rather on fire weapons and cuffs!"
"Have you been speaking about it with Mike? Eventually he´s a cop, a detective. And he´s working in the homicide, Henry! Drug dealer are ice cold killers! When someone steps in their path, they dispatch him. And all these peeps who´re dying from the drugs..."
She heard Henry groaning, not far from a growl by the rumble in his throat. What...?
"Yes! I have talked to him. But not about that! First...he isn´t in Toronto yet. Second...Detective Celluci isn´t my first choice when it comes to cases on which Vicki is working!"
Coreen asked herself, what obviously was going on there. Also in her talk with Mike she had heard, that there was no love lost between them. Sure, Mike was one of the rather mistrusting kind. Work-related disease. But that he got such loose on Henry...Vicki naturally had told her what had happened in front of the Cobb-Institute. But Mike seemed have to swallow hard on the fact, that Henry is a vampire. And that such beings were even existing. Mike was just a normal human!
"Okay!? But...I mean, it...there are still other Detectives in the TMP homicide!" When Henry would turn to somebody else probably...?
"Listen...!" Henry sighed. Coreen only meant the best. "I can´t and I´m not willing to simply step in the precinct and ask for police protection for Vicki or one of you! I don´t know these Detectives Lam and Graham! I need a person of my trust! Not just anybody."
"Henry, you can´t get mixed up with a whole drug mafia all alone!" Coreen pressed on him.
"I know, Coreen! But now Vicki goes first thing...And I´ll not give a fuck about how far I will have to go!" Coreen heard the rage from his voice. She knew that Henry always kept himself under control, but that was sounding yet very threatening. Hopefully he won´t do anything, that he has to regret later on! Or, where he gets himself too much in danger. Even a vampire is not invulnerable, she thought with concern, but didn´t speak it out now.
"Please, Henry! Be careful!"
"That I am already, Coreen! That´s also the reason why I want you to get here. At my home. I act on the assumption, that these criminals don´t know the connection between me and Vicki...So you´ll be much safer in here, than at your home or at Vicki´s."
"Uh, cuz of this I shall not go back to her office, I guess..."
"Exactly! And don´t leave home until St. John picks you up!"
"Hm, shall I...shall we bring anything in too...I don´t know, if you..."
"Get yourself ready for a couple of days while you can´t get home, Coreen...About the medical stuff...that´s what Dr. Mohadevan cares about..." his voice became softer. "But it´s very kind, that you´re asking for it. Thank you very much, Coreen."
His words went down like balm after the shock.
When Henry was relaxed, he had a voice like velvet and silk. His eyes...she didn´t want to think about it even yet. Henry- vampire to melt away!
"Okay, Henry...then we´ll see later..."
"Yes. Till later, Coreen." Henry hung up.
Coreen grabbed for her head, let sink herself on the next best chair. She needed a while until her beating heart calmed down. That what she didn´t count with. She was aware that Vicki sometimes had difficult cases, but luckily anything like that hadn´t happened until now. But she had always feared for it. Why at least hadn´t she told Henry about the case?
Before she got started to investigate.
Heaven, sometimes Vicki is so stubborn! That she kept away from Mike with it: okay. Eventually she wasn´t a cop anymore. But Henry...?
Coreen needed a few moments to get her thoughts in a row, then she went to her bedroom and packed everything of need in her sports bag. A couple of days had Henry said. But she would be in safety at his home. And she would be at Vicki´s side, no matter how things would be developing.
She had survived Astaroth!
She and Vicki!
So they would survive that too! Of this she was convinced.
Downtown Toronto
Mick was waiting in his hotel for Logan´s feedback via email.
He reviewed his encounter with this Henry Fitzroy once again. This vampire was already pretty heavy. It wasn´t missing much and this vampire would have gone loose on him right away.
Territorial instincts sometimes could get out of hand to be a serious problem. Augustus had already warned him that Fitzroy was hard to take. But then he had it only considered to be a question of staying in Toronto, not also of working for him yet. Though it had to do with the cross-linking of his case. Because of that, Josh Lindsey had sent him to Canada. He had been acting on the assumption, that he´d be making his investigations here, without coming in direct contact with Fitzroy, especially as he wasn´t hunting to feed...and then he would return to L.A. where Josh would initiate everything else.
So a totally normal case!
Eventually he was working as a private investigator since so long, that he had often investigated outside of Los Angeles. However still not in the territory of another vampire, who wasn´t tolerating another of his kind beside him. Fitzroy must be up to his neck in it, when he, of all things, called him in, Mick said to himself.
"Hi, Josh!"
"Mick?"
"Yeap, it´s me, Josh. I´ve found out here, in Toronto, that there´s a large-scaled drug deal on. The´re getting the stuff from Macao. Obviously the same synthesized crap, from which already so many had died in L.A. Griffen is on the bank details and I´m waiting for his answer."
"Data? Can you mail them me?"
"I´ll say Griffen! He shall make it, that safer than from here. I don´t wanna make any unnecessary data transfers. The reason is, that I´ve encountered here somebody, who works together with a private detective, who has been set on the same case. Though one of the suspects has committed an assault on her yesterday evening, which she fortunately survived. Otherwise I won´t have the information, which we have yet."
"Who is your connection, Mick?"
"Mr. Fitzroy. Actually he´s an artist, releasing graphic novels. He´s a friend of her and she´s hiding at his home, what he thinks to be relatively safe."
"That means, your informant is not lying in a hospital?" Josh asked when he tried to put the current information together.
"No! She´s hurt. Rather severely. But she´s alive. Still...! Mr. Fitzroy has called me today, because he needs my help."
"How did he get to your address, Mick?"
"We have a mutual friend, who ordered the hotel for me too...an old friend of Josef." No need to lead Josh deeper into the details of the vampire connection. Indeed Josh was a reasonable guy, who won´t immediately flip out, but that won´t add to the facts yet.
"Can we reach this private detective? She might be of use for us as a witness. Josh considered. He needed more evidences urgently. On a vague suspicion, he won´t get a request for legal and administrative cooperation pressed through. Least of all outside the USA.
"Call it; I know where she is. But in the moment it´s all about protecting her, you´re understanding it, Josh?!"
"Of course! Only...we urgently need her testimony. Above all, when...as you say, her state...isn´t steady...!" Josh warned him. When the witness would die, before she could give her testimony, then they would be hardly further on than before.
"Ms. Nelson, Vicki Nelson, that´s her name, isn´t currently in the condition to give a testimony. When I left, a doctor came in. She a forensic too. Perhaps I can talk with her about the cases of death. Mr. Fitzroy has mentioned, that she must know about, when there are cases of death by this Hell´s Dust in Toronto too...She might enable us access to the reports of the forensic examinations, just in case of..."
"Okay. Please try to collect as much evidences as possible.
"That for I´m here..."
"And ask Ms. Nelson as soon as it´s possible. We´re dependent here of every so small detail. When we can´t nail Il Diavolo this time, then our beautiful city will soon be turning into a big morgue."
There were always drug crimes, but that what was flooding the market in the moment, was since a very long time the worst, they had been living to see. The users died like flies. It always happened that a user dropped an overdose of a drug, but this death rate was absolutely abnormal, not to call it deviant. Not to mention the state of the corpses.
Above all: what was the sense of it all?
When the users died too fast, the market died out! Substance related problems? Too small range of effect, which the producer didn´t get under control? Or was there any other reason, one could only speculate of?
What, when Il Diavolo was about to...?
He wasn´t called Il Diavolo for nothing. The Devil.
The drug boss originated from Mexico, with Hispano-Native roots. His career had him led from a guttersnipe over a gang leader up to being the boss of one of the largest Mexican American drug syndicates. He had asserted himself in the scene with ruthless brutality and within shortest time he had established a worldwide net including Asia.
By the fact that there were always smart criminal defense lawyers, he often had...way too often for Josh´s taste...slipped through the law´s mesh. But when everything would run well this time, then said mesh would be constricting around his neck like a rope. And with him a considerable number of his subordinates would disappear in jail for a very long time.
"This once we will have to get him, Mick. This devil in human shape. That stuff what he´s spreading around...one might mean, he has gotten that in his hands by Satan personally!" Josh sounded almost desperately.
"That´s what Mr. Fitzroy said too, Josh!" Mick agreed with him.
"What has he said?" Josh asked with a doubtful voice.
"That with...by the devil personally!"
Josh twitched; "Uh, that I´ve just only said so..."
Mick´s voice became lower, when he went on. "Listen, Josh...about devil and something equal! I´ve been at Mr. Fitzroy´s home. We had sat down in a room for a conversation, that obviously serves as a library and when he shortly left for a phone call, I gave his collection a closer look! You...won´t believe it, what all kinda books he has standing on the shelves!"
"Uhm, yes...when he´s an artist and draws comics..." These peeps always needed lots of background information and sources, Josh thought.
"I´m not talking about Batman and Co here. He has books in mass, which are normally only preferred by people in the goth and esoteric scene. The...Necronomicon, Book Of Blood...a, uhm, grimoire and so on and so on. A whole closet full of them.
"Probably he takes them as inspiration for his novels, Mick. Or he´s just collecting curiosities..."
"This I don´t believe. I have the vague feeling that he really knows about that kinda stuff. About such paranormal stuff."
"And what makes your assumptions flying?" Josh found it a bit strange now.
"I haven´t been lazy, while I´m waiting for Griffen´s answer...I´ve candled the background of this private detective Victoria Nelson. She´s an ex-cop, works now as a P.I. And in her advertisement she wrote: No case too difficult, no case too uncommon. Occultism is our specialty...! That scarcely let grow any doubts on the fact, that Mr. Fitzroy is at least something like her consultant. He has confessed himself, that he works together with her since some time...And then he dropped a hint about already having experienced things, of which I wouldn´t have any imagination..."
"Hm, try to lit up him a bit more, Mick. His background, his career and so on. But maybe he´s only a bit dotty, like a lot of artists. Maybe the text in the advertisement is from him, a commercial gimmick to say. There are countless graphic authors and one has to outstand among them, to be successful in the eyes of the readers."
The imagination that he would have to work with a witness, who was not only having such interests but was enforcing them, didn´t even calm down Josh now. In the worst of all cases, the opposite lawyers would shredder such a witness as certifiable insane. Figments of one´s imagination were the worst of all evidences. What he needed were cast iron proof evidences and testimonies, which were cemented bombproof in reality.
"You´ll please be calling me again, as soon as you´re having something, Mick..." Josh begged.
"Yes, as soon as I´ll know more. Nice evening, Josh!"
"Same to you! And much success! In the moment you´re our single hope, when it comes to Canada."
"There´s still another one..."
"Oops, where did I already hear this before?"
"Star Wars. Obi Wan Kenobi about Leia..." Mick quoted, to refresh Josh´s memory.
"Ha, ha! What have you already seen at all, Mick?"
"Very much, Josh!"
How much, that he didn´t need to tell him. And first of all...
...why!
Mick hung up with a satisfied smile. Sometimes it was fun for him to play around a bit with his immortality, without the other one being able to guess, what he, Mick, was...
Though Josh was a bit of a rival when it came to Beth, because he was her friend and her lover, but Mick felt at the same time responsible for Beth, like a protector, and he felt attracted to her too. What wasn´t making things easier for Beth, because she was emotionally standing between two men. And he was fighting with his feelings too.
On one side, he was loving Beth, on the other hand he didn´t want to pull her into his world. What, if he would have wanted it, would have been easy.
A bite. Drinking her blood. And then to give her his blood. Like Coraline had done it.
To be continued