Fringe Benefits
Author's Note: My apologies to those who came across this story when it was uploaded without the chapter feature. For one, I had not finished editing the later chapters, and, two, the explicit part was included with only my initial warning. I really do try my hardest to give ample notice about these things in keeping both with this website's policies and my own. Those of you who read the story in its entirety, I apologizeif theexplicit scenes offended you; they were included in the first chapter as a formatting/uploading error. There will be a warning on future chapters with mature content, and all explicit material will be kept in a chapter of its own. The rest of the story will appear in installments as soon as editing/betaing is finished.
Two nights after coming to her decision, Abby lucked into a perfect solution to her problem. They actually did need to do a stakeout session, immediately after which they ought to have the information needed to rout a clutch of familiars that had been working over the dock area south of the base. It wasn't always a good idea to kill familiars in huge numbers; it was hard enough get away with killing the vampires, let alone killing people who left behind whole corpses for ever-diligent criminologists to examine. However, they had a solid lead about this group, and any information the familiars might have about the Nightstalker base needed to be recovered and destroyed.
So, while the warehouse loft they occupied for the sting did not qualify as even a one-star hotel, it suited her purposes well enough. In her gear bag, at the bottom, she'd tossed in a flannel sheet from the laundry. It contained her collection of specialty arrowheads, which she had removed, spreading the sheet wide on the dusty floor. The location was just repulsive enough to discourage her, she hoped, from seeking out future trysts. Dust bunnies, grime-coated windows, the whole nine yards. The association with the warehouse ought to be enough to kill her libido forever after. If she could still want to fuck King after having him in this place, something was wrong with her.
"What's our status?" She asked King, who was at the window with the night-vision goggles.
"They're in," he said, referring to the white aluminum shack the familiars were meeting in tonight.
"All of them?"
"I count seven in, two out." That was all, then. "Been in there five minutes now."
"We move in five."
"We could move faster if someone hadn't brought their stuff in a picnic blanket." He cast a pointed glare at her arrowheads. Compared to his compact twin pistols, strapped securely to his thighs, her weapons were a good deal more bulky.
"I'm your backup. I want my range weapon, King, not yours." His range weapon of choice was the giant triple-barrel monstrosity Hedges had worked out of some old army rifle. The thing spat stakes and UV bullets of a caliber large enough to make head-sized holes in inch-thick steel. It lacked finesse, like King, and he loved it.
"Heat-seekers?" He walked over to the sheet and picked up an arrowhead.
"Among others," she nodded, affixing several of each kind to arrow shafts. They weren't proper heat-seekers, as arrows lacked individual propulsion mechanisms. The tips just kept burrowing forward until the small motor on them was exhausted or they hit something warm or moving, then they detonated. The aiming, however, was still up to her. Her other favorite was a round tip with collapsible flanges; they made a nice circular hole where they hit, but the thin, razor sharp flanges flicked out when the arrow drove home, tearing thin slices through tissue on either side of the main wound. It was often missed when the person was being treated, which meant the person hit--usually someone they didn't want to survive--didn't.
"I'm going," King said after surveying her gearing up. She nodded--she was ready. King made for the stairs in an easy, almost lazy lope, flicking a two-finger salute at her before he disappeared. She crossed to the window, using a cloth to open one single pane inwards. No trail. So far, they hadn't needed to touch anything in the room other what they disturbed in the dust with their feet. Before they left, they'd sweep up after themselves.
And, sometime before that, she'd finally satisfy her desires on King.
King rounded the outside of the tinny shack from the north side. From there, Abby had a clear view of him in the near-dark--the closest dock lamp lightbulb having been shot out upon their arrival. The shack had one window on that side, and, last he saw from the warehouse, two men on guard at the entrance around the corner. There were seven inside, two out, and the more he could coax out, the better.
He waited, listening carefully. In the gleam of stars, he saw the warehouse, and nodded in its direction. Not one second later, a whistling thunk whipped by the east entrance. He dove under the window, rolling up onto his feet, exposed to the one guard remaining. The man gaped at him, a cigarette lighter with flame burning still held out; the guard Abby dropped had a lit cigarette not two feet from his mouth, open in shock. King fired one round into the middle of the guard's forehead.
While quieter than a normal gun, his electronic pistol wasn't the whisper-quiet of a silenced firearm, so he ducked back to the north side, pulling a flash grenade from his belt. He counted to two before tossing it through the window, not stopping till he rounded the corner to the west side. Counting before throwing meant the flash came sooner, too soon for people inside to catch it and expel it or shield their eyes. He reached the southwest corner in time to close his eyes against the flash.
Eyes still shut, he moved around to the south side, opening them again only after being certain the flash was past, reaching the window on the opposite side from where he'd tossed the grenade. It was just an extra precaution, throwing the enemy off balance, misdirecting them so they believed the attack came from the north while he struck from the south. Predictably, when he peered in the window, half of the seven inside were blinking away blindness, and the other half were firing at the north window.
King dropped two in as many seconds with as many shots, one through the back of the head and another high in the chest, before the remaining five realized where the shots were coming from. Running, he dodged low as bullets ripped through the paper-thin aluminum walls. He felt one clip him near the forehead, but a finger placed to the wound came away with only a little blood--it wasn't serious. The shots continued to break through the south wall at random as he moved around again to the north end. He heard the tell-tale whistling of arrows as he appeared back in his original position.
The doors on the east end were open, and the two remaining familiars from the little pow-wow stumbled over the bodies of the men who had been standing guard and the three who had reached the doors before them. Another arrow shot by, but it scratched and broke against the pavement. The two recovered, jumping to their feet and shooting wildly out in front of them, nary a bullet even approaching Abby's direction. When their shots went from loud roars to empty clicks, he pounced.
One man had time for a quick, "Shit on me," before King shot him in the thigh. The other just ran and fell hard with a bullet in his lower back. Neither shot fatal, only to wound, as they planned. He looked towards the warehouse, holding two fingers to his eyes, code for keep me covered, as he replaced his pistol and strode towards the first survivor.
The man was groaning, trying in vain to stop the bleeding in his leg. King ignored him and walked past, catching up with the one he'd shot in the back. To his credit, the man was struggling and ripping out nails on the concrete trying to pull himself to safety using only his arms. His legs were dead weight--a spinal injury. He'd have to brag about that to Whistler. Not bad for the new guy.
"Where are you going, chief?" King kicked the man sharply in the ribs, flipping him over onto his back.
"Oh, please! Please, don't kill me!"
"I'm going to be honest with you. I'm going to kill you."
"Oh please, please!" The man begged, cowering and bringing his hands up to claw at King's pants. He kicked the man away.
"If you tell me what I want to know, I might call you an ambulance."
"What? What? What do you want?"
"What are you doing here?"
"Jesus, fuck, we were just looking for this guy."
"What guy?"
"I don't know! I swear I don't!"
"I need a name," King frowned, crossing his arms. "Can't help you find your guy if I don't have a name."
The man tried to roll onto his stomach again. King stopped him with a boot to the gut. "Whoare you!?"
"Fair's fair. You give me a name, I give you a name. And, since I'm so generous, I get you help."
"I don't know!" The familiar gasped, clawing at the foot King moved to his chest to keep him still. He applied a bit of pressure to the outside, quick and sudden, until there was a snap and one rib gave where it ought not to have done. "Fuck! Fuck, okay!" The man wailed. "We're...supposed to, supposed to find this guy...ran out."
"What, are you the mafia?" King asked, skeptical but concerned. Guy who ran out? Another familiar looking to break out? A possible ally? Not important at present. "Who?"
"Name's," the familiar struggled, "name's King. Please, please!"
Ahh, shouldn't have gotten his hopes up. "Thanks," King smiled, removing his pistol from his holster. "How do you know he's here?"
"Don't...don't..." the familiar begged, his eyes on the business end of the pistol. He began to cry, sobs breaking up his words. "Someone...saw...someone like...looked like..."
"Okay, okay, I don't need my life story," King waved him off. He cocked his weapon.
The familiar's eyes went wide. "You-" he got out before King clipped him. The look of surprise and alarm remained as the body twitched under his searching hands. He located the glyph on the guy's left wrist. It was Danica's. As he walked back to the familiar with the lame leg, he considered this turn of events. Apparently, his ex was still a bit bitter over their breakup.
The other familiar, it turned out, had met with a slight case of stupidity and caught Whistler's cure for it through the throat. Out of mercy and nothing more, he put one round into the guy's forehead and checked him for a glyph. Another one of Danica's boys down. Ooh, she was going to be pissed. He poked his head into the shack and did a visual sweep. A table, a chair, and someone folded up near them, corpses of the other familiars. Nothing out of the ordinary. He moved through the shack, searching each familiar for a phone. None were carrying. It was a surprise, but a good one--that meant no one had called in anything to the bosses yet. Must have assumed nine guys were enough to deal with anyone or thing.
The bad surprise came at the end when he took a look at the poor schmuck the familiars had been tapping for information. To say the body had been worked over would be a gross understatement. He recognized it as the clerk at Starbucks, of all people.
"Rest in peace kid, and keep that latte ready for me whenever I get to where you are." King pulled loose another couple of grenades, explosive ones this time, twisted one, setting the timer for two hours. Enough time to get out of the area, back to the hideout. He did not close the door. There could be no traces left.
