Evil Dark (19 page)

  "Already ordered," I said. Then she was gone.

  Christine usually leaves for work about an hour before I do. After we said goodbye, I toasted an oversize English muffin and ate it with peanut butter, shaved, took a shower, and cleaned Quincey's cage. I swear, that hamster seems to shit more than he eats.

  As I pulled the front door shut behind me and felt the lock click into place, I was thinking about Karl and his onetime lust object, the detective in Chicago who might be able to give us a lead on Mr Milo's killer. Fortunately, I wasn't giving it all of my attention, or I'd be dead now.

  Standing in the driveway, I pushed the button on my keychain that opens the garage door. Then my brain got around to processing a sound I'd heard a second or two earlier – something that sounded like a quickly stifled screech, and it had come from
inside the garage
. And there was an odor, as if somebody had left the lid off a garbage can – but trash pickup had been yesterday.

  I backed up fast, drawing the Beretta as I moved.

  Once the door had risen five or six feet, the goblins came pouring out, screeching like a platoon of scalded cats. Light from a nearby street lamp glittered on the blades of the long knives they held.

  The only thing that'll kill goblins for certain is cold iron, and that fact put me in a good news/bad news situation.

  
Good news
: I had cold-iron tipped slugs in the Beretta.

  
Bad news:
I only had four of them. The clip holds eight rounds, but I usually carry half cold iron and half silver, alternating them when I load the clip. I never know what I'm going to have to deal with, and cold iron's no good against vamps or weres. I carry a round under the hammer, but that's silver, too – I have more confrontations with the undead and shifters than with goblins and other fey, so my ammo load reflects that.

  
Worse news:
I had more goblins than bullets. As I backed down the driveway, the fucking gobs kept coming out of the garage, like clowns from a circus car. I counted six of them. They were all making that screeching noise they do in battle, which sounds like claws on a blackboard. It would have really annoyed me if I wasn't busy being scared shitless.

  Thank God, or whoever's in charge, that Christine usually parks in the driveway. I don't know how well a vampire would have done against six goblins, but I'm glad Christine didn't have to find out. Whatever happened to me, she was out of danger – I hoped.

  Despite my hasty retreat, the goblins were getting close now. I double-tapped the nearest, putting two rounds into his furry green chest. One was silver, which had no effect, but the cold iron slug did the job just fine. The goblin clutched at himself, screeching even louder for a second before he fell on the asphalt and was immediately trampled by his buddies, who just kept coming.

  I dropped the second goblin the same way. That left me with two rounds of cold iron, and four goblins who wanted to kill me.

  I pointed the Beretta at them two-handed and yelled, "Police officer! Freeze!" in my most authoritative-sounding voice. If I could get them to hesitate, I'd have the chance to make a break for the street. The gobs might not want to follow and kill me in front of witnesses. I was sure the neighbors had heard the shots. They might've called for help by now, but whether they dialed 911 or 666, nobody was going to get here in time to do me any good.

  My Dirty Harry act was a flop. The goblins didn't even break stride. The light was better here and now I could see that their eyes, usually hooded and barely visible, were wide open and crazed.
Meth
?
Again
? A meth-addicted goblin had killed my partner eighteen months ago, but things had been quiet on that scene since, and I'd figured that the problem had burned itself out. Looks like I was wrong – maybe dead wrong.

  Another goblin was closing, eager to stick that long blade in my guts. I fired twice and put him down. Another one was right behind him, so I fired my last three rounds, knowing one of them would be the cold iron that would ruin this greenie's night. It did. But now the Beretta's slide had locked open, meaning that I was out of ammo, and almost out of hope. I had a spare clip in my pocket, but I'd never be able to reload before the little green bastards were on top of me.

  Two goblins left. Two knives. And me with no cold iron at all – except…

  I snaked my left hand back near my hip and grabbed the handcuffs off my belt. I wasn't hoping to restrain the two goblins, but the cuffs are made of an alloy that contains silver – and cold iron.

  I wrapped three fingers around one of the cuffs and swung the other one like a flail. I caught one of the goblins full in the face and he yelped and jumped back. It wasn't pure cold iron, but the blow had both hurt and surprised him.

  The other one hesitated, and I thought for a second they might back off and give me room to run, but then the first goblin gave his misshapen head a quick shake and came in again. After a moment, his buddy joined him. I swung the cuffs again, but this time he ducked and the other one came in under my raised arm. I stiff-armed him back, but that was only going to work once – even goblins aren't
that
dumb. They separated a little now, muttering in their incomprehensible language, and I tried to console myself with the thought that Karl would track down these little bastards, and whoever had sent them, and then God help the whole fucking bunch. I figured that thought was going to be one of my last when a deep voice behind me said calmly, "Drop flat."

  I didn't hesitate. A half second later I was on the ground, trying to turn my head around and see what was happening. I heard a loud
thump
and looked up in time to see the nearest goblin's face explode in a bloody mass of fur and bone. The last one stopped, looked at the remains of his pal, then screeched and threw himself at whoever was behind me. He got maybe half a step before another shotgun blast practically cut him in half.

  I rolled over on my back to get a look at whoever had just saved my ass. He'd only said two words, but that was enough for me to know that the voice wasn't Karl's.

  The first thing I saw was the weapon – a cut-down shotgun with smoke drifting from the end of a foot-long tube attached to the barrel. I'd heard they made silencers for shotguns, but never saw one in use until now. Very handy, if you were looking to kill somebody with certainty and not make a lot of noise about it.

  I tried to focus on the man who was now lowering the weapon. He wore a long black leather coat that hung open to reveal the bandolier of shells across his chest, a widebrimmed hat keeping his face in shadow, and Oakley sunglasses, even after dark. On a lot of people that getup would look silly, but on this man it seemed exactly right. Of course, I'd seen him once before – even though, until recently, I'd thought he was dead.

  "
Sharkey
." It wasn't a question – I knew who he was.

  He looked down at me and a smile split his thin face for an instant. He touched the brim of his hat, said, "Evening, Sergeant," in that Darth Vader voice, then stepped back into the gloom at the end of the driveway.

  I scrambled to my feet and went after him. I couldn't tell you what I wanted – to say "Thank you," or ask him why he'd saved me, or even arrest him. That last choice was the least likely. Even if I'd had a loaded gun, I'd have hesitated before trying to arrest Sharkey all by myself.

  It didn't matter, anyway. By the time I got to the street it was empty. A couple of my neighbors were out on their porches, but I didn't yell over to ask if they'd seen the man in the hat and leather coat. Most people only saw Sharkey when it was too late.

  Sirens off in the distance now, wailing like the souls of the damned.

 

I spent the next hour at my house, answering questions from fellow detectives and giving statements. Then they let me go to work, where I spent three straight hours with Internal Affairs. But it didn't go too bad, for Internal Affairs. They had a couple of new guys, Boothe and Durkin, doing the Q-andA, and I guess they hadn't yet been through the "Advanced Asshole" course that seems mandatory for everybody on the Rat Squad, because it wasn't nearly as unpleasant as such sessions have been in the past.

  It also helped that all the ones I shot were goblins. If I'd iced four humans – with two more courtesy of Sharkey – I'd have been with IA all night and into the next day. But nobody cares too much about a bunch of dead goblins. Maybe they should.

  After that it was McGuire's office, where at least I was offered a decent cup of coffee. The lieutenant considers himself a coffee gourmet. He's got a Braun coffee maker in his office, and a can of Maxwell House has never been anywhere near it. He orders these Jamaican Blue Mountain beans from someplace, grinds them at home as needed, and brings the result into work in sealed sandwich bags. He doesn't share it very often, and I don't blame him – that stuff is too good for the common people.

  Karl and I sat there with McGuire and the three of us tried to answer the latest Whiskey Tango Foxtrot question – why would a bunch of goblins want to kill me, and why did Sharkey, of all people, stop them?

  We were getting exactly nowhere when McGuire's desk phone buzzed. I knew he'd told Louise no calls, but she let this one through. A minute later, I knew why.

  McGuire mostly listened, saying "Uh-huh" a couple of times. Then he said, "Thanks, Homer, I appreciate it," and hung up.

  He looked at me. "I called in a favor Homer owed me and got him to rush a tox screen on one of the goblins – I told him any one of them would do. Looks like you were on the money, Stan. That little green bastard was wired up to his furry eyebrows. I'd be surprised if the others weren't exactly the same."

  "Meth," Karl said. "Jesus H. Christ on a pogo stick."

  "I thought after Big Paul got killed" – that was mostly my fault, but I decided not to bring it up – "the State Police raided the goblins' little encampment out there by the city dump."

  McGuire nodded. "They did."

  "They were supposed to confiscate all that dumped cold medicine the gobs were using to cook with."

  "They did that, too," McGuire said. "And the DA told the Loquasto brothers – the city subcontracts dump operations to them – that they'd face criminal prosecution if cold medicine in any quantity was ever found there again. Dom and Louie believed him – they've got people checking every truck that goes in there now."

  "So, if there's no more cold medicine at the dump," I said, "how come a bunch of meth-head goblins were after my scalp tonight?"

  "Other people are still making meth," Karl said. "Here in the Valley and elsewhere. They must be – the profit on that stuff is
huge
."

  I looked at Karl, then turned to McGuire. "So, if the gobs didn't make it themselves, where'd they buy it?"

  It was quiet in the little office until McGuire said, "I figure they got it from whoever sent them to kill you."

  "
Sent
them?" I said, frowning. "I was assuming they just wanted payback for the goblin I killed in the liquor store."

  "That was a year and a half ago, Stan," McGuire said.

  "The boss is right, Stan," Karl said. "For gobs to hold a grudge that long would be like a squirrel remembering that you gave him some peanuts last fall. They're not real smart, haina?"

  "And here's something else to ponder," McGuire said. "How did those goblins get to your house from where they live, out near the dump? That's what – three miles?"

  I shrugged. "Some of them drive, even if they don't have licenses."

  "Yeah," McGuire said, "but what were they driving? I got the deputy chief to assign me some manpower, and they used a goblin-sniffing dog to check every parked vehicle for a radius of three blocks from your place. Not a whiff."

  I sat and thought about that. "So somebody got these little green fuckers wired on meth, drove them to my place, let them in through the side door of the garage, and told them to wait until I raised the door. Then he just drove away?"

  "Could be," McGuire said. "He might've just abandoned them, figuring that no survivors would be able to tell us anything useful, what with the meth and their natural stupidity."

  "Or maybe he was parked someplace where he could see your driveway," Karl said. "When you and Sharkey smoked all six of the gobs, he figured there was no reason to hang around any longer, and split."

  "Speaking of Sharkey," McGuire said, "that's something else that puzzles me – why did he intervene? I'm glad he did, mind you, but I can't figure his motivation."

  "Yeah, me neither," Karl said.

  "You two aren't exactly best buddies," McGuire said to me, "and Sharkey isn't known for his compassion. He doesn't just help people for giggles."

  "I've been thinking about that," I said. "You're right about the Shark – he doesn't do anything on impulse. The only explanation that makes any sense to me is – Mister Milo."

  "You mean the vic from the Radisson?" McGuire said. "I don't get it."

  "Milo was sent out here to take care of whoever's been making those snuff films, right?" I said. "When he and his ghouls didn't turn up anything, maybe he figured Karl and me were his best bet for finding the bad guys. So he hired Sharkey to follow us around until we identified the source, then the Shark could step in and do what he does best. Milo must have told him to make sure nothing happened to us in the meantime."

  "Yeah, but Milo's dead," McGuire said.

  "Doesn't matter," I told him. "Sharkey always gets paid up front, and he's got a strange sense of… professional ethics – strange, considering what he is, I mean. If he takes your money, he does the job. Period. He doesn't stop until the contract is fulfilled."