Arms Dealers Read online

  Arms Dealers

  Claw & Warder

  Episode 2

  Erik Henry Vick

  Table of Contents

  Title

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Author’s Note

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Dedication

  For all of you who risked your own health providing essential services for everyone else during the

  COVID-19 pandemic.

  I hope you enjoy Arms Dealers. If so, please consider joining my Readers Group—details can be found at the end of the last chapter.

  Chapter 1

  The Body

  In the Locus of New York, crimes committed by magical entities threaten the delicate balance between the mundane world and the supernatural realm.

  The dedicated teams of detectives who investigate these breaches of Canon and Covenants are members of an elite unit known as the Supernatural Inquisitors Squad.

  These are their stories.

  1

  Katy Costello checked her watch for the fourth time. Her bestie, Michelle Williams, was late…again. Katy stomped her foot in frustration and glanced up and down the block, but she still saw no sign of her friend, and the movie was about to start.

  She swiped away the lock screen on her phone, and her thumb hovered over the texting app for a moment. I’ve already texted her three times. Time to get medieval on her ass.

  With a little grin at her internal comedian, she tapped Michelle’s contact and dialed her number. It rang and rang until Katy became convinced that it would go to voicemail, but at the last second, someone picked up. Heavy breathing sounds filled her ear, and Katy grimaced.

  “If you’re standing me up to get laid again, Michelle, I’m going to kick your ass, girlfriend.”

  Something—or someone—choked for breath on the other end, and, following two meaty thunks that came within a split-second of each other, the choking escalated into a sort of moaning.

  “Michelle?” Katy’s heart leaped and thrashed against her ribs. “Michelle? Are you okay?” A squawk that sounded like it came from a wounded pigeon flew across the line. “Michelle!” Katy cried. “Michelle! Where are you?”

  A rattling thump followed by the sound of fingers scrabbling on concrete came next.

  “Michelle!”

  “Who’s dis?” asked a male voice with a serious case of raspy throat.

  “Put Michelle on!”

  “Nunh. Girl’s hurt.”

  “My God! What’s wrong with her?”

  “Car.”

  “Car what? She was hit by a car?”

  “Yellow Cab.”

  “What’s that mean? Was she hit by a cab? Where are you?”

  “Unnh. Alley off West 71st Street and West End. You come. Unh?”

  “How’d she get hit by a cab in an alley? Who the hell are you?”

  “Drive da cab. Girl hurts.”

  Great, thought Katy. Michelle’s hurt, and the only person who’d help her is a cabbie who can’t speak English. I hate this city.

  “You…unnnh…you come?”

  “Yeah, buddy. Keep your shirt on, I’m coming. I’m three or four blocks away, so it’ll take me a few minutes. Stay with her, okay? You stay with her.”

  “Unh. I wait for you. Hurry.”

  “Stay on the line in case I—” The line went dead. Katy thought about calling back but dismissed the idea. She could always do that later if she couldn’t find them, and the idea of running with her phone pressed to her ear seemed like torture.

  She turned away from the Lincoln Square movie theater and sprinted across Broadway, then kept running down the sidewalk of 68th Street. She planned on saving a bit of time by cutting through the green area behind the synagogue on Amsterdam, then trucking up West End Avenue. The only alleys she could think of were around the building on the northeast side of the intersection between West 71st Street and West End.

  She sprinted across Amsterdam, ignoring the furious screech of tires and cacophony of horns, and plunged down the tree-lined alley to the north of the synagogue. She hooked a left around the playground, then angled across 70th, hitting the sidewalk a quarter of a block from West End.

  She stretched out her stride, ignoring the stares of the people strolling on the sidewalk, and leaned into the turn, almost crashing into a mother pushing a stroller. She didn’t stop; she poured on even more speed as she passed the bus stop. Katy raced across the 71st Street crosswalk without looking for traffic, but then she faltered and slowed.

  There were no cabs in sight, yellow or otherwise. Half a block later, she turned into the alley and slowed to a cautious walk. “Hello?” she called. The alley was dark and forbidding, and Katy slowed further. “Hello?”

  She turned on the flashlight app on her phone and flipped the screen away from her, holding it up. The alley was a narrow one, barely wide enough for a person to walk without turning sideways, but it was empty.

  “Dammit,” she muttered, jogging to the end of the alley. She peered south at the corner but could see no one in the alley. She turned off the flashlight app and redialed Michelle’s phone.

  It rang somewhere to the south, and she followed the sound into the alley running behind the building, which, if memory served her, was shaped like a giant backward F. Probably in the courtyard, if it can be called that. But why isn’t that damn cabbie answering the phone again?

  Katy increased her pace, rounding the corner to the courtyard at a dead run, Michelle’s phone ringing and ringing from the darkness ahead. “Michelle!” she called. “Cabbie guy!”

  No one answered her, but she thought she heard a faint, shuffling step back behind the dumpsters deep in the courtyard. She ran to the end of the courtyard, then skidded to a stop.

  “Oh my God! Michelle!” she cried. She wanted to go to her friend, to try and help, but the gruesome scene held her frozen. How can there be that much blood?

  Michelle’s body made an island in a red sea, but there was something off…something Katy didn’t—couldn’t—get her mind wrapped around. She cocked her head to the side. “Michelle?” she murmured.

  “Thanks for coming, unnh,” said that gruff-voiced cabbie from somewhere behind her.

  Katy glanced over her shoulder, prepared to fight for her life—to claw, to bite, to gouge out his eyes—but when she saw the cabbie, her brain turned off completely, and the courtyard echoed with her scream.

  She only had time for one.

  2

  Leery Oriscoe bumped his car up onto the sidewalk in front of 246 West End Avenue, bleary-eyed and already exhausted. He got out, grimacing at the cold wind that raced past him, and twitched up the collar of his camel hair coat. He squinted at the cop standing post at the end of the alley beside the building. “Laurell? Is that you?”

  “Yeah, Oriscoe. You going blind in your old age or what?”

  “Yeah, yeah. Who’d you piss off to get this assignment?”

  Corporal Laurell Hamilton smiled at him and hooked her thumb at the alley behind her. “Your partner’s already down there. Go to the end of the alley, hook a right, then again when you come to the courtyard. Your bodies are down at the end.”

  “Bodies plural, Hamilton?”

  She nodded, solemn-faced. “Two of ‘em. Or what’s left of two of ‘em.”

  “Right. This gets better and better.” Leery grunted and hunched his shoulders to protect his neck from the bastard wind. “Hey, you want to switch jobs, Hamilton?”

  “Nah. I like my job. It gives me plenty of time to think about writing a book or two.”

  “You sure? Think of the glory.”
r />   Hamilton laughed and shook her head. “No thanks, Oriscoe. I’ll stick right where I am.”

  “Hey, an attitude like that could get you stuck in the urban sprawl forever, Hamilton.”

  She grinned. “I’ll take my chances.”

  3

  Dru stood at the edge of a wide pool of blood, silhouetted by the bright lights ringing the crime scene, staring down at the bodies lying at its center. She had her hands in her pockets, but a venti coffee sat atop one of the dumpsters.

  Leery smiled and picked up the cup. “Good morning, Princess. Thanks for the joe, but next time, splurge for a trenta.”

  “Don’t call me that,” murmured Dru with a distracted air.

  “What do we have?” Leery stepped up beside her and stared down at the scene. “Jeez. Someone give these two a hand.”

  “Hardy-har,” said Dru. “What do you think? Cannibals? Werewolves?” She peeked at him from the corner of her eye.

  Payback for the princess comment, Leery thought. “Nah. They left too much meat on the bone for wolves. Cannibals? Maybe the mundane variety of psycho. Besides, by comparative mass, the arms are two of the worst things to take for meat.”

  Dru grunted and held out her hand toward the two armless corpses. “Then what?”

  “Maybe the killer couldn’t figure out those damn clasps on their bracelets. Only lunatics can work those damn things.”

  “And women.”

  “That’s what I said, isn’t it?” Leery turned and gazed at the blood splatter coating the walls of the narrow courtyard. “Looks like there was more than one perp.”

  “How can you tell that?”

  Leery waved his venti at the wall on the left. “Look at the spray patterns. See how they are almost symmetrical? That means the arms came off at the same time.”

  “How do you figure that?”

  “I don’t know about you, but if someone hacks off one of my arms, I’m going to turn and run. So, say that happens, and the guy hacks off my other arm… Where does the blood go?”

  “Oh, right. The same wall. But would you turn and run deeper into the dead-end courtyard to try to get away?”

  Leery squatted on his haunches and waved his coffee cup at the bodies. “Look again, Nogan. Tell me what you see.”

  “Two women, face down in a pool of blood.”

  “Right.”

  “And?”

  “They’re face down, Dru, heads toward the dead-end.” He peered up at her.

  “So…they were both facing the dead-end, and someone hit them from behind?”

  “Bingo. What else do you see?”

  “Uh…”

  “Cell phones, Nogan.”

  Her eyes zipped to the pair of phones lying at the edge of the shadows toward the end of the courtyard. “Maybe they tried to phone for help.”

  “This was an ambush.” Leery jerked his chin at the body closest to them. “This was the second victim. The perp used the body of the first woman as bait. Probably talked to the second vic on the phone—probably told her that her girlfriend was hurt and gave her directions.”

  “You see all that from a pair of cellphones and some blood splatter?”

  “My mother always said I was gifted.”

  “Your mother was a smartass, too?”

  “Didn’t I tell you she was devout catholic that married a Black Hat? Of course she was a smartass.” He stood with a groan.

  “Starting to show your age, Leery?” asked Nogan with a little smirk.

  “Nah. Let’s just say this call interrupted some vigorous exercise.”

  “Eww. TMI, Leery. TMI.”

  “Hey, you asked.”

  “Are you at least being safe? Using protection?”

  Leery loosened his collar and fished an amulet out. “Never leave home without it, Dru. I still owe you for this, by the way.”

  “It’s my job.”

  Leery cocked an eyebrow at her.

  “Even if you use it for extracurricular, uh, exercise with one of my mother’s kind.”

  “Your kind, too, right?” Leery looked back at the bodies arrayed before them. “We better call the spooks.”

  “Your partner already did.”

  Leery turned and watched the woman walk out of the shadows and into the circle cast by the work lights. “Oh. It’s you.”

  The woman was thin and had delicate features, though Leery knew all that was a lie. She spared a moment’s glance at Dru before smirking at him. “Aren’t you dead yet, Oriscoe?”

  “Hey, look, Dru. It’s a real live spook.”

  “Where’s your flea collar, Cujo?”

  “The same place as your size sixty shoes. Dru, I’d like you to meet my, uh, friend, Jenn DuBrava Hinton.”

  “Friend? Friend? Oh, you really know how to hurt a girl, Leery.”

  “Fine. Dru, meet my nemesis. Don’t step closer though, she has feet the size of school buses.” Leery waved his coffee cup at Hinton. “And don’t mind how she looks. She’s got a lot in common with your mother. Except for the big feet and the whole seductress thing.”

  Dru arched one eyebrow.

  Hinton turned her gaze on Dru. “You don’t look like one blessed.”

  “Illusions are useful tools, aren’t they?”

  Hinton winked at her. “You don’t know the half of it.”

  “Dru’s my Warder, Hinton.”

  “Really, Leery? I’d never have guessed.”

  “Are all demons sarcastic or is it just you two?”

  Dru and Jenn exchanged a glance and then chuckled. “You don’t know the meaning of sarcasm until you’ve spent a day or two in Hell,” said Jenn.

  4

  Leery strolled back down the alley with a fresh cup of java in each paw. He put one of the cups down on top of a convenient dumpster.

  Dru glanced over and shook her head. “No thanks, Leery. I’m not in the mood for coffee.”

  “Good, because that would have been awkward. They’re both for me.”

  “How can you drink that much coffee every day?”

  “How can I not?”

  Dru raised an eyebrow and pursed her lips. “Where do you put it all?”

  “I store it in my werewolf half. That way I never need to pi—”

  “I get it.”

  “Hey, can you two get a room or something? Something that involves shutting the hell up?” Leery glanced down the courtyard to where Hinton stood inside a pentagram chalked onto the concrete. Black candles burned at the five points of the star, and each candle’s flame was a different color.

  The delicate, thin woman was gone, and in her place stood a tall hunch-backed demon with enormous feet. Maroon scales the color of dried blood covered her, and two smaller horns flanked a larger one growing from the center of her forehead. Her eyes glowed purple, and her tail thrashed back and forth.

  “Uh-oh,” said Leery. “Mommy’s mad.” He raised his giant cup of coffee to his lips and took a long swig while Jenn glared at them through narrowed eyes. “Hey, I didn’t slurp it.”

  Jenn rolled her eyes and turned back toward the crime scene. She began chanting in Verba Patiendi, the sound of her voice doubling, then trebling, and doubling yet again, until Leery’s ears rang with discord. Dru stood listening with a faint smile on her lips.

  “You like that gobbledygook?”

  She glanced at him, and her smile faded. “It’s my first language. Mother didn’t speak French, so father learned the Language of Suffering.”

  Leery rolled his shoulders. “Nice. I don’t think my parents even knew there was another language besides Bronxian.”

  “Bronxian?”

  “Yeah, da real language of suffering,” he said, putting on a heavy Bronx accent. “Except for Hebrew and Yiddish, of course, but in my neighborhood, that was par for the course. I knew more Yiddish as a toddler than English, although I thought it was all English.”

  “Hmm,” said Dru, turning her attention back to Hinton’s invocation.

  The air
above the bodies began to shimmer and shift as though populated by heat-devils from the high desert. Wind began to circle in the tight confines of the courtyard, hurling paper and other refuse into a tornado of garbage that stabbed toward the sky.

  “I hate this part,” Leery grumbled.

  “Shh,” said Dru.

  The shimmering air began to coalesce into the glowing forms of two women whose faces matched the bodies lying on the concrete beneath them. One of the spirits looked past Hinton, and her gaze settled on Leery as though she could command him. The other looked down and started screaming.

  “Relax!” snapped Hinton. “Don’t tell me you didn’t already know you were dead. I know you did, so drop the histrionics.”

  The screams cut off, and the spirit looked abashed. “What—”

  The other spirit barked a laugh. “Shut up, Michelle. Because of you, I’m dead.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Michelle in the voice of a small child.

  “Benji? You want to ask the questions?” Hinton called over her shoulder.

  “Why not?” Leery walked to stand behind Hinton, careful not to disturb the chalk drawing she stood in. “Ladies, I’m Leery Oriscoe. I’m an NYPD detective. Part of a special unit called the Supernatural Inquisitors Squad. Someone will tell you more about that in your indoctrination, so don’t worry about it for now.”

  “You’re going to catch that…that…whatever it was?”

  “Yeah. Can you describe them?”

  “Them? There was only one. A huge monstrosity with what looked like tree bark for skin.”

  Leery nodded to himself. “Norwegian Wood Troll. Nasty brutes. But are you sure there weren’t two of them?”

  “No, only one. Why would you think otherwise?”

  He waved one of his cups of coffee at Katy’s armless body. “Both your arms fell off at about the same time, right?”

  “Yeah. He had an ax in each hand. He swung like this.” She mimicked two over-hand chops perpendicular to the ground. “Both hit at the same time, and then…and then…”

  “Don’t worry about it,” said Leery. “It’ll be hazy for a while.”

  She treated him to a single nod.