sights." The cold was beginning to work, easing the pain somewhat, and I yawned. "The Valkyrie going to pay us for the extermination on the side?"
"I've always enjoyed your sunny optimism, little brother."
I was glad someone did.
5
As much as I hated kidnapping cases, I wasn't a whole lot fonder of the extermination ones, but work was work, and money was money. And truthfully, extermination came up about as often as kidnapping did. Where's the cool factor in that? No-damn-where. We'd also done babysitting, and babysitting something that can eat you if you try to give it a timeout makes exterminating a fun gig by comparison. Usually. Mostly. On the whole.
Other times you just get screwed.
And that morning we ended up so very, very screwed. After three hours out on Staten Island, we'd taken the ferry back to Manhattan and made our way home with clothes singed and hair covered in bird shit all courtesy of an Aitvaras, otherwise known as a demonic chicken from hell. A fire-breathing, crap-slinging half rooster, half serpent that weighed all of sixty pounds had nearly served our asses to us on a silver platter. It'd also burned down one-third of the house of our less than completely satisfied client. And a less than completely satisfied gargoyle isn't a pretty sight. A satisfied one isn't either for that matter, but they hawk up less granite-sprinkled phlegm when paying the bill.
After cleaning up and changing, we jumped on the 6 train and headed up to Promise's penthouse for some brainstorming. I tended to not be so good at that type of thing, but I sucked it up. And there was food there. That always helped. Promise had a turkey and bacon club sandwich for me and some sort of vegetable soy cheese thing for Niko along with an antioxidant carrot-cranberry juice mixture. I could smell the healthiness of it from across the table and gave an internal
blech.
Taking a huge bite of my sandwich, I wondered who made the food. I never saw a cook there, but the thought of a vampire slaving over a skillet wasn't an image I could wrap my mind around. Especially an extremely wealthy vampire. They did eat food, though apparently not very much, along with massive doses of iron and some kind of other supplements, but Promise making a casserole? Nope, couldn't see it.
Niko took a drink of his red-orange stuff, ignored the face I made, and then said, "Sawney can't go on the way he has. He's going to be noticed. The police will certainly suspect a serial killer at some point. Although there's been nothing in the paper about the bodies in the park." He frowned, puzzled. Niko didn't like to be puzzled either. It tended to interfere with things like surviving. "They've disappeared, apparently." Puzzlement could also lead to annoyance when you were as anal-retentive as my brother, but he tucked it out of sight and went on. "But that's a mystery for another time. It's not the fifteenth century anymore and eventually Sawney will realize he can't just kill whoever he wants. Once he settles on a territory, he'll be even more wary. He won't want that home to be found and I think he'll start to go after victims who won't be missed."
"Like those that don't have families to raise a stink with the police." I chased a bite of sandwich with Coke. About as un-antioxidant as you could get and I was damn happy about that.
"Such as the homeless." Promise sat down next to Nik at the polished dining room table. An actual dining room in NYC, could you believe it? "But how would we track something such as that?"
"Goodfellow would say I had the clothes for the undercover work," I snorted. "But those guys aren't so trusting of strangers, I'll bet. And, hell, it's New York. How would we cover all of the city asking if any of them had disappeared? There's no way."
"True." Niko pushed his plate away, finished. "There's the shelters, the encampments, the streets themselves. There's bound to be gossip among them if there have been disappearances, but as you say,
"I've always enjoyed your sunny optimism, little brother."
I was glad someone did.
5
As much as I hated kidnapping cases, I wasn't a whole lot fonder of the extermination ones, but work was work, and money was money. And truthfully, extermination came up about as often as kidnapping did. Where's the cool factor in that? No-damn-where. We'd also done babysitting, and babysitting something that can eat you if you try to give it a timeout makes exterminating a fun gig by comparison. Usually. Mostly. On the whole.
Other times you just get screwed.
And that morning we ended up so very, very screwed. After three hours out on Staten Island, we'd taken the ferry back to Manhattan and made our way home with clothes singed and hair covered in bird shit all courtesy of an Aitvaras, otherwise known as a demonic chicken from hell. A fire-breathing, crap-slinging half rooster, half serpent that weighed all of sixty pounds had nearly served our asses to us on a silver platter. It'd also burned down one-third of the house of our less than completely satisfied client. And a less than completely satisfied gargoyle isn't a pretty sight. A satisfied one isn't either for that matter, but they hawk up less granite-sprinkled phlegm when paying the bill.
After cleaning up and changing, we jumped on the 6 train and headed up to Promise's penthouse for some brainstorming. I tended to not be so good at that type of thing, but I sucked it up. And there was food there. That always helped. Promise had a turkey and bacon club sandwich for me and some sort of vegetable soy cheese thing for Niko along with an antioxidant carrot-cranberry juice mixture. I could smell the healthiness of it from across the table and gave an internal
blech.
Taking a huge bite of my sandwich, I wondered who made the food. I never saw a cook there, but the thought of a vampire slaving over a skillet wasn't an image I could wrap my mind around. Especially an extremely wealthy vampire. They did eat food, though apparently not very much, along with massive doses of iron and some kind of other supplements, but Promise making a casserole? Nope, couldn't see it.
Niko took a drink of his red-orange stuff, ignored the face I made, and then said, "Sawney can't go on the way he has. He's going to be noticed. The police will certainly suspect a serial killer at some point. Although there's been nothing in the paper about the bodies in the park." He frowned, puzzled. Niko didn't like to be puzzled either. It tended to interfere with things like surviving. "They've disappeared, apparently." Puzzlement could also lead to annoyance when you were as anal-retentive as my brother, but he tucked it out of sight and went on. "But that's a mystery for another time. It's not the fifteenth century anymore and eventually Sawney will realize he can't just kill whoever he wants. Once he settles on a territory, he'll be even more wary. He won't want that home to be found and I think he'll start to go after victims who won't be missed."
"Like those that don't have families to raise a stink with the police." I chased a bite of sandwich with Coke. About as un-antioxidant as you could get and I was damn happy about that.
"Such as the homeless." Promise sat down next to Nik at the polished dining room table. An actual dining room in NYC, could you believe it? "But how would we track something such as that?"
"Goodfellow would say I had the clothes for the undercover work," I snorted. "But those guys aren't so trusting of strangers, I'll bet. And, hell, it's New York. How would we cover all of the city asking if any of them had disappeared? There's no way."
"True." Niko pushed his plate away, finished. "There's the shelters, the encampments, the streets themselves. There's bound to be gossip among them if there have been disappearances, but as you say,
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