City of Shadows Read online

  Despite the white stonework of the “neo-classical” design of the building from the early 1940s, the inside looked more like a modern office building. The desks were new, fixed with the latest in ports for wires to go through. The technology was relatively up to date, though I wouldn’t want to ask about the software. But it still had to be better than whatever I was running at my police station PC. Despite the technology, the piles of paperwork and the photos of suspects clearly denoted this as a police station.

  Shaw’s office was modern, meaning it was a glass box with a window. There were fewer signs of this being a police officer’s desk, but I could still see it.

  Shaw stared at my badge for far, far too long. “New York, huh?” he said, his voice like a growl. He rolled his ice blue eyes as he hurled it back at me. “You people are all alike. You come to our country, cause trouble, and don’t even offer us the courtesy of a check-in.”

  I caught the badge case without thinking about it. I didn’t take my eyes off of him as I slid it away. “Don’t take it personally. New York does this to whatever country it feels like. Though to be perfectly frank, I didn’t think my investigation would tread on anyone’s toes until the bullets flew.” I shrugged, a model of innocence. “I didn’t think that they allowed guns in London.”

  As we all know, a model is what one gets when one cannot get the real thing.

  Shaw’s eyes narrowed, and my blood froze. I couldn’t tell if it was supernatural, or just him.

  Shaw leaned forward. “I want you to understand me, Mister Nolan,” Shaw growled. “We don’t need American cowboys running around, starting fights and harassing a respected community leader like Imam Kozbar.”

  I barked a laugh. It was involuntary, honest. “His communicants tried to kill me.”

  Shaw smirked. “And?”

  I nodded slowly. It only then dawned on me that this wasn’t going to end well, no matter how it was spun. There was no brotherhood of blue in this office. “Is self-defense illegal around here?”

  “It is when you poke the bear.”

  I arched my brows, wondering if he had just admitted to something. Because that implication was fairly obvious. “Did Kozbar really sic gunmen on me?”

  “Of course not!” Shaw scoffed. “You obviously upset someone in his mosque, who felt threatened enough to go after you on a crowded street.”

  I nodded slowly, thinking over everything I had heard since I arrived. “Tell me, is that official police policy? The mayor? Or your own personal thoughts on the matter?”

  Shaw tried far too hard to play cat with the canary. I knew because I played that part myself at times. “I’m sure that we treat Kozbar as delicately as you would treat a Cardinal.”

  I laughed. “I have to make sure someone tells the Cardinal that he can get away with armed men in the street.”

  Shaw grunted and threw his hands in the air. “It doesn’t matter. You’re nicked, son. And I have control over you and how the rest of your day is going to go.”

  “On what charge?”

  Shaw grinned. “Disturbing the peace. Possession of a firearm.”

  It was my turn to scoff dismissively. “It was one of theirs, and they were shooting at me.”

  “Prove it.”

  “Don’t you have CCTV all over this city?”

  Shaw smiled evilly. It must be the smile of every local cop who had the opportunity to throw an interloper—from Fed to private investigator—into jail. “They’ve been down in Whitechapel for the better part of the day. So terribly sorry for the inconvenience.”

  Shaw wasn’t sorry.

  I felt aggravated with myself. It was standard for me to wear a police camera on the job. Not detectives, me. Mainly because my life was too strange to verify without documented evidence. But I had left that behind me when I left New York.

  “Into the cells with you. Constable!” he barked. A young man in a white shirt and black vest came in. “Take Mister Nolan here to the cells. Book him on disturbing the peace, harassment of a public official. And be sure to put him into the same cell with his friends from the mosque.”

  Aw crap.

  After I had been booked, I had been pushed into a holding cell. It was okay. It would have been comfortable enough for seven people, if six of them hadn’t been people who I had just gotten into a fist fight with in the middle of the street. They turned at my approach and stood as the door opened. I waited for the door to click shut.

  I leaned up against the bars of the cell. I put my hands behind me and smiled at the men who had tried to kill me. “Hello. My name is Thomas Nolan. Though you already know that, don’t you?”

  Despite having various and sundry band-aids and patches for all of the damage we gave them, all of them closed in.

  I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Lord God almighty, I will take any beating you deem that I should receive. The Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away, blessed be the Name of the Lord. But if You don’t mind, I’m going to fight back.

  “I want to know where you got your weapons today.” I glanced at the ones who had been using AK-47s. “And I don’t mean the rifles. The sword and the handgun were modified with obsidian. I don’t think it was supposed to be ornamental. Where did it come from?”

  Swordsman smiled at me. He was missing teeth. I don’t think I’d contributed to them. “Allah HIMSELF gave them to us. Just as Allah has given us you.”

  Funny, Shaw doesn’t look like Allah. “What human hand gave them to you?”

  Swordsman laughed. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

  I blinked. “Yes. That’s why I’m asking.”

  Swordsman spread his hands wide. “You now belong to us to do with as we wish. Allah be praised. Allah! Send us your aid! Allah! Drag this infidel into the darkness! Where he may suffer and die!”

  I felt the shadows move around me, touching me, slight wisps along my skin. Ready to attack like they did before. That’s it!

  I reached forward, grabbed Swordsman by the shirt front, and pulled him towards me. I twisted, slamming him face first into the bars. I twisted back the other way, hurling him into one of his compatriots. I whirled and hammer-fisted another of my cell buddies. I pounded right into the head wound where Pearson had smashed him with a rock. He crumpled. I leaped over him and drove into Hand Gun. I plowed into him, slamming him against attacker number five, and smashed them both into a wall. I grabbed the head of Hand Gun, pulled him towards me, and slammed his skull into the nose of the man behind him. After three smacks with the organic bowling ball we call the human head, Hand Gun was dazed, and his friend had passed out.

  I stepped back with my right foot and hurled Hand Gun’s head with my body weight. Since that was his center of balance, the rest of his body went with him.

  I looked over the men in the cell. Only one was still standing. He had scrambled out from underneath Swordsman.

  God, thank You for … oh, just thank You. I’ll get specific later.

  I stalked towards the last man standing. He was one of the AK-47 users. “Now look. I have spent years on the NYPD without ever—not once—even considering beating a suspect. If you want me to start now, you have only to throw a punch at me. We can continue the interrogation when you’re on your back.”

  He raised his hands in surrender. “I don’t know. I was given a rifle.”

  I rocked my head as I backed him up against the bars. “Elaborate.”

  “We were given rifles and sent out after you. The other three met up with us as we were coming to get you.”

  The “other three” must have been Hand Gun, Swordsman, and Laser Eyes. “You’ve never seen them before?”

  He shook his head. “No. No, of course not.”

  “Define of course. Why not?”

  “I—”

  “Oi! What’s going on here!”

  I sighed and stepped back from the last man standing. One of the cops came in. “What the Hell happened here?”

  I shrugged. “Inspector Shaw threw m
e in with the people who tried to kill me. You’ll have to ask him.”

  The cop narrowed his eyes as he unlocked the door. “Come along. You’re out.”

  I followed the officer right out the front door of the Met. Father Pearson was waiting for me. The cop didn’t say anything as he handed me a clear plastic bag with my personal belongings. After I reloaded my pockets, I handed him back the bag. He handed me a receipt to sign, I did, and he walked away without another word.

  “Enjoy your stay?” Pearson asked.

  I shrugged. “More or less. How did you get out?”

  Pearson smiled. “I had a conversation with Inspector Shaw’s superiors.” He took out his phone. “I had the conversation with Kozbar filmed, as well as the shootout.”

  I arched a brow. The shootout started, we levitated, and then closed with the shooters. “Not the—”

  “No, I waited until we were back on terra firma to start the video up again.”

  I nodded. The last thing I needed was to have video footage of my abilities.

  We walked along for a bit. I hadn’t noticed that night had fallen during my stay. I checked my watch. It was only seven in the evening. I checked the sky again. If there were storm clouds overhead, I couldn’t tell. The sky was a solid ceiling of black. There were no stars. There was no moon.

  “This isn’t a good sign,” I stated.

  “Precisely. Tomorrow, our progress should be faster. Much faster.”

  I considered his comment. Normally, I would work through the night, especially when things were warming up this hot.

  But you have no authority here, Tommy. You’re not going to do anything after business hours. Whether you like it or not.

  “First food, then hotel.”

  8

  Bad Dreams

  I walked into the hotel lobby tired and achy. I looked forward to a nice, relaxing sleep. Nightmares wouldn’t have bothered me that much as long as I could sleep. Fighting my way just to get to mass that morning, plus getting shot at outside of the Mosque and spending hours in lockup and getting into a fist fight there too…

  Come to London on a mission from God. Get into more fights than you ever did in New York. Have few to no leads … except for the one group who tried to kill you. And you can’t get to them, either, because they’re in lock-up. Tell me again, Lord, what am I doing here?

  Never mind. I’m sent on a mission from You. Something will move eventually.

  The only real question would have been the next step. There was obviously a connection between the Soul Stone and the Whitechapel mosque. But how would one investigate that without a tactical team? I couldn’t even ask Imam Kozbar a few inoffensive questions without starting a fist fight with him. I swore I could have heard him ranting and raving about how much bigotry was involved in even asking questions about Muslims shooting up the British Museum or the street outside. Not to mention that they were beaten in custody by—

  I stopped and turned to the lobby television. Kozbar was on the screen, holding a press conference. The Imam mentioned his dead parishioners at the Museum and decried the racism behind their “assassination.” Kozbar railed against the “increasing assaults on Muslims in London,” citing assault with acid, torture by breaking fingers, even an attack on Kozbar himself.

  Then I realized that all of those “racist attacks” after the museum referred to me.

  I sighed and kept trudging on through the dark passages of the hotel. I watched as the Imam continued in the same vein for several minutes. And then, London’s mayor joined up and said the same thing. I weathered this onslaught of rewriting history, waiting to hear my name, or “American” or “New York Detective.” Thankfully, none of these words were uttered. I felt like it was a miracle that no one showed my photo.

  It felt like the story of my life, where the moral of the story was that no good deed goes unpunished. Stop an abortionist turned serial killer? I was called a racist and a bigot for beating up on a “doctor for providing a service.” Shoot to wound? Be accused of torture. And that was only the first problem a year ago. Those were only the people who weren’t actively trying to kill me.

  Between being exhausted and once more getting crucified in the media, I skulked off down the dark hallways of the hotel.

  If this wasn’t the one thing to cause an overwhelming urge to call home, nothing was. Yes, I know that I haven’t been left alone at all since I left New York. And yes, I had been separated from my family before, and for longer periods. But all I really needed was to hear Mariel’s voice. Besides, it felt more natural to call home than to call Father Pearson and discuss this most recent kick in the guts.

  I pulled out my phone and called home. I would send the Vatican a bill.

  The phone picked up almost immediately. I blinked, surprised. “Mariel? Jeremy?”

  “Hello?” my wife asked clearly through the phone. “Who’s this?”

  I smiled. I couldn’t help it. “It’s Tommy. How are you?”

  “Tommy!” she growled.

  I winced and yanked the phone away from my ear. When she picked up, she sounded like my wife. But her voice and her mood had turned on a dime. We’d been through pregnancy hormones before, but this took the cake.

  “Mariel?’ I asked.

  “You! You left us! Go away, Tommy. I’m leaving you.”

  Then the phone call turned off.

  I was left standing in front of the elevator with a glassy stare reminiscent of a stunned ox.

  Mariel? My Mariel? Had just left me? How could that have happened? This was the women I had met at the range. She organized the church gun club. She had stayed with me through serial killers, a SWAT team kicking in the front door, a zombie attack on the house, the kidnapping of our son, even her own throat being slit.

  I tried calling back. Then I tried again. I spent the next ten minutes alternating between hitting the elevator’s call button and hitting redial. The calls did not go through.

  How could a few days away turn into her leaving me?

  I was so rocked by what just happened, I missed my elevator several times. I absently pressed the button again. I felt numb inside. With a little peace and quiet, I could feel my heart beating, and be aware of my internal organs.

  My cell phone alerts went off. My spirits lifted for a moment…

  Instead, it was a commercial. I blinked, confused, as the video automatically started playing on my phone. The opening image was possibly the cutest baby marketing could find, smiling and happy, with a white knit watch cap and the brightest blue eyes I had ever seen. The music was the standard mobile chimes of “Lullaby and goodnight,” also known as Schubert’s Opus 49.

  A text box read: “She deserves to be… loved.”

  More happy smiling toothless baby. More Text: “She deserves to be… wanted.”

  An even happier baby. “She deserves to be … a choice. #StandWiththeWHC.”

  The bottom fell out of my stomach. I felt like throwing up and hurling my phone. Or hurling and throwing my phone. The Women’s Health Corps? I had driven a stake into the organization months ago. They were the front for a death cult dedicated to the demon Moloch. Now they were advertising on the internet? Why weren’t they all in jail? They had threatened my family, tried to kill my wife and kidnapped my son, and they were still around?

  At that moment, I felt so numb, even walking felt like a dream. I had gotten to the door of my hotel room without having any recollection of getting on the elevator or walking the long hallway to my room door. I had already turned the key in the lock.

  I pushed the door open into the utter blackness of the room. I took one step inside and froze.

  It was freezing. It was like someone had left the air conditioning on in the middle of an igloo. It was the emptiness of space wrapped in an iceberg.

  I hadn’t felt cold this bad since …

  Curran!

  Then it hit me. The entire phone call with Mariel suddenly made sense.

  The phone call had be
en interfered with.

  The original demon I tangled with had been skilled at disrupting my phone calls. I couldn’t get good reception for days. It had dumped endless static onto the phone lines. Why couldn’t a more skilled demon take a more nuanced approach to disrupting communications? Remove the static. Edit words. Change the tone of words.

  Because demons liked nothing better than grinding people down.

  I looked at the alert on my phone. I had been “alerted” to an ad from the Women’s Health Corps that was over a year old.

  Whatever this was had manipulated me into thinking my wife was leaving me and an archenemy was coming back.

  I went from numb to a far more unfamiliar sensation. I was enraged.

  “Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle,” I snarled. The darkness recoiled from me and slid back along the floor. “Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him we humbly pray; and do Thou, O Prince of the Heavenly Host, by the Power of God, cast into hell Satan and all the evil spirits, who prowl through the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen.”

  The shadows on the floor slithered into a corner. It congealed into a lump of darkness on the floor. It slid and bubbled on the rug.

  I reached into my back pocket, grabbed my rosary, and hurled it at the mess. The shadows recoiled, flowing around it and backing up the wall. It formed an eerie, man-shaped form on the wall. It spread wings along the wall.

  And then the form peeled away from the wall and reached out for me.

  I took three steps across the room towards the shadow in the wall and punched the shadow in the … head.